Roaring Twenties & Economic Turmoil: Journey From Prosperity to Depression

1. Unit 10Chapter 14

2. After WWI • WWI boosts the economy (distribution, consumption, and manufacture of goods). • Wages are high, spirits are soaring. • People are buying more luxury items. • Great Depression hits, life changes. • Unemployment skyrockets, agriculture/industry decline.

3. 1920’s • Country is filled with can doattitude after war • People are getting braver • Willing to travel, try new things • Everyone spends lots of money. • More money is spent on education than anywhere else. • Motels (motor hotels) make travel easier

4. 1920’s continued • Charles Lindbergh successfully makes a transatlantic flight in October 1927. • Nicknamed “Lucky Lindy” and “Lone Eagle.” • Flies “Spirit of St Louis” from NY to Paris. • Street named after him in NY.

5. King Cotton • Boll weevil appears in 1918. • It destroys cotton crops– the main source of income for farmers. • Larvae feed on boll (the place where cotton fibers are formed) • After 1923, only 500,000 bales produced– 2 million were produced in 1918.

6. Drought • 1925 major drought hits Ga– a period of extreme dryness from lack of rain. • Drought slows down boll weevil destruction, but kills other crops. • People go to industrial cities (Chicago). • Banks take big losses, farm-related businesses close.

7. The Great Depression • President Hoover tells America that end of poverty is near. • Stock market is unstable, few notice. Banks are in trouble. • Many are investing in stock market (shares in stocks in corporations are bought and sold). • People borrow money and cannot repay debts.

8. Stock Market Crashes • October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday) the stock market “crashes.” • Each passing day brings greater economic crisis– this becomes Great Depression. • $40 billion loss in stocks. • United States Steel share sells for $22, formerly valued at $262.

9. Banks • People cant pay back money they’ve borrowed. • Banks cannot meet demands of customers for cash. • 650 close in the first year.

10. Georgia • Already in trouble from boll weevil and drought. • Trouble meeting every day needs. • Children don’t go to school because they don’t have proper clothing or shoes. • Progress stops.

11. Hoover • Govt. loans money to needy businesses and support public projects for improvement. • Shanties filled with squatters are called Hoovervilles. • Public and private efforts try to provide relief (money and goods given to people in special need). • Something much bigger is needed.

12. Unemployment • Today 5-6% is acceptable. • Families went hungry • People felt they had no self worth. • 1933 25% were unemployed! • Half of blacks unemployed • Single women were fired so men/women with children can work

13. The New Deal • Hoover runs for re-election in 1932. • Beat by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. • Naturally optimistic • Had polio • “I pledge to you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people.”

14. The New Deal • To solve economic crisis, created brain trust--a group of advisors from all over USA who helped pass New Deal. • Series of laws passed to bring economic recovery, relieve unemployment, and reform defects of economy, and improve society was “New Deal.”

15. Economic Recovery • Price supports (guaranteed higher prices) provided to to farmers (Ga is happy!); later unconstitutional • NIRA allowed manufacturers to regulate by cutting production, promised 40 hr work week. • Minimum wage enforced, the least amount an employee can pay for a certain number of hours worked. • Allowed for unions, previously uncommon in the South.

16. Economic Recovery • Textile mill owners don’t like this. • Owners practice stretch out, requiring workers to work more machines (12 hrs of work in 8 hrs). • People strike, some leave jobs. • Collective bargaining combats getting fired—you can now talk to your employer and discuss job without getting fired

17. Relief • Several programs designed to help unemployed. • WPA provides jobs for workers asap. • CCC provides jobs for civilians through the military. • These programs only help those who can work. • Social Security Act passed in 1935, govt provides old age insurance from taxes paid by workers.

18. Social Improvement: Tennessee Valley Authority and Rural Electrification • TVA brings cheap electricity to many states after Tennessee River is dammed. • TVA helps conservation, the management of natural resources to prevent its destruction. • Built model farms to teach farmers how to conserve (“Dust Bowl”). • Rural electrification helped bring power to rural areas at affordable prices.

19. Fireside Chat • Roosevelt gives speeches to American people via radio between 1933-1945. • Calls listeners “my friends” and uses simple language and concrete examples. • Instills hope. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVEAuBDdE00&feature=related

20. Politics • Great Depression brings new leadership to Ga. • People hope that leaders will bring them out of their troubles. • Georgia’s governors are a mixture of good and bad.

