The Great Depression Widens

From Great Depression 22-2 Reading

1. How did the Great Depression affect minorities?     

It was harder for the minorities than for the rest of population. They had the highest unemployment and they were lowest paid. They also had to deal with discrimination, and the violence that came with it, because white people were competing for the same jobs as the American Americans and Latinos. A total of twenty four African Americans were killed from lynching in 1933. Latinos, some of which were born in America, that lived in the Southwest were targets to be deported. Some of them went back to Mexico willingly, while others were forced by the federal government. 

2. Why did so many men leave their homes during the Depression?    
Many men left their homes during the Depression. The men were so used to being out all day and working that they couldn't stay in the house. Instead they would wander the streets all day in search for a job. Some, after years of not being able to find work, gave up, and some men even left their families. Many men wondered the country on railroad boxcars and slept under bridges, these men were homeless. Most of the men would eventually find their way to a homeless shelter. 


3. How did the Great Depression affect women and children?    
The woman spent their time trying to do everything to save every penny they had. Some of the women even went out and tried to get jobs, even though they would get paid less than men, they did everything to help support their family. Eventually the married women stopped getting jobs because it was looked down upon because married women shouldn't have jobs when men were unemployed. Some cities even refused to hire women as school teachers. People thought that women had it easier than the men did because there were few women beggars that were seen. The truth was that the woman were starving to death in rooming houses and attics and they were too ashamed to show their hardships. The children also had hardships during the Great Depression. There wasn't any money for healthcare for the children, and there wasn't enough food for them either. There were many causes of malnutrition related diseases that showed up among kids. Also there wasn't enough tax money for school; schools had to shorten their year or shut down the school completely. Many kids had to work instead of school, and they had to work in horrible conditions.  Many teenagers would cross the country in freight trains in search for jobs and to escape poverty. The freight trains were very dangerous for the teenagers and many were killed or injured for trespassing railroad property and some were even accidentally locked in ice cars for days. 

From Great Depression 22-3 Reading

4. What were some of Hoover’s key convictions about government?     

Hoover believed that the economy would fix itself, and the government should help as little as possible. He believed that the government should help companies should be competing because that's what helped companies grow. He thought that if there was a problem between businesses and labor that the government should help them find a solution but not force them to do anything. Hoover also thought that the federal government should not give the poor federal welfare because it would weaken people's "morale fiber" and instead charities and local organizations should help the poor. 

5. Why do you think people blamed Hoover for the nation’s difficulties?    

People blamed Hoover for the nation's difficulties because he would not give direct relief or some form of welfare to the poor, which the people wanted and when they did not get it, it angered them. They were blaming Hoover because he did nothing about the economy and provided no help because he believed that the economy would fix itself. When the people didn't get the welfare that they needed they turned against Hoover and blamed the nation's difficulties on him because he did nothing about it. The people were even naming things after Hoover, like when the homeless used newspapers as blankets they called them 'Hoover blankets.'

6. What were some of the projects proposed by Hoover, and how effective were they?    

Hoover proposed many projects to help the economy. One of the projects that he proposed was Federal Farm Board, which was an organization of farm cooperatives which was created to help raise the praises of crops by helping members to buy crops to keep them off the market temporarily so that the prices would rise. Another thing that Hoover proposed was the National Credit Corporation. Hoover convinced the largest banks to start it; it was made for the bigger banks to lend money to the smaller banks in order to help them stave off bankruptcy.  When it became obvious that these programs were not working, Hoover got the Congress to pass the Federal Home Loan Bank Act, which lowered mortgage rates for homeowners and let farmers refinance so they wouldn't lose their land to foreclosure. Hoover's biggest act that he proposed was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. This approved to give two billion dollars to big businesses such as railroad companies, banks, and life insurance. Hoovers hope was the money would trickle its way down to the average citizen and produce job growth. In the end the companies were still failing, along with all the other things which Hoover proposed. 

7. What did the Bonus Army want?    
The Bonus Army wanted the Patman Bill to pass in Congress. The Patman Bill authorized the government to give World War I veterans bonuses to those who were not paid adequately for their wartime services. The Patman Bill gave the veterans a total of five hundred dollars and a life insurance policy. The Bill was not passed in Congress and President Hoover forced the Bonus Army to leave, out of fear that they would become violent. He ordered 1,000 troops to lead them out and gassed them, which killed an 11 month old baby and blinded an eight year old boy. People were horrified when they found out about the attack on the veterans.

