HIS 103: The Great Depression

D. Hales
HIS 103
Columbia College

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​HIS 103: The Great Depression and Rise of Totalitarianism (Bentley Chapter 34)

​Jazz Age

--20's: jazz was the soundtrack of the period; Harlem Renaissance

--Beginning of a national youth culture, shaped by records, radio stations; some youth experiment with marijuana, cocaine

--more "liberated" women smoking, drinking in public, sex before marriage (beginning of "dating"; role of cars, motels)--"flappers"

--"The Lost Generation" Why? So many had died in WW1. Those who survived wanted to have fun! ​(Writers: Hemingway, Fitzgerald) Growing skepticism of industrialization, progress and modernization. Why? It had almost killed us!
----Art: dadaism was an artistic movement that critiqued Nationalism and materialism they blamed for WW1; saw the world as a random collision of atoms
--Also changes in science (Einstein's theory of relativity--showed there was no single spatial framework in the universe, Freud's theory of personality challenged the image that humans were rational creatures motivated by logic, Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle in physics) made people feel uncomfortable and many longed for a return to "Traditional values"
--Oswald Spengler's "The Decline of the West"--all societies, like all living beings (animals and people) eventually die

Conservative Presidents of the 1920s

--Many people are scared of the social changes; want presidents to go back to how life was before the Progressive Era. They vote for Republican presidents who want to make America great again.

--Vote for Republican Presidents who believe government has gotten too powerful, promise to go back to the Gilded Age.

--Positive: low taxes, no new wars

--Negative: Laissez-faire policies mean that the government has returned to letting businesses abuse their workers and consumers. US doesn't get involved stopping foreign conflict (isolationism). Result--one of the causes of WW2

--Many call this the "Second Gilded Age" since government has returned to laissez-faire policies and are allowing businesses complete control over the economy.

--Three conservative Republican presidents of the 1920s--Warren G Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover

29th US President: Warren G Harding--Slogan was "Return to Normalcy" Dies in office of a heart attack in 1923. While in office, his Secretary of Interior Albert Fall was selling federal land to oil companies--Teapot Dome Scandal

30th US President: Calvin Coolidge--"The business of America is business"

Multiple Choice

Which is NOT true about the US Presidents of the 1920s

• They were conservative Republicans

• They were progressive Republicans who believed the government should keep businesses from abusing their workers and the public

• They believed in low taxes and a small government

• They believed in laissez faire policies that allowed businesses to have almost complete control over the economy

1929-1933

31st US President

Republican: Laissez-faire, low taxes, low spending

President when the Great Depression starts​

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​Herbert Hoover

​Causes of the Great Depression

1.. Overproduction--Farmers were growing more food; this brought down the price for their crops

2. Uneven distribution of wealth​--Still pockets of widespread poverty (rural South) meant that people couldn't afford factory goods

3. Easy credit. People were approved to buy things they couldn't afford. When the stock market crashed, creditors called in the loans; people couldn't pay--banks, businesses closes. Example: "Buying on the margin"--buying stock on credit

4. Laissez-Fa​ire policies--When people lost their job, there was no safety net to help them.

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Hoover's response to the Great Depression​

--Believes in volunteerism, personal responsibility ("rugged individualism") and charities. He didn't want the government to help at first; he was afraid it would make people lazy.

--​As the situation worsens, he does finally form the President's Organization for Unemployment Relief (POUR); but this just gives more money to existing charities and is very limited in scope. Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) to help rescue troubled banks; problems--only applied to the wealthiest banks, didn't apply to banks in rural areas, many Americans needed food and jobs

RESULT--Americans blame Hoover for not being able to turn around the economy, help everyday Americans who are suffering.​

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Multiple Choice

Which is NOT a cause of the Great Depression?

• Large amounts of government spending and interfering with the economy

• Laissez-faire policies

• Agricultural Production

• Easy credit

​Hoover's mistakes

--To protect US industries from foreign competition, Hoover signs the ​Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act (second highest tariff in US history)--other countries respond by passing their own tariffs which CRUSH America's economy

--Federal Reserve raises interests rates on loans​; made it harder for businesses to produce goods or services. Hoover gasses WW1 vets who protest for early payment of their pension (Bonus Army)

--Many people forced into cardboard and tent villages to look for work "Hoovervilles"​

--1932 Presidential Election: Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) defeats Republican Herbert Hoover by promising government aid to those suffering in the Great Depression​

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Multiple Choice

Which best describes Hoover's response to the Great Depression?

