Farmers faced the depression as a result of overproduction this was caused by the fact that during WW1 many farmers switched to crop growing as these recourses were sought after from the rest of the world as the demand was high farmers were able to make a profit from the crops they were growing, however when the war was over the farmers who had been away fighting or unable to use their land now went back to farming and became competition for the American farmers. In order to try and protect their industry the us government added a tariff onto products entering the country making them more expensive than American crops however other country’s retaliated by adding tariffs on US produce therefore it became unprofitable for farmers to harvest crops and many farm workers became unemployed and bankrupt, leaving them below the poverty line. This was not helped by the fact that in 1930 a drought hit the south and Midwest badly leaving the soil desert like and causing farmers to move on leaving their crops to rot.
The republican belief in laisses-faire meant that when people became unemployed in America there was no benefit system to protect them from falling below the poverty line. This meant that in the 1930s when 25% of people were unemployed in the North cities this was largely due to the problem caused by overproduction in which many people who had already became unemployed could not afford these new products, and the people who could afford them did not need to replace them as they already had them. Many Americans travelled for work prepared to do any type of job, these became known as hobos, and 0.25million Americans became homeless.
The Lack of new goods needed meant that the shares for these companies began to fall as in 1929 20 million Americans owned shares, some on a part pay basis, when the prices began to fall some investors began selling their shares this resulted in this trend being carried out by millions of others and eventually the wall street crash happened where 13 millions people tries to sell their shares on the 24th October made worse by the fact that on the 29th October 16million shares were sold. The results of this crash were massive as many people had invested in the shares became bankrupt, many smaller banks went bust causing thousands of people to loose their savings, and more people became unemployed through lack of demand for products.
Due to unemployment millions of people became homeless this led to people sleeping on park benches, buss shelters etc. people began to get themselves arrested in order to be in the warm of a prison cell cardboard and metal shacks began being built so that people had somewhere to live these became known as Hoovervills, and the Bonus army of retired soldiers began camping outside the white house asking for their pensions to be paid early.
Charity and help was set up from a variety of different places, however due to the fact that there was no social security people who didn’t have private schemes could not get a regular pay, by 1932 there was no money for the poor therefore they began protesting. Public relief was set up through charities such as the salvation army providing temporary homes, food through soup kitchens and bread and cheap food centres, jobs and clothing were also made available rich individuals such as Al Capone also began helping the relief effort by providing money and helping in soup kitchens etc, Hoover eventually signed an Emergency relief and reconstruction act in 1932, cutting taxes and adding tariffs on imports and enabling money to be given to relief efforts for example $4000m were given to create jobs in construction, $300m to local states to give unemployed money and $1500m to business in trouble.
The effects of the depression were largely apparent on the Americans as millions lost their jobs became homeless and grew deeper into poverty and with it depression this was all created by the spiral of depression in which the over production of goods created a loss of jobs and homes and lack of money, I think this could have been largely reduced if the republic society hadn’t have lived on a policy of laissez-faire and had a social security policy in place as it would have meant that when the people initially began loosing their jobs they could have continued living in their homes and would have had the money to continue buying goods such as crops which would have meant that over production didn’t hit America so hard.
