APUSH Unit 7 Study Notes: Crisis, War, and a New Global Role (1929–1945)

Great Depression

The most severe, prolonged economic crisis in modern U.S. history, beginning after the 1929 stock market crash and lasting through most of the 1930s, marked by bank failures, business closures, and mass unemployment.

Overproduction and underconsumption

A 1920s–1930s economic imbalance in which farms and factories produced more goods than consumers could afford to buy, contributing to falling profits, layoffs, and deeper economic contraction.

Unequal distribution of wealth

A condition in which a large share of income and wealth is concentrated among the very rich, limiting broad consumer purchasing power and weakening overall demand in the economy.

Speculation (buying stocks on margin)

Risky investing in which people purchased stocks using borrowed money; when prices fell, losses were magnified, intensifying the economic collapse.

Voluntarism

Herbert Hoover’s belief that private businesses and local communities should cooperate to solve economic problems without major direct federal relief or control.

Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)

A federal agency created in 1932 that made loans to banks and major businesses to stabilize the economy, reflecting Hoover’s preference for aiding institutions rather than giving direct relief to individuals.

Bonus Army

A 1932 protest in which World War I veterans demanded early payment of promised bonuses; the government’s removal of the protest worsened perceptions that Hoover was out of touch.

New Deal

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s set of federal programs and reforms (starting in 1933) aimed at relief, economic recovery, and long-term reform during the Great Depression.

Relief, Recovery, Reform

The New Deal’s three broad goals: immediate assistance to people (relief), restarting the economy (recovery), and preventing future crises through regulation and new institutions (reform).

Bank holiday

FDR’s temporary closure of banks in 1933 to stop panic withdrawals and restore confidence in the banking system.

Glass-Steagall Act (1933)

Banking reform law that separated commercial and investment banking and helped restore trust in financial institutions; it also created deposit insurance through the FDIC.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)

A New Deal institution that insures bank deposits to reduce bank runs and strengthen public confidence in the banking system.

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)

A New Deal work-relief program that employed mainly young men in conservation and public-works projects, providing jobs and income during the Depression.

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)

A New Deal agency that provided direct federal aid to states to support relief efforts for the unemployed and impoverished.

Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)

A New Deal program that attempted to raise farm prices by paying farmers to reduce production, aiming to increase farm income by limiting supply.

National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA)

A First New Deal law that sought to stabilize industry through codes regulating wages, hours, and competition; later struck down in key parts by the Supreme Court.

Social Security Act (1935)

A major Second New Deal law creating old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and aid to certain vulnerable groups, expanding federal responsibility for economic security.

Wagner Act / National Labor Relations Act (1935)

A Second New Deal law protecting workers’ rights to unionize and bargain collectively and establishing federal enforcement through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Works Progress Administration (WPA)

A New Deal agency that provided jobs through large-scale public works (infrastructure) and also funded arts and cultural projects, emphasizing relief through employment.

Lend-Lease Act (1941)

A law allowing the U.S. to supply nations deemed vital to American security (especially Britain and later the Soviet Union), signaling a shift away from strict neutrality before U.S. entry into WWII.

Pearl Harbor

Japan’s attack on the U.S. naval base on December 7, 1941, which triggered the U.S. declaration of war on Japan and brought the United States fully into World War II.

War Production Board (WPB)

A wartime agency that coordinated industrial mobilization and conversion, directing factories to produce war materials and managing large-scale production priorities.

Executive Order 9066 (1942)

A wartime order authorizing military zones that enabled the forced removal and incarceration of over 100,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast; upheld by the Supreme Court in Korematsu (1944).

Bretton Woods Conference (1944)

A meeting where Allied nations designed a postwar economic order to promote global financial stability, leading to the creation of institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.

Manhattan Project

The top-secret U.S.-led program to develop atomic weapons during World War II, resulting in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945) and ushering in the atomic age.