21. Richard Russell • Governor after Hardman. • Reduces state boards from 102 to 18. • Tries to run the state like business. • Favors state’s rights; favors military preparedness. • Later serves in Senate (pro tempore).

22. Eugene Talmadge • Dramatic leader like Tom Watson. • Didn’t like relief efforts, public welfare, federal assistance programs. • Tried to get rid of New Deal in Georgia. • Fired those who disagreed.

23. Eurith Rivers • Beat Talmadge’s appointed successor Charles Redwine. • Supports New Deal, unlike Talmadge. • Electricity to rural areas. • Some corruption with his staff regarding highway contracts.

24. Eugene Talmadge • Wins governorship again. • Changes his mind, not so anti-New Deal. • Problems with a supporter who taught at UGA, this guy favored integration. • Lots of publicity, Talmadge is not re-elected.

25. Ellis Arnall • 1st governor to serve a 4 year term. • Abolished poll tax, adopted new state constitution in 1945. • Helps Ga become first state to grant 18 year olds the right to vote. • Argues that men drafted into the armed forces deserve to vote for country’s leadership.

26. WW2: Preview • U.S. still recovering from Great Depression. • Wants to stay out of world affairs. • Japan is led by Emperor Hirohito. • Germany is led by Nazi Hitler. • Italy is led by facist Mussolini. • These three form the Axis Powers and want to expand power/territory.

27. Axis Powers

28. Hitler • 1933 Hitler comes to power as a dictator (rule with complete control). • Dynamic, charismatic Nazi leader. • Believed in “racial hygenie.” • Given Sudetenland for appeasement. • Takes over the rest of Czechoslovakia. • Sept 1, 1939 attacks Poland and starts WW2.

29. Hitler

30. WW2 • USA tries to stay out of it. • Congress proclaims neutrality in 1939. • USA helps Britain by selling arms for cash, then Congress passes lend-lease agreement. • Just like WW1, Germany starts pushing the limits.

31. WW2

32. USA in WW2 • Dec. 7, 1941 the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. • USA gets involved next day by declaring war on Japan. • Joins with other Allies: Great Britain, France and Russia. • War is on two fronts: Germany/Italy in Europe and Africa/Japan in Pacific. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgthakFtZQY

33. USA in WW2

34. WW2 • Troops fight from a distance, not hand to hand • Airplanes carry bombs/machine guns • Air raids, Radar/sonar track enemy movements • June 6, 1944 “D-Day” is the largest amphibious attack in warfare– pushes Germans out of France

35. WW2: D-Day

36. Tuskegee Airmen • Military rethinks discrimination with “Black Bird Men.” • Trained at Tuskegee. • Funds were low, but Eleanor Roosevelt flies with Charles Anderson and brings publicity. • By the end of the war, 4,000 planes were shot down, many were decorated. • Leads to integration in the military.

37. War In Europe • Feb. 1945 Big Three (FDR, Stalin, Churchill) discuss peace at the Yalta conference. • Europe is free from Hitler by 1945; Hitler commits suicide. • FDR dies in April—spent time in Little White House before death. • Harry S. Truman becomes president.

38. Big Three

39. Little White House

40. War in Pacific • Peace isn’t complete—Emperor Hirohito wants unconditional surrender but Japan’s foreign minister does not. • August 6, 1945 Enola Gay drops the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. • When Japan does not surrender, Nagasaki is bombed 3 days later. • Japan surrenders August 15, 1945.

41. Hiroshima: 140,000 dead in 1945

42. Nagasaki: 80,000 dead in 1945

43. Georgia in the War • 320,000 enlist. • Russell, who believed in military preparedness, helped bring military installations. • Items like meat, butter, and sugar were rationed (consumption limited) for war effort.

44. Holocaust • Part of Hitler’s racial hygenie. • Means “death by fire” • 6 million Jews killed in concentration camps. • Died from gas, starvation, disease. • Bodies were burned in giant crematoriums. • Most children were killed immediately, over 1.5 million murdered

45. Holocaust: 6 million killed

46. Holocaust • The records the Nazis kept when tattooing the prisoners were later used to locate survivors. • Memorials • Boston: 6 towers represent 6 camps, numbers etched on glass • D.C : picture exhibit beginning from 1933-1945

47. Boston

48. D.C.