The Crash Occurs and the Great Depression Begins

1.       What industrial weakness signaled a declining economy in the 1920s?

Railroad, textile, and steel companies barely made a profit in the 1920s, especially the railroad companies because of the new forms of transportations, such as trucks, buses, and automobiles. Other companies that went down in the 1920s was lumbering, and mining, especially for coal. Coal used to be the biggest source of energy in America, especially during the war, but by the early 1930s coal was being replaced with hydroelectric power, fuel oil, and natural gases. Eventually the jobs for construction, consumer goods, and automobiles weakened. When the construction of houses went down so did other industries such as furniture manufacturing and lumbering. All of these were signals of a declining economy in the 1920s.

2.       What did the experience of farmers and consumers at this time suggest about the health if the economy?

The farmers also got hit pretty hard after the war ended. During the war, there was a high demand for crops such as wheat and corn internationally and in order to keep up with the demands farmers invested in new equipment and made more crops, but after the war the prices of the crops went down and the demand for them also went down by forty percent. Since the prices and demand went down, the farmers had debt that they could not pay off and they would lose their farms to the bank to pay off the loan, and then the banks would have to auction off the farms to try and get their money back from the loans.  The consumers also showed signs of an unhealthy economy. The consumers started buying less because the prices were rising, stagnant wages, and unbalanced distribution. Another reason was people were overbuying on credit in the previous years.

3.       How did speculation and margin buying cause stock prices to rise?

People were buying stocks of speculation, which is out of hope that it will rise and there would be a quirk profit. Also when people were buying stocks on margins, which is paying for only part of the share upfront and loan the rest of the money for it, and since people were buying on margin the prices of the stocks were rising, which reflected that a company was worth more money than it actually was. Then if the stocks declined the people who bought the stocks on margin did not get the money that they needed in order to pay back the loans.

4.       What happened to ordinary workers during the Great Depression?

A lot of the people lost both their jobs and all of their savings during the Great Depression. For one a lot of the banks closed because the banks had invested all of their money in the stock market therefore they did not have the money to give to the people when they tried to pull their money from their savings account. Another thing that went down was the output of goods and services, which was a lot of people’s jobs. It was cut nearly in half; it went from $104 billion to $59 billion. Even the companies that were one extremely successful, such as the automobile companies and railroad companies were failing. Unemployment skyrocketed, it went from three percent unemployment to twenty five percent unemployment, and even those who had their job faced pay cuts and reduced hours.

5.       How did the Great Depression affect the world economy?

The Great Depression also affected the world economy. European countries were struggling in the 1920s due World War I and the war debts that it created for the countries. Germany also had a huge war debt that they had to pay to the Allied countries. The Great Depression compounded these problems by making it harder and limiting America’s ability to import European goods, which also made it difficult to sell American farm products and manufactured products in Europe. Congress also put a tariff in place on foreign goods to try and increase the purchase of American goods, which in the end had hurt world trade and it went down by 40 percent. 

Prohibition

1. How did small-town life and city life differ?   

Small- town life and city life was very different in the 1920's, and there were a lot more people moving into the cities. The cities had a lot more tolerance for drinking, gambling, and casual dating which seemed to be sinful in the strict small- town life. Also the city streets were a lot more crowded by stranger in the city rather than in small- towns were you knew most people walking down the street. Another thing was that the city life was more competitive and everyone was judged more on their accomplishments rather than their background. Lastly their was a bigger range of races and nationalities in cities, than in small-towns. The cities had tons of African- Americans, Italians, Swedish, Polish, and so on, while it was a lot less common in small towns. 


2. Why do you think the Eighteenth Amendment failed to eliminate alcohol consumption?   

There were many reasons that the Eighteen Amendment failed to eliminate alcohol consumption. For one the majority of the people were Protestants in the South and West, and people affiliated with the church, who thought that drinking was a sin. While there was those who thought of drinking as a sin, there was also a lot of immigrants who came to America, where drinking is a part of their culture and after World War I a lot of people just wanted to relax and enjoy themselves. On tip of it all the Prohibition was not enforced properly, and even though the Prohibition Bureau in the Treasury Department was established it was underfunded therefore it was not enforced properly. 


