Transcript Whos Afraid - Prather-BMHS

Who’s Afraid
of the Big Bad Wolf?
The Great Crash
Chapter 11, Sec. 1
Americans Face
Hard Times
Chapter 11, Section 2
The Three Little Pigs
Copyright: Walt Disney Productions 1933
Used for educational purposes
Hoover as
President
Chapter 11, Section 3
 The
20s--a time of sustained growth
 1922-1928, the GNP rose 30%
 Triggered a feeling of optimism
 By 1929, 1 in 5 Americans owned a car
 Auto & related industries employed nearly 4
million workers
 Unemployment in U.S. at 3%
 Feeling of prosperity encouraged workers to
buy new products
 1917 Model T Ford cost 2 years wages. 1924
Model T Ford cost 3-months wages
 H.
Hoover, Sec. of Commerce in the Harding
& Coolidge admin. elected president,1928.
 Voters associated prosperity of the ‘20s with
Republicans
 Hoover believed gov. should stay out of
business
 He believed gov. should help people help
themselves
 Hoover (like Coolidge) opposed the gov.
buying surplus farm products
 In
the 1920s, Americans invested in stocks
 The stock market climbed steadily
 As prices rose, people began speculating
 Some bought stocks on margin, (borrowing $,
hoping to repay it from profits)
 Sept. 1929, the market started to waver
 Speculators began to sell stock
 Oct. 1929, stock prices plunged
 Investors panicked and rushed to sell stock
 The stock market collapsed & many
Americans lost all their money
 In
the 20’s economy, Americans relied on credit
 People couldn’t repay loans.
 Depositors panicked and demanded their money
(bank run)
 Many banks forced to close.
 Economic decline crippled the U.S. for 12 years
 This was called the “Great Depression”
 One cause was overproduction
 Another cause was under-consumption
 Buying power couldn’t support mass-production
industries
 The Depression took on a momentum of its own
A
major factor was a long slump in ag. prices
 Banks
had loaned $ to farmers
 Loss in farmer’s purchasing power
 People
stopped buying goods
 Production
slowed & led to job cuts
 Jobless couldn’t make payments & lost homes
 Banks that had loaned money failed, wiping out
depositors’ savings
 In
1932, over 30,000 companies closed
 1930: 4 million jobless; by ‘33, number tripled
 By 1933, hourly wages had decreased by 60%
Which of the following factors was most
significant in contributing to the onset of
the Great Depression in the United States?
a. Declining agricultural prosperity
b. Increasing reliance on foreign imports
c. An inadequately skilled workforce
d. Vast military expenditure during World
War I
Which of the following factors was most
significant in contributing to the onset of the
Great Depression in the United States?
a. Declining agricultural prosperity
b. Increasing reliance on foreign imports
c. An inadequately skilled workforce
d. Vast military expenditure during World
War I
In the 1920s, a combination of
overproduction, falling prices, and rising
unemployment combined to cause a
decline in which industry?
a. agriculture
b. fishing
c. mining
d. technology
In the 1920s, a combination of
overproduction, falling prices, and rising
unemployment combined to cause a
decline in which industry?
a. agriculture
b. fishing
c. mining
d. technology
Unemployment: 1928-1933
Income & Spending: 1929-1933
 Foreign
trade policies also played a role
 Fordney-McCumber
Tariff was high
 Insistence on collecting war debt hurt trade
 Foreign markets were destroyed for US products
 In
cities, many faced starvation
 Families unable to pay rent or mortgages
were evicted
 Many lived in shacks called “Hoovervilles”
 Those with jobs had continuous wage cuts
 In ‘30, Hoover signed the Hawley-Smoot
Tariff raising import taxes
 Many nations stopped buying US goods
In an April 1932 article in Foreign Affairs, a contributor
commented:
The year 1931 will stand out in economic history as the great year
of protectionism…The crowning event of the year was the
announcement in November that Great Britain had abandoned its
traditional free trade policy
Which of the following actions taken during the
Hoover administration was a precursor to the
situation described above?
a. Passing the Smoot-Hawley Act
b. Creating the Security & Exchange Commission
c. Implementing the Revenue Act
d. Creating the Reconstruction Finance Comm.
In an April 1932 article in Foreign Affairs, a contributor
commented:
The year 1931 will stand out in economic history as the great
year of protectionism…The crowning event of the year was the
announcement in November that Great Britain had abandoned its
traditional free trade policy
Which of the following actions taken during the
Hoover administration was a precursor to the
situation described above?
a. Passing the Smoot-Hawley Act
b. Creating the Security & Exchange Commission
c. Implementing the Revenue Act
d. Creating the Reconstruction Finance Comm.
A significant effect of the Smoot-Hawley tariff was
that:
a. U.S. consumers benefited from lower
prices on goods and services
b. Trade between the United States and
Europe was greatly reduced
c. Labor unions gained legal protection
for collective bargaining
d. U.S. manufacturers faced more
competition from foreign nations
A significant effect of the Smoot-Hawley tariff was
that:
a. U.S. consumers benefited from lower
prices on goods and services
b. Trade between the United States and
Europe was greatly reduced
c. Labor unions gained legal protection
for collective bargaining
d. U.S. manufacturers faced more
competition from foreign nations
The Three Little Pigs was released in
1933, in the midst of the Great
Depression. People of all ages loved
the cartoon & its underlying themes.
Who or what do you think the Big Bad
Wolf represents?
How do the characters of Fifer pig
and Fiddler Pig relate to American life
during the Jazz Age of the 1920s?
What do those characters say about
America’s preparedness for the
monetary crisis?
Who or what do you think Practical
Pig represents?
What would you say is the theme of
the cartoon?
Hoboes hopped trains
to go from town to
town to find work,
taking their lives in
their hands.
Boarding a moving
train was dangerous
and illegal. Railroads
hired “bulls” or
guards to chase
hoboes off the trains.
 Farmers
struggled with a surplus of goods
 Excess
milk dumped
 Animals slaughtered to push prices up
 ‘31
Great Plains entered a long, severe drought
 By the ‘30s careless ag. practices left region
vulnerable
 Windstorms stripped away topsoil & blew it
hundreds of miles
 Hardest hit: Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado,
New Mexico, and Texas
 Great Plains became known as “Dust Bowl”
 Many
fled area for California to work on farms
 Migrants called “Okies”
 By ‘33 farm prices were down more than 50%
from 1929
 As income dropped, farmers unable to make
payments on loans
 In 1933 about 364,000 farms went bankrupt or
suffered foreclosure
 Hoover vetoed a bill to give aid to the jobless
 Also a bill to put the gov. in the business of
buying & selling electricity
 In
‘32, 20,000 jobless army veterans marched
on Washington
 They wanted early payment of bonus Congress
promised to pay in 1945
 Congress rejected demand, most veterans left
 2000 remained & clashed with police
 Hoover called in the army
People believed move was excessive
Hoover became even less popular