Ch 19: The Great Depression: Deceptive Prosperity & Stock Market Crash

Coolidge's campaign slogan

"Keep cool with Coolidge"

Calvin Coolidge's economic philosophy

"The business of America is business" and civilization and profits go hand in hand.

Default

Failure to pay back a loan

Farmers' struggles in the 1920s

Overproduction after WWI led to falling prices, unpaid debts, and rural bank failures.

McNary-Haugen bill

A bill to establish price-supports for key crops to help farmers' financial state, which Coolidge vetoed twice.

Price supports

The government would buy surplus crops at guaranteed prices and sell them on the world market

The Dawes Plan

A plan where the U.S. loaned money to Germany so it could pay reparations to Allies, who used it for war debts.

Kellogg-Briand Pact (1929)

An agreement among over 65 countries outlawing war, but containing no means of enforcement.

Herbert Hoover's quote on poverty

"We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before."

Struggling industries in the 1920s

Textiles, steel, railroads, and coal, which faced competition from new alternatives.

Buying on margin

Purchasing stock by putting down a small amount of cash and borrowing the rest.

Black Tuesday

October 29, 1929, the worst day of the stock market crash and the start of the Great Depression.

Debts after WW1

-The US's former allies owed $10 billion to the US, but most of that money had been spent in the US to finance the war
-The Allies argued that these debts should be cancelled
-They were paid in installments from "reparations" paid by Germany, but Germany could only afford to pay the reparations by borrowing money from the US

Election of 1924

-Repubilcan candidate: Calvin Coolidge
-Democratic candidate: Jefferson Davis
-Progressive candidate: Robert M. La Follette
-Coolidge won
-123 women won seats in state
legislatures...2 were elected governors

Election of 1928

-Coolidge chose not to run again
-Republican candidate: Herbert Hoover ("big business")
-Democratic candidate: Alfred E. Smith ("big city")
-Party platforms didn't matter as much as what each candidate seemed to stand for
-Issues were Prohibition and Smith's Catholicism
-In the middle of prosperity, most Americans did not want to change course and overwhelmingly elected Hoover
-Democrats made gains in many large cities

Frank Kellogg

U.S. secretary of state who arranged the Kellogg-Briand peace pact with Aristide Briand of France

Aristide Briand

French foreign minister who arranged the Kellogg-Briand peace pact with Frank Kellogg

Federal Farm Board

An agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture created to curb the drop in agricultural prices by buying up crop surpluses.

Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act

A 1930 act that established the highest protective tariff in U.S. history, which worsened the depression globally.

Bonus Army

World War I veterans and their families who marched on Washington, D.C., in 1932 to demand immediate cash-bonus redemption.

Direct relief

Cash payments or food provided by the government to help the poor and unemployed.

Foreclosures

The legal process by which a mortgage lender takes over a property because the borrower failed to make loan payments.

Protective tariffs

Taxes on imported goods designed to protect domestic industries from foreign competition.

Dividends

A sum of money paid regularly by a corporation to its shareholders out of its profits.

Prohibition

The period from 1920 to 1933 when the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages were illegal in the U.S.

"Rugged Individualism"

Hoover's belief that individuals succeed through their own efforts and should not depend on government handouts.

Dust Bowl

The region of the Great Plains severely damaged by droughts and dust storms during the 1930s.

Patman Bill

A bill that authorized the government to pay a cash bonus to WWI veterans immediately, which was defeated in the Senate.

Hoovervilles

Shantytowns built by homeless and destitute people during the Great Depression, named mockingly after President Hoover.

Dorothea Lange

An American documentary photographer whose images, such as 'Migrant Mother,' captured the despair of the Great Depression.

The Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck's 1939 novel depicting the plight of Oklahoma sharecroppers forced to migrate to California during the Dust Bowl.

Sharecroppers

Farmers who give a portion of their harvested crops as rent in exchange for land, seeds, and tools.

Bull market

A financial market in which prices are rising or are expected to rise.

Bear market

A market in which stock prices are falling, generally encouraging widespread selling.

Hoboes

Transient, homeless vagrants who traveled across the United States by hopping freight trains during the Great Depression.

Boulder (Hoover) Dam

A construction project funded by electricity profits that provided flood control and a regular water supply for California.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

An agency established to save large corporations, banks, and insurance companies from bankruptcy through government loans.

Mexican Repatriation Program

A program where over 1 million people, most of whom were U.S. citizens, were deported or pressured to leave for Mexico.

Norris-LaGuardia Act (1932)

An act that gave workers the right to join unions and made it harder for courts to issue injunctions to stop strikes.

Farm Security Administration (FSA)

A program that set up camps for migrant workers and hired photographers like Dorothea Lange to document rural life.

Emergency Relief and Construction Act (1932)

The first time the U.S. government gave direct help for jobs by funding state-level public works and construction.

President Coolidge

Elected Vice President and succeeded as 30th President of the United States when Harding died in 1923 (1872-1933), he was the least active president in History, proposing no new legislation