3. How did criminals take advantage of Prohibition?   
During the Prohibition, people found creative ways to get alcohol, and one way was from bootlegger, who got their name form hiding alcohol in the leg of the boots, and they would smuggle in alcohol from places like Canada and Cuba. A lot of gangs also go involved with the selling of alcohol and bootlegging, which started a lot of organized crimes in the cities. An example is of Al Capone, a gangster, from Chicago, who got sixty million dollars a year form bootlegging and killed off his competition of selling alcohol. In the 1920's it was reported that there was 522 bloody gang killing in Chicago, due to the Prohibition.   





4. What was the conflict between fundamentalists and those who accepted evolution?   

Fundamentalists were Protestants that believed in a non-symbolic interpretation of the Bible and did not believe in the scientific knowledge of evolution. Fundamentalists believed that the answer to everything was in the Bible, because the Bible was inspired by God, and they rejected Darwin's idea of evolution and thought it was a lot more believable that God created every living thing in six days. Eventually in the Mid-West fundamentalists gained followers who started to call for laws to prohibit teaching evolution. The first law to prohibit the teaching of evolution was passed in Tennessee, and the ACLU backed up anyone who wanted to challenge that, which is what John T. Scopes did and he was arrested for it. His court case because an interest nation wide and John Scoped was found guilty and had a fine of a hundred dollars but the law banning the teaching of evolution was soon repelled. 

5. How might the overall atmosphere of the 1920s have contributed to the failure of Prohibition?    
The atmosphere in the 1920's was very chaotic, there were a lot of Protestants in the country that were trying to make their religious believes into laws, such as the Prohibition and outlawing teaching of evolution. During this time women were also fighting for their rights, and there was a lot going on. Don't forget that World War I is just coming to an end and debts are being paid, soldiers are coming home, and the mess that World War I created was just starting to be cleaned up. During the 1920's a lot of people wanted to relax and take it easy because the stress of World War I is over, but the government still had a lot going on. If there was less going on in American during the time of the Prohibition the government would have been able to pay more attention to the Prohibition and fund it better, making it so it was enforced correctly, which did not happen. 

Presidential Debate News Story Analysis

News Analysis on the First Presidential Debate

Source Information      

Date:  October 4th, 2012

What news organization (or individual) produced this?:  Fox News

What is the type of news source?:    online article

 

Content
 

What is the main headline?:  Fact Sheet: Tax Break For Shipping Jobs Overseas? Well, sort of

What facts (statistics, important events, etc.) are included?:   There is a statistic saying that the Joint Committee of Taxation said established that $168 millions dollars will come in within the next decade if you close tax breaks for those companies moving overseas. 

Is anyone quoted? If so, who? What did they say?:     Mitt Romney was quoted, two times, saying he didn't know what Obama was talking about when he stated talking about tax breaks when shipping jobs overseas. Another person quoted was Doug Holtz- Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, about how any cost of doing business is deductible. Obama is quoted from the debate on how American's with businesses in American do not get tax breaks, but the businesses with companies overseas do get tax breaks and he wants to change that. 

What information or ideas might have been left out?:  The whole article was all based around one statement that Obama said and Romney's reply to it. The rest of the debate about ways to get jobs in America. and the aspects of the economy and budget and tax cuts was left out of the article. 

 

Message

Who is the intended audience?:    The intended audience was anyone who watched the debate and people who are interested in the presidential election. 

Does the author seem to have an opinion? If so, what is it?:    For the most part the author seems objective, but the writer seemed to favor Romney more, because of the topic he picked for the article it was more in favor of Romney than Obama. 

What is the tone of the source?:   The tone of the article was informative and seemed to be made to clarify the part of the debate where Romney did not know what Obama was talking about with the tax breaks for shipping jobs overseas. 

What words or phrases create the tone?: "... that Obama could have been referencing." "Technically companies can claim a deduction..." 

   

Is any one person or group discussed positively? Negatively?:    No one specific group or person was discussed in the article.