Driving Ideas for Semester Two:
1. What were the causes of the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression?
Stock Market Crash Causes
- Stock market was booming during the 20’s which gave the common people confidence and they began to play the stock market by borrowing money from the banks
- Stocks = a share of ownership of a company and Stock Market = people buy and sell stock
- Buying on Credit; system worked like credit cards work now; borrowing money; began to go into debt and quit spending money which caused stock value to plummet.
- Overproduction of goods
- Overvalued stocks= stocks were being sold for much more than they were actually worth. When people quit spending money, businesses lost profits but were still selling stock for higher prices.
- Company profit went down and stock prices went up; people went in debt so when people realized this they began to try and sell their stock. But, everyone was in the same boat so it basically became a domino effect.
- Buying on Margin = allowed more middle class people to invest large amounts of money into the stock market by using loans from banks to pay for stocks.
- No government regulation on banks; there were no limits on how much money banks could loan out at a time so they were wiped out when people quit paying loans back.
Causes of Great Depression
- Stock Market Crash (main cause) – companies went out of business which caused unemployment.
- Bank failures- over 9000 banks failed during this time period; people’s life savings were lost
- Reduction in purchases; everyone stopped buying either because they couldn’t afford it or due to fear that more economic problems would occur. This led to major unemployment.
- American Economic Policy with Europe (Smoot-Hawley Tariff)- highered tariffs and taxes on imported goods which led to less trade between Americans and other countries.
- Drought conