The decade of the 1920s was characterized by an unprecedented economic expansion, which resulted in a huge bull market on Wall Street. Business leaders and economists told Americans it was their duty to buy stocks.  John J. Raskob, Chairman of the Board of General Motors, wrote in his book “Everyone Ought to be Rich” that a person who invested $15 in a…

Read More→

Millions were out of work during the Great Depression. Since the government provided no unemployment insurance, lost jobs resulted in repossessed homes and evictions. Homeowners lost property when they could not pay the mortgage or taxes. Renters fell behind and were evicted. People were put out on the streets with all of their belongings. By 1932 millions of Americans were…

Read More→

Thousands of farmers lost their land when they had no market for their crops and thus could not pay their mortgages. The plight of the farmer is reflected in the following quote from a debt-ridden farmer: “If they come to take my farm, I’m going to fight. I’d rather be killed outright than die by starvation. But before I die,…

Read More→

It was not bad enough that the economy dealt farmers a lousy hand, Mother Nature added salt to the wounds in the form of The Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was an environmental disaster brought on by drought and soil mismanagement where “topsoil literally dried up and blew away…like snow drifts in winter.” (Jennings and Brewster, p. 14.) The phenomenon…

Read More→

Besides the dust bowl migrants, other groups of people were traveling the roads, or hopping freight trains, or going place-to-place looking for something better during the Depression. These transients were called “hoboes” or “boomers.” A derogatory name used by some was “bums” but, there was a distinction: “The hobo works and wanders, the bum drinks and wanders.” (Dunaway and Beer,…

Read More→

After World War I, Congress voted a financial payment to veterans of the war as a bonus for their service. Every veteran of the Great War was promised a pension that included $1 for every day served on the home front with a maximum of $500 and $1.25 for every day served overseas with a maximum of $650. But, according…

Read More→

During the Depression, dance halls were both a way of obtaining badly needed money and an escape of the harsh realities of daily life. The dance hall was a place where lonely men could find some companionship. They were also places where controversial dance marathons were held. Famous dance halls of the times included The Paramount in New York City…

Read More→

President Hoover believed that the economic problems that faced the country after the Wall Street Crash were best solved by private charities and/or local government. Tied to traditional laissez-faire economic concepts, Hoover and the Republican Congress were unable to do much to help the country out of its economic woes. Reflecting the hands-off economic approach favored by traditionalists, President Hoover…

Read More→

Capitalism and the laissez-faire economics of conservatives like Hoover were questioned by large segments of the population. (Donaldson, “I Hear America Singing”: Folk Music and National Identity, p. 39.) “[America] was in the midst of an identity crisis as citizens struggled to adapt to the chain of disasters that accompanied the onset of the Depression.…Distressing levels of unemployment and underemployment…

Read More→

Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) was the cousin of Teddy Roosevelt. He graduated from Harvard. He was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson. He was the unsuccessful vice presidential candidate in the 1920 election. He contracted polio at the age of 39, and he became governor of New York in 1928. FDR campaigned for the presidency in 1932…

Read More→