People
This man was a very pro-business president who was in office when our nation started to enter into a new era of prosperity that saw the beginning of modern day advertising, many new conveniences, and the ability to buy many of these things on credit.
Who was Calvin Coolidge?
Legislation passed in 1935 with three major parts - old age insurance for retirees, unemployment compensation that was funded by a federal tax on employers, and aid to families with dependent children and the disabled. A substantial step towards socialism and is today a very costly element of our national debt.
What was the Social Security Act?
During the Depression these sprung up to help feed people three meals a day from free or low cost food. Al Capone actually started a number of these in Chicago to try clean up his bad image.
What was a soup kitchen?
Was the legal prevention of the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States from 1920 to 1933 under the terms of the Eighteenth Amendment.
What is Prohibition?
The banking practice of letting customers buy things with the promise to pay the money back over time with interest. As banks began to get more information on their customers’ financial status, they recognized that they could safely loan out increasing amounts of money to more people.
What is credit?
a US President who was elected for an unprecedented 4 terms starting in 1933; served the country while battling the enduring effects of polio and a heart condition. He used big government policies in an attempt to get the nation out of the Great Depression and for Joseph Stalin to join the United Nations.
Who was Franklin Roosevelt?
This was passed in 1930 and was the highest protective tariff in history. It was designed to protect American farmers and manufacturers. May have had opposite effect in some industries by hurting exports and causing retaliatory tariffs. Caused a significant decline in world trade.
What was the Hawley Smoot Act?
The economic crisis and period of low business activity in the U.S. and other countries, roughly beginning with the stock-market crash in October, 1929, and continuing through most of the 1930s.
What was the Great Depression?
The smuggling in of alcohol from Canada, Cuba, and the West Indies during Prohibition AND the name given to the places that people went to party during the Prohibition era. 2 Answers...
What are bootlegging and speakeasies?
This is a government policy of using more money than it takes in in tax revenue. It became necessary once social welfare programs began to become part of the national budget.
What is deficit spending?
hired by the ACLU during the Scopes Trial to defend John T Scopes. The trial was lost and Scopes was fined but the trial between this man and William Jennings Bryan was a major spectacle that was big news in the summer of 1925.
Who was Clarence Darrow?
In 1932, Hoover signed this bill into law lowering mortgage rates for homeowners and allowing farmers to refinance their farm loans to avoid foreclosure.
What was the Federal Home Loan Act?
On October 29th, 1929, after declining since early September, the stock market totally crashed with a record # of shares dumped. Many people lost all of their money to these investments. In addition, businesses and banks began to fail as a result.
What was Black Tuesday?
A Protestant Christian movement that was skeptical of some scientific discoveries and theories that argued that all important knowledge could be found in the Bible. This movement stood against the teaching of evolution teaching instead that God created the world and its creatures without an evolutionary process.
What is fundamentalism?
DAILY DOUBLE! - A business practice that became popular during the 20’s, this enabled people to buy goods over an extended period of time without having to put down much money at the time of purchase. Did not involve the collection of interest - only penalties for late payments.
What is an installment plan?
He sought the presidency in 1936; began a nationwide “Share Our Wealth” program that wanted to make “Every Man a King” claiming that Roosevelt was NOT doing enough to end the Great Depression. Wanted higher taxes on the rich; assassinated in Louisiana's capital building in 1935.
Who was Huey Long?
DAILY DOUBLE! - This act gave money to states to create jobs constructing schools and other community buildings. Ended up building 40,000 schools and paid the salaries of 50,000 school teachers in rural areas. Also built 500K miles of roads.
What was the National Industrial Recovery Act?
A drought during the early 30’s wreaked havoc on the Great Plains when millions of acres of grasslands suffered soil erosion after being plowed up and overworked forcing many bankrupt farmers headed west to California. These windy storms picked up dirt particles that traveled hundreds of miles.
What was the Dust Bowl?
Two Italian immigrants with radical views who were arrested and charged with the robbery and murder of a factory paymaster and his guard in Massachusetts. Public sentiment was mostly against them and the two men were found guilty and executed.
Who were Sacco and Vanzetti?
The buying and selling of stocks and bonds as a financial investment with the hope of being able to make a quick profit. During the 20’s, people with less and less business savvy were blindly investing more and more money.
What is speculation?
He became president in 1921 after Woodrow Wilson. Tried to return the nation to “normalcy” after WWI. He didn’t handle foreign issues well - adopting a significant tariff that hurt England and France. Was a “limited government” favoring big business. A major land/oil scandal hurt his presidency.
Who was Warren Harding?
This was approved by Congress in 1932; authorized up to $2 Billion for emergency financing for banks, life insurance companies, railroads, and other large businesses. Hoover hoped for the "trickle down" effect. First time the government had intervened in a peacetime economy on this scale.
What was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation?
A movie we watched that told the story of a family force to move from Oklahoma to California when they lost their farm during the Great Depression.
What is the Grapes of Wrath?
This case asked the question of whether or not evolution should be taught in public schools. The man on trial was a Biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee. Raised the question of whether everything in the Bible should be taken literally or figuratively.
What was the Scopes Monkey Trial?
The unwise practice of borrowing money to invest in stocks. This may have been a leading factor in the stock market crash as it pumped too much money into stocks too fast.
What is buying on margin?