Hoover won the presidential election in 1928 against Al Smith because he was a republican, and they were associated with the booming economy. He won with 444 electoral votes and 40 states to 87 electoral votes and 8 states! After World War One, Hoover was involved with helping to provide food to Europe; he was praised for his excellent work both by Europe and United States. Hoover was also former secretary of commerce and a very popular man; he was well known to Americans and was trusted by the US public. He launched a successful campaign, expressing belief that he had found ways to stop poverty.
Hoover turned his attention to the agricultural depression, resulting in the Agricultural Marketing Act in 1929. The Wall Street Crash ruined Hoover’s dreams, he refused to mobilize the resources of the government to save the collapsing economy. He did approve Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which gave loans to failing corporations.
Franklin D Roosevelt
Roosevelt was born 1882 at Hyde Park, New York. He was an only child and was educated at home until he was fourteen when his parents sent him to a private school from there he attended Harvard University and studied at Columbia Law School. In 1905 he married Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt then entered public service through politics, as a Democrat. He won the New York Senate election in 1910 and was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 1920.
Roosevelt believed that it was his duty to restore the faith in the American Public. He promised a ‘New Deal’ for the US people. Roosevelt said ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself’. He also once said ‘In order to preserve we had to reform’, with this in mind he tackled the issues of the Depression.
Roosevelt believed that providing employment was key and supervising all banking and there must be an end to speculation of other people’s money.
In 1921 Roosevelt developed poliomyelitis and fought to regain the use of his legs through swimming. Then in 1928 he became the Governor of New York. In November 1932 Roosevelt was elected as President and by March there were 13,000,000 unemployed and almost every bank was closed. For the first time the federal government started to take responsibility for their people, and the USA accepted that in order to move on, they had to abandon laissez-faire. He proposed a programme to help business and agriculture recover. He wanted to give relief to the unemployed and those in danger of losing their home. He persuaded Congress to give money for public work projects and to set up a programme to provide work for young people with no jobs. In April 1933 Roosevelt set up the Tennesse Valley Authority, this was responsible for flood and erosion control and the generation and sale of electric power. It affected the lives of 7 million people.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was set up to improve the country’s natural resources. The Federal Emergency Relief Act was to distribute $500 million through grants to state and local agencies for employment relief. By January 1934 about four million Americans were on this payroll.
By 1935 the USA had recovered marginally, however business men and bankers doubted and disliked Roosevelt’s New Deal Programme more and more. He responded to this by using Social Security and charging the wealthy more tax. He set up The Public Works Administration to stimulate the economy by means of huge public works projects. Roosevelt then set up the National Industry Recovery Act to help factories recover. This was supported by the National Recovery Administration, it declared that workers should be allowed to organise trade unions and to bargain collectively. The Agricultural Acts aim was to raise farmers’ incomes.
2)
The Wall Street Crash had a major impact on the rest of the world because the USA was an important and wealthy country; when the Wall Street Crash came about stock market prices increased rapidly, and people could no long afford things. The USA kept getting into debt because they took loans from other countries and couldn’t pay it back. The Wall Street Crash had a big effect on Germany because after the crash USA gave Germany 90 days to re-pay their loan. This left Germany almost bankrupt as they could not look for any other countries for financial help.
3)
The Depression caused many Americans to become bankrupted, because banks had no money so people lost their savings. This caused businesses to close and lose their employees and caused masses of unemployment. This ended up as a cycle, as sales kept falling, more became unemployed. Another way Americans were affected by the Depression was that they lost all confidence in the American economy, so no one would invest in it and spend their money. By 1933 industrial production had fallen by 40% and unemployment had reach 14 million. This left many people in poverty and they were told it was their own fault, causing them to feel ashamed.
Farmers in the Mid-West had it even worse, they used the land too much, over-cropping, and this led to a severe drought causing soil to blow away and the harvest failed. Farmers ended up leaving their homes to find other land. However Farmers could not make that much money as the Depression caused a collapse in prices. Therefore many could not re-pay loans and were forced to leave their homes. As well as this many people lost their homes and slept on cardboard boxes or park benches, they ended up relying on soup kitchens and charity workers. They created shanty towns from these cardboard boxes which were nicknames Hoovervilles.
4)
I think that everyone in America suffered the same amount in different ways. For example farmers lost their land and office workers lost their jobs. The Depression still caused people to lose their livelihood and force them to live in poverty. It does not matter who you are you still have to use money to live, and in America the economy collapsed meaning that money became scarce. So for everyone in America it became harder to live. I do not think that everyone in the world suffered equally from the Depression because other countries were hardly affected at all. A few countries were affected but not as harshly as USA.
