The Great Depression Vocabulary

periodic growth and contraction of the economy

• depression

• speculation

• business cycle

• repatriation

bad times in the business cycle characterized by business failures, high unemployment, and falling prices

• speculation

• depression

• repatriation

• recession

practice of making high-risk investments in hopes of obtaining large profits

• depression

• speculation

• business cycle

• court packing

October 29, 1929, when stock prices fell sharply in the Great Crash

• Black Monday

• Black Wednesday

• Black Friday

• Black Tuesday

term used to describe makeshift shantytowns set up by homeless people during the Great Depression

• Hooverville

• New Deal

• Speculation

• Court Packing

term used for the central and southern Great Plains during the 1930s when the region suffered from drought and dust storms

• Dust Pan

• Dust Bin

• Dust Dish

• Dust Bowl

process by which Mexican Americans were encouraged, or forced, by local, state, and federal officials to return to Mexico during the 1930s

• Court Packing

• Repatriation

• New Deal

• Fireside Chats

programs and legislation enacted by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression to promote economic recovery and social reform

• Fireside Chats

• Square Deal

• Executive Order 9066

• New Deal

informal radio broadcasts in which FDR explained issues and New Deal programs to average Americans

• New Deal

• Fireside Chats

• Tin Pan Alley

• Initiative

U.S. Senator and former Governor of Louisiana that promised to give each American family an income of $5,000 a year, to be paid by taxing the rich

• Herbert Hoover

• Franklin D. Roosevelt

• Calvin Coolidge

• Huey Long