The Depression Hits
From just 3.2% in 1929, American unemployment climbed to this peak percentage in 1933.
What is 24.9%?
Falling crop prices combined with drought and poor farming practices to create this disastrous environmental phenomenon.
What is the Dust Bowl?
This belief emphasised self-reliance and held that individuals, charities and local communities — rather than the federal government — should provide assistance.
What is rugged individualism?
This three-letter agency employed young men in conservation projects including reforestation, soil conservation and forestry management.
These three words summarise the major aims of Roosevelt's New Deal.
What are relief, recovery, reform?
Thousands of these institutions collapsed in the early 1930s, wiping out savings and restricting the availability of credit.
What are banks?
Between 1930 and 1940, employment among this group actually increased by 24%, from 10.5 million to 13 million.
Who are women?
Named mockingly after the President, these makeshift settlements became symbols of homelessness and resentment during the Depression.
What are Hoovervilles?
This agency paid farmers to reduce production in an attempt to increase agricultural prices.
What is the Agricultural Administration Agency?
This 1935 Act established pensions, unemployment insurance and federal support for dependent children and people with disabilities.
What is the Social Security Act?
As many as two million men became known as this as they travelled looking for work.
What are hobos?
Members of this group experienced unemployment rates approximately two to three times higher than white Americans.
Who are African Americans?
This controversial 1930 tariff intended to protect American industry instead triggered retaliation and contributed to declining international trade.
What is the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act?
This regional development authority brought electricity, flood control and economic development to one of America's poorest regions.
What is the Tennessee Valley Authority?
In 1937 Roosevelt proposed changing the composition of this institution after it had declared New Deal programs including the NRA and AAA unconstitutional.
What is the Supreme Court?
These investors bought shares in the hope of selling them quickly at a higher price, often using borrowed money and helping to inflate stock prices before the 1929 crash.
What are speculators?
Farmers used this protest tactic to deliberately restrict the supply of products such as milk in an unsuccessful attempt to force agricultural prices upwards.
What are strikes?
The violent dispersal of these protesters in 1932 badly damaged Hoover's reputation after two veterans were killed and their camps were burned.
What is the Bonus Army?
This administration funded large-scale infrastructure including roads, schools and hospitals to create jobs and stimulate demand.
What is the Public Works Administration?
Rather than ending the Depression itself, the New Deal's most significant long-term achievement was arguably this fundamental transformation in American government.
What is expansion of federal government?
The collapse of consumer demand devastated these three major areas of the economy, contributing to widespread job losses and further reducing Americans’ purchasing power.
What are the manufacturing / construction / retail industries?
Beginning in Chicago, this Depression-era campaign urged African Americans to boycott businesses that refused to employ people of colour.
What is the "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" campaign?
Established in 1932, this organisation provided $2 billion in emergency loans primarily to banks, insurance companies and businesses.
What is the Reconstruction Finance Corporation?
This agency attempted to promote industrial recovery through industry codes, minimum wages and collective bargaining — but was declared unconstitutional in 1935.
What is the National Recovery Administration?
This Louisiana politician attacked the New Deal from the left and promoted the more radical “Share Our Wealth” program.
Who is Huey Long?