Monday
1920s Unit Test
Tuesday-Wednesday
Map and Geography
-label states and events in the '30s
What leads to it?
Farming: higher yields are not matched by higher demand
- technological improvements increased costs of farming
- WWI had encouraged a boom in production, not sustainable without war
- hired by Hoover, Mellon believed that government should run like a business
- his goals in 1921 was to; balance the budget, reduce gov't debt, and cut taxes
- argued that lower taxes allowed money to flow more freely and allowed the gov't to collect more taxes (AV 457)
- taxes were reduced from 4% federal income tax to .5% for the average American; the wealthiest paid a high of 73% and a low of 25%
- Mellon's policies would ultimately contribute to the stock market crash of 1929
- supported Prohibition
- former head of Food Admin. during WWI and Secretary of Commerce
- a Quaker; a Republican
- landslide victory
- a system of buying and selling companies
- rising stock prices is known as a bull market
- margin is when the investor pays a low down payment (takes a loan from stockbroker)
- only safe in a bull market
- brokers could issue a margin call to demand repayment; hence, if prices fell, investors would sell quickly to be able to repay loans
- pricing became 'sketchy' as a stocks true value was inflated by investor's bids; some tried to make a fortune overnight and engaged in speculation
- Great Crash led to nationwide bank failures: people sold of their holding quickly, prices slipped, causing more to sell and so forth.
- October 29th, Black Tuesday: prices took their steepest dive yet. Crash undermined America's ability to hold it together while other weaknesses became apparent
- banks had loaned money to stock speculators; invested depositor's money in stock; banks lost a lot and thus cut back on loans (AV 472)
Thursday & Friday
HW due Friday: click on Dorothea Lange picture. Choose a picture and complete a visual analysis interpretation. Do not do "Migrant Mother."
Science behind the "dust bowl"
DUSTBOWL
- In the Great Plains farmers had plowed lands, uprooted wild grasses, and planted wheat instead.
- fall of prices in 1920's left fields uncultivated, drought exacerbates: no rainfall, no roots= soil dries to dust
- 1932: drought sweeps the land
- winds whip up dust and bury crops, livestock, and farmhouses
- 1934: dust storm destroys 300 acres
- dust storms grow: 22'' in 1934 and 72'' in 1937
- "withered fields" were mortgaged, turned over to banks. Penniless families head west
- many from Oklahoma- known as "okies" (derogatory)
- idealized California as a kind of Eden on earth
- disappointed; a lot of competition from jobs
- homeless and impoverished families lived in Hoovervilles (shacks on unused land)
The Arts
Hoover Responds
