Long-Term Results of World War IPostwar Problems-Boom and Bust in the United States

Objective: Assess the global impact post-WWI economic turmoil—Worldwide Depression

Partner Question

• Explain the objective in your own words.

Inspiration for District 12 in the “Hunger Games” ???

Appalachia

Movie Set=NC

Depression

Boom and Bust in the United States• The United States did

much better financially than the rest of the world in the 1920s.• American business

greatly expanded.• This period of

economic boom brought wealth and power to the United States and prosperity to many (but not all) Americans.

Partner Questions

•Compared to the rest of the world, how was America doing economically in the 1920s?•Give an example of how America was

doing economically.

Boom and Bust in the United States

• U.S. investment and trade helped the struggling economies of much of the world.

• Americans thought this economic boom would never end.• But the U.S. economy had some serious underlying problems.

Partner Question

•How did America help the struggling economies of the world?•What did Americans think about the

economic boom?

Boom and Bust in the United States• First, it was actually producing too many goods.• By the end of the 1920s, surpluses in agriculture and industry

were lowering prices.• Some factories had to shut down, and many farms had to be

sold to pay debts.

Cotton bales waiting to be compressed

Farm foreclosure sale during the Great Depression

Farm Security Administration: Homeless family, tenant farmers in 1936.

Partner Questions

•What was an underlying problem of the US economic system?•What was lowering prices?

Boom and Bust in the United States• A second problem

was the unequal distribution of wealth.

• The gap between the richest 5 percent and the rest of society grew wider.

If it looks like a more dramatic amount of inequality than you are used to seeing, it may be because this is plotting total wealth rather than yearly income.

Partner Question

•What was another problem of the US economic system?

Boom and Bust in the United States• As a result of

overproduction and unequal distribution of wealth, prices began to fall.

• Unemployment increased, leading to more farm and business failures.

• The stock market crash of 1929 led to the Great Depression—a time when banks closed and many people were unemployed.

Barely surviving: Bud Fields and his family at his home in Alabama in 1935

Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother," destitute in a pea picker's camp, because of the failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tent in order to buy food. Most of the 2,500 people in this camp were destitute. By the end of the decade there were still 4 million migrants on the road.

Partner Questions

•What caused prices to fall?•When unemployment increased,

what did it lead to?•Describe two aspects of the Great

Depression.

Worldwide Depression• The failure of the U.S. economy had a global impact.• All over the world, trade decreased, unemployment increased,

and business activity slowed dramatically.• This drastic slowing of the global economy, or worldwide depression, affected Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

• The global depression created social unrest in many countries.• Some nations turned to socialism, while others like the United

States and Great Britain made changes within the capitalist system.

• They gave their governments more control over their economies.

Partner Questions

• The failure of the US economy had what kind of impact?• After the failure of the US economy what

happened across the world economically? [3]• What vocabulary term describes what happened

to the world economy?• What places were affected by the economic slow

down?• What did the global depression create in many

countries?

The following pictures are examples of social unrest throughout the world

German Sparticists (Communists) crowding the streets of Berlin - January 1919

German Free Corpsman (member of one of the Freikorps) at a Berlin street barricade during the March 1919 Sparticist uprising

A converted British tank put to German service in Berlin helping to crush the Communist uprising there - January 1919

Mussolini marching with Fascists soon after his October 28, 1922 "March on Rome"

Greeks fleeing Turkey - 1922

British troops bringing food to London - 1926

Food trucks with an armored car escort, General Strike, 1926, London

Germans searching for bits of coal - 1922

German 50 million Mark banknote printed on September 1, 1923 and worth about $1 at the time (the back side was left blank to keep printing costs down). A few weeks later it would be totally worthless.

Germans in line to buy scarce meat - 1923

The following are pictures illustrating how Germany conformed to the Treaty of Versailles

German Abwehr [Intelligence] and a cannon with a wooden barrel - "conforming" to Versailles restrictions

German make-believe tank with cardboard armor - "conforming" to Versailles restrictions