• He believed the US should commit all its resources to helping the unemployed

• He believed in getting rid of tariffs and promoting free trade

• Hoover believed in making sure we could provide financial assistance to European countries

• Hoover believed in limited government and thought the best way to deal with the Depression is by supporting private charities

--Democrat

--1933-1945

​--Defeats Hoover in 1932

--Creates a package of plans to help the US during the Depression-- New Deal

--Wins WW2​

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt--32nd President​

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​Great Depression in the US-Statistics

--In 1933: highest rate for US unemployment ever 25 percent (today-4.8 percent)

--Stocks lose ​80 percent of their value; incomes drop 40 percent

--Social effects: Suicides increase, children abandoned, people in danger of starvation​

​FDR's Goals: 1933 -Increase employment

--Increase demand for consumer goods

--Increase people's confidence in the economy

--Bank reform​

​Took advice from a group of cabinet members, college professors and corporate leaders he called "The Brain Trust"

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One of the members of the "Brain Trust"--Frances Perkins ​US Secretary of Labor; first woman to hold a cabinet position (1933-1945)

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​100 Days

--First three months of FDR's presidency he passes a number of programs to help Americans

--BIG CHANGE IN GOVERNMENT

1920s Republicans: Laissez-Faire--government doesn't get involved in the economy

FDR--Keynesian economics--Government spends a great deal of money putting people to work, ​injecting cash into the economy

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Multiple Choice

President Franklin D Roosevelt believed in this type of economic system in which the government injected cash, assistance in order to put people to work and increase demand

• Friedmanism

• Keynesian

• Objectivism

• Laissez-Faire

​New Deal

Emergency Banking Act of 1933--Closed down and reorganized banks that were failing​

Fe​deral Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)--Insured bank accounts up to 2,500 dollars (about 54,000 dollars today)

Glass Steagall Act--Forbade banks from unsafe investments, put 1 billion dollars of gold in the US economy​
Agencies to put people to work building roads, bridges (CWA and WPA), created an old-age pension program (Social Security)

FDR gained support through his Fireside Chats--​radio broadcasts where he spoke directly to the American people to explain his policies

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​Criticism of the New Deal

From Republicans--It was too expensive, reduced the individual incentive to work

From historians today--​Domestic workers and farmers did not qualify for Social Security. As a result, many women and African Americans didn’t qualify for its benefits.

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​Great Depression in Europe

• American banks lent a lot of money to European banks to help them after WW1 (Dawes Plan); when the US banks collapsed, European countries found it harder to borrow money

• Unemployment in some English cities—70%

• For many people, the cause is laissez-faire capitalism

• Stalin’s Russia is unaffected—some people see communism as providing hope for a new future.

• Many see the need for strong, authoritarian leadership to create jobs (Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany. FASCISM: Political system that emphasizes extreme nationalism)​

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​Totalitarianism

-Political system where the government has total authority over individual lives. Only possible because of increased technology, propaganda

Communism​--Government controls all businesses, provides benefits (health care, education, jobs) in return for absolute loyalty. Closes all churches; doesn't allow any competition for loyalty (Example: Russia/Soviet Union under Josef Stalin)

Fascism--Mixture of extreme nationalism and militarism; promises to make the country "great again" through a combination of imperialism (foreign policy) and violent treatment of enemies within the country. (Examples: Italy under Benito Mussolini, Germany under Adolf Hitler, Japan under Hideki Tojo--all countries that were dissatisfied with the 1918 Treaty of Versailles)!
In both systems--leaders restricted alternative political parties and killed those who criticized their leaders
LIFE IN A FASCIST STATE:
Fascist countries believed in eugenics: a pseudoscience that tried to encourage the "superior" citizens (usually defined by race and physical/mental) to have babies; discourage "the unfit" from doing so. Hitler's laws were partially inspired by US sterilization laws. (Buck vs Bell--US Supreme Court decision that said state laws to involuntarily sterilize people were constitutional)

Multiple Choice

Identify the type of totalitarian government: extreme form of nationalism and militarism, says it will make a country great again by taking over other countries (imperialism) and getting rid of internal enemies. Example: Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy and Tojo's Japan

• Communism

• Fascism

• Democratic Socialism

• Anarchism

Multiple Choice

Identify the type of authoritarian government: the state owns all businesses, distributes all benefits and wealth equally to everyone--such as health care and education. Downside--no free elections, freedom of religion or speech. Examples: Stalin's Russia

• Communism

• Fascism

• Democratic Socialism

• Anarchism