The Great Depression
Unemployment
1 in 4 American s are unemployed. No job = no money
What is one reason that people were moving to the northeastern US cities?
Escape the Jim Crow South
Manufacturing jobs
Immigration
West was closing
What was the spoils system? What was its flaw?
Giving government jobs to friends or supporters. People put in those positions are often not qualified which hurts everyone due to poor job performance.
What were labor unions such as the KOL and AFL trying to accomplish?
Better conditions- especially for women and minorities. Wanted to end child labor and make fair working wages and hours.
What is a command economy?
Government controls decisions revolving around the economy
Overproduction
Market flooded with too much of a product, so the price and value drop. Factories can't afford to pay workers, lay them off; workers can't afford to buy more goods. Factories close.
Farms produce too may crops. Crop prices drop. Farmers can't pay for their farm, the bank repossesses it.
Rapid growth in cities caused many problems, name one.
Crime
Filth and disease
Overcrowding and poor housing
As a progressive president, what type of reform did he support?
Conservation, breaking up trusts/monopolies, regulating big business, consumer protection (Pure food and drug act), railroad regulation (ICC), supported labor unions
Haymarket Riot
Anarchists blamed for protest turned riot, executed.
workers fired, anti-labor feelings grow across the U.S
What is a market economy?
Supply and demand are the basis for economic decisions. Minimal government intervention.
How did the Great Depression affect the average American?
Loss of homes, loss of jobs, no food, leave family to look for work, Hoovervilles, birth rates down, Dust Bowl (farmers)
What led to the economic boom of the 1920s?
Advertising, buying stocks on margin, installment buying of new products
What was the New Deal, what president created it?
FDR's plan for recovery - numerous agencies created to help produce jobs and get America back on their feet.
Homestead Strike
Steel workers go on strike, strikebreakers are hired to replace them
Escalates to "warfare" between Pinkerton's and striking workers
Workers blacklisted (fired)
What is a mixed economy?
A combination of a command and market economy that integrate the two with varying degrees of involvement.
Stock Market Crash
People buying stocks on margin, no money to back the value. Then everyone starts to sell stocks in August of 1929, stock market crashes two months later.
Who wasn’t feeling the economic boom of the 1920’s?
Farmers, minorities, factory workers
As a president, what types of reforms did Woodrow Wilson support?
Business and banking - Stock market regulations and banking regulations (Federal Reserve)
Pullman Strike
Railroad car workers go on. Strike due to decrease in wages, but company rent remaining the same
Pullman uses the Sherman-Anti Trust act agains the workers, preventing a strike
Nothing changes in favor of workers
What is a traditional economy
Economic decisions are based upon what has always been done. Less open to change.
Bank Failure
Loans not repaid, cash withdrawals take out all of the money, banks close
What new product (or idea) led to a boom in industries surrounding the automobile? Who created this idea?
The moving assembly line- Henry Ford
Describe Herbert Hoover’s policy of rugged individualism.
Hoover believed it was not the role of the federal government to bail out businesses or the people during economic hard times. This is in reference to his belief in laissez faire economics. He believed the people should help themselves - pull themselves up by their bootstraps mentality - do better for yourself, work harder and you will find a way out of the depression.. This belief led the U.S. to fall deeper into the Depression and it cost Hoover the support of many Americans that cost him reelection.
Triangle Shirtwaiste Factory Fire
Horrible tragedy of clothing factory workers and their deaths lead to new labor and building safety laws across Americ
What was the impact of the transcontinental railroad?
Moved people and commerce West, also created more jobs to build and conduct the railroad.