Nativism + the Gr8 Depression

What is nativism?

hatred towards immigrants / believing in superiority

Why was nativism so common in the 20s?

• immigrants causing change in cities

• Russian ideas coming to the US

• religion

• hatred towards countries involved in WWI

What caused nativism to increase?

changing immigration patterns

• more from S/E Europe who: had different religion / don’t speak English (threaten tradition)

What was the First Red Scare?

mass accusations against Russian immigrants for being allegedly communist

How did the KKK evolve during this time?

it began targeting ‘new’ immigrants instead of just blacks (basically anybody not a white protestant WASP)

What were the Quota and Immigration Acts?

Quota: reduced the amnt. of immigrants entering the US to 3% per country

Immigration: reduced to 2%

If nativism was ao popular, why didn’t we just ban immigration entirely?

we still needed cheap labor

What led up to the Great Depression?

• high tariffs —> prices increase

• moving back to Laissez-Faire

• high investing into stock-market (businesses thriving)

What happened as a result of these leading events?

Consumer Boom: economy thriving off of consumerism

What is the issue during this consumer boom?

most relying on credit (buy now, pay later) to pay for their splurges

• b/c of low wages/ taking advantage of immigrants

What is the issue with all of this investing?

• most are inexperienced

• using credit in stocks to make money

Why did the economy begin to slow down?

• market exhaustion (no need for more product)

• high tariffs = less foreign markets

What are the actions taken by business owners and what are their effects of the economic spiral?

• shutting down factories, lowering wages, layoffs

• causes less consumerism

• causes less production

• cycle continues

What do people do in response to the declining stock market?

• as prices go down, more and more people pull out, making prices go further down

• another cycle

How were banks operating?

• loaned out people’s savings to ordinary people

• when the market crashed, everybody looked to pull their money out of the bank

• because of overloading, banks ran out of money + thousands of people lost their life's worth of savings

Who was president during the Panic + what was his view?

Herbert Hoover: it is not the gov.’s job to involve itself in the people’s lives  (laissez-faire)

What were Hoover’s eventual responses to the Panic?

• Smoot-Hawley Tariff (raised Tariff)

• Presidential Optimism (speeches)

• Tax cuts (benefitted rich)

• Big Businesses (begged for help: said no)

How were Hoover’s responses ineffective?

tariff: people couldn’t afford goods anyway

optimism: caused resentment towards himself

tax cuts: only helped those w/ income (minority)

Big Businesses: said no, didn’t help

What suggestion did Hoover offer instead of federal government aid?

state/local gov.