Causes & Concepts
A 15‑year period of economic turmoil beginning in the U.S. and spreading worldwide during the decade of the 1930s.
What is the Great Depression?
Republican presidents throughout the 1920s espoused this philosophy of government's role in the economy
What is laissez-faire?
A 4‑day shutdown of banks for inspection and restocking to prevent runs.
What is the Bank Holiday?
One of the three "R's", this one focused on providing immediate assistance to suffering individuals by sending money, blankets, clothing, food, etc. to local communities.
What is Relief?
This term referred to the region of the American mid-west that suffered devastating droughts and dust storms
What is the Dust Bowl?
This happens when people rush to the bank to try to remove their savings before it's gone.
What is a run on the bank?
He was the Republican president at the start of the Great Depression who believed in laissez‑faire economics and “voluntarism.”
Who is Herbert Hoover?
This program provides money for retirees, the disabled, and impoverished families with children
What is Social Security?
One of the three "R's", this one focused on jump-starting the economy by stabilizing industries, raising prices, or boosting employment--helping the country to get back on its feet.
What is Recovery?
He created one of the first soup kitchens.
Who is Al Capone?
This occurs when there are too many goods and not enough people willing or able to buy them
What is overproduction?
These were shantytowns made of cardboard and scrap that reflected the unpopularity of the president.
What are "Hoovervilles?"
This legislation aimed to limit crop and livestock production in order to raise farm prices, which had been depressed all through the 1920s.
What is the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)?
One of the three "R's", this one focused on preventing another Great Depression by fixing long-term problems in banks, labor rights, and the stock market.
What is Reform?
This was a derogatory term for refugees from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl who migrated to California looking for work
What are "okies"?
The 1920s saw the rise of this slogan, which persuaded many Americans to go into debt to pay for consumer goods
What is "Buy now, Pay later"?
He achieved a landslide victory in the 1932 presidential election after promising the American people a "New Deal," i.e. government intervention to end the Depression.
Who is Franklin Delano Roosevelt?
This program insured personal bank accounts up to $5000 ($100,000 in today's money) so that consumers would never again lose their life savings due to the failure of a bank.
What is Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)?
This agency employed men, aged 18-25, on conservation projects such as building campgrounds, parks, and planting trees.
What is the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC)?
This was a group of WWI veterans that marched to Washington DC demanding to be paid for their military service
What is the Bonus Army?
Paying only part of a stock price up front and borrowing the rest, hoping to profit before paying it back.
What is "Buying on Margin?"
These were a series of radio broadcasts that FDR used to build public trust and garner public support for New Deal programs.
What are fireside chats?
This legislation set minimum wage, maximum working hours, and curbed child labor across the country
What is the Fair Labor Standards Act?
This agency built dams to control flooding and to provide cheap electric power to Southern states
What is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)?
This was the press nickname for the circle of scholars and professors who helped FDR craft New Deal policy during the 1932 campaign and during his first 100 days.
What is the Brain Trust?
Between October 24–29, 1929, this stock market crash set off a chain reaction in the economy and is officially considered the start of the Great Depression.
What is Black Thursday?
She pushed FDR to extend the New Deal in order to help children, women, and African Americans
Who is Eleanor Roosevelt?
This legislation gave workers the right to unionize and submit grievances to a national board that would mediate disputes with industrialists.
What is National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act)?
This massive agency not only hired Americans to work on public works projects, but also employed musicians, artists, and writers to create works of public art and to record the nation's history.
What is the Works Progress Administration (WPA)?
This informal group of over 100 African American federal employees advised FDR during the New Deal and pushed the administration to address racial discrimination from inside the government.
What is The Black Cabinet?
This term refers to the attempt to make large amounts of money on risky investments that have a high probability of failing
What is speculation?
A failed proposal to increase the number of Supreme court justices from 9 to 15. FDR was widely criticized for this attempt to manipulate the judiciary in order to protect the passage of New Deal legislation.
What is the court packing scheme?
A tariff that raised import duties to protect U.S. industries but worsened the Depression.
What is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff?
This agency gave money grants to states in order to fund relief programs for the poor and unemployed
What is the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)?
An educator and civil rights leader who became the first African American woman to head a federal agency; she advised FDR, led the Division of Negro Affairs in the NYA, and helped organize the Black Cabinet.
Who is Mary McLeod Bethune?