American Society during The Depression

Question 1

What is the Wall Street crash?

Answer 1

• the Wall Street stock exchange in New York

- prices tumbled and panic selling occurred

Question 2

When was the Wall Street Crash?

Answer 2

24th October 1929

Question 3

What was it known as?

Answer 3

‘Black Thursday’ when over 1.3 million shares were sold

Question 4

What happened to businesses?

Answer 4

-over 100,000 companies went bankrupt

Question 5

What happened by 1933?

Answer 5

the production of manufactured goods was less than 1/5 of the level it was before the crash

Question 6

How did some businesses survive?

Answer 6

by reducing their workforce and their production levels

Question 7

How did banks suffer?

Answer 7

many invested their customers money in shares

Question 8

How did banks try to restore confidence?

Answer 8

tried to recover money by demanding the repayment of loans

• led to businesses closing and unemployment
• led to a period of huge economic depression, first in the USA, then around the world

Question 9

How did it affect the workforce?

Answer 9

• 1/4 unemployed, 12 million people
• suffered pay cuts
• a drop in the standard of living

Question 10

What happened to professional people?

Answer 10

• invested in shares and bank accounts
• often lost most of their money
• fewer opportunities for managerial positions as businesses went bankrupt

Question 11

Who did they blame?

Answer 11

the greed of business leaders

Question 12

How much did weekly earnings in manufacturing drop by?

Answer 12

$28 a week to $22

Question 13

Where was unemployment high in?

Answer 13

heavy industries and blacks

Question 14

What other jobs did they find?

Answer 14

• selling newspapers or apples on street corners
• shoeshine boys
• simply begged

Question 15

What happened to farmers?

Answer 15

• incomes dropped by 60%
• industrial products dropped by only 15%
• could only afford to buy half of what they could afford before 1929
• had to sell up, could not repay loans to banks

Question 16

What happened in the Midwest?

Answer 16

• over-farming which led to infertile soil

- droughts . strong winds blew away the fertile topsoil

Question 17

What happened to tenant farmers?

Answer 17

• forced off the land
• farmers no longer needed/could not afford them
• moved onto the roads and travelled looking for work
• travelled illegally in box cars of railroads

Question 18

What happened to the homeless?

Answer 18

• constructed their own homes in shanty towns on the edge of towns
• became known as Hoovervilles