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311HardTimesandNewDeal2CPart1.pptxBetween the Wars, 1930s: Hard Times and a New Deal
Man lying down on pier, New York City docks, 1935.
I. Hard Times….
… and hard travelin’
“I’ve been havin’ some hard travelin’, I thought you know’d?”
-- Woody Guthrie, Hard Travelin’
“The Crash”
“The most disastrous decline in the biggest and broadest stock market of history rocked the financial district yesterday. It carried down with it speculators, big and little, in every part of the country, wiping out thousands of accounts.”
--New York Times, October 25, 1929
“Black Thursday”
Wall Street, NYC financial district
Black Monday and Tuesday…
Stock prices plummet for three days, October 24, 28, 29.
A sense of financial panic…
President Hoover sought to reassure that “recovery is just around the corner,” but privately he grew frustrated: “The problem with capitalism is capitalists. They’re too damned greedy.”
Farm economy had been ailing since 1925….
Corn prices drop from $1.85/bushel to .41 cents/bushel.
Wheat prices drop from $2.58/bushel to .92 cents/bushel.
Record number of foreclosures
Consumer credit leads to consumer debt….
Ford Model T, $290 in 1926. 75% of Americans purchased their automobiles on the installment plan.
Urban economy begins to crumble…
By 1933, unemployment hovered around 30%,
100,00 business had failed.
A sense of ‘hard times’ covers the nation
‘How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?’
Musician Blind Alfred Reed (center) 1920s
Excerpts from Blind Alfred Reed’s How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live? (1929)
“There once was a time when everything was cheap,
But now prices almost puts a man to sleep.
When we pay our grocery bill,
We just feel like making our will.
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?”
“I remember when dry goods were cheap as dirt,
We could take two bits and buy a dandy shirt.
Now we pay three bucks or more,
Maybe get a shirt that another man wore .
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?”
“Most all preachers preach for gold and not for souls,
That's what keeps a poor man always in a hole.
We can hardly get our breath,
Taxed and schooled and preached to death.
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?”
“Oh, it's time for every man to be awake,
We pay fifty cents a pound when we ask for steak.
When we get our package home,
A little wad of paper with gristle and a bone.
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?”
15,000 “Bonus Marchers,” veterans of World War I, camp out in a Hooverville in Anacostia Flats…
President Hoover orders Army to destroy their camps…
All of you there All of you there Pay the bonus, pay the bonus For the Yanks are starving, The Yanks are starving everywhere - sung by Bonus Marchers to the tune of "The Yanks are coming"
Down and Out….
Uncle Dave Macon, All In Down And Out Blues (1930s) It was hippety-hop to the bucket shop,
I've lost all my money and now I have flopped,
Chorus:
It's hard times, Billy, poor boy,
It's hard times, when you're down and out.
Well this is the truth and it certainly exposes,
Wall Street's proposition is not all roses
I put up my money to win some more,
I lost all I had and it left me so sore.
I thought I would drink to wear it off,
Bootleg so high that it left me worse off.
If they catch you with whiskey in your car,
You're handicapped and there you are.
They'll take you to jail and if you can't make bond
Content yourself there, why you're certainly at home.
I've got no silver and I've got no gold,
I'm almost naked and it's done turned cold
You ask that judge to treat you well.
You offer a hundred dollars, or he'll send you to Atlanta.
Popularity of gangster movies and outlaws during Great Depression
Well, you say that I'm an outlaw, You say that I'm a thief. Here's a Christmas dinner For the families on relief.
Yes, as through this world I've wandered I've seen lots of funny men; Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel, Yes, as through your life you roam, You won't never see an outlaw Drive a family from their home.
-- Woody Guthrie, “Pretty Boy Floyd”
Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd lived from 1904-1934. He grew up in Oklahoma and turned to crime while young, gaining fame as a bank robber. He was arrested in Ohio but escaped from authorities, who blamed him for a string of bank heists to come. The FBI proclaimed him a “Public Enemy.” A $56,000 reward was offered for his apprehension, but Floyd escaped several more efforts to arrest him, including a shootout with Oklahoma police in 1932. He was shot and killed by FBI agents in Ohio in 1934. His funeral in Oklahoma reportedly drew between twenty and forty thousand people.
In California, hard times on top of hard lives….
"In these unhappy times depression still pursues us; lots of prickly pear is eaten for lack of other food.
No light is seen in the houses nor does water flow from the tap; the people are in tatters and in a deplorable state.”
-- Depression-era Mexican-American corrido (traditional ballad)
Nativist anger in the 1920s directed at those who would work…
“This is the truth, you know, it’s history.”
-- Cesar Chavez
U.S. Government’s “repatriation” policy resulted in the forced deportation from California and other states of hundreds of thousands of Mexican laborers in the 1930s, including Mexican-Americans, who made up over half of the total. For those who stayed, discrimination a fact of life.
A political storm was on the rise…
Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised a “New Deal” for the American people….
“This nation asks for action, and action now.”
