The Great Depression

Black Tuesday

October 29, 1929 — stock market's catastrophic crash.

Smoot-Hawley Tariff

1930 tariff that triggered global trade collapse; U.S. exports fell 78%.

Associationalism

Hoover's ideology of voluntary cooperation, not government aid.

Hoovervilles

Shantytowns built by the unemployed; named mockingly for President Hoover.

Dust Bowl

Great Plains ecological disaster (1932–1936) caused by drought and poor farming.

Bonus Army

WWI veterans who marched to D.C. demanding early bonus payment; forcibly dispersed.

New Deal

FDR's broad program focused on relief, recovery, and reform during the Great Depression.

RFC

Reconstruction Finance Corporation — Hoover's program of loans to banks, not directly to people.

Social Security Act

1935 legislation that created retirement pensions and unemployment insurance.

Wagner Act

1935 act that guaranteed workers' rights to organize unions.

CCC / WPA / PWA

Major New Deal jobs programs employing millions of Americans.

Bank Run

Panic withdrawal of deposits that led to the failure of otherwise-solvent banks.

Herbert Hoover

President during the crash; his ideology prevented meaningful relief efforts and he was widely blamed for the Depression.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)

Won the 1932 election in a landslide; architect of the New Deal and expanded federal government role.

Eleanor Roosevelt

FDR's wife; acted as an advocate for the poor, women, and African Americans.

Huey Long

Louisiana senator and radical populist who proposed the 'Share Our Wealth' program, challenging FDR from the left.

Dorothea Lange

Photographer known for documenting suffering during the Depression; her work 'Migrant Mother' became an iconic image.

Fiorello LaGuardia

NY congressman who criticized RFC as a 'millionaire's dole'; later became NYC mayor.

Douglas MacArthur

General who ordered the dispersal of the Bonus Army on Hoover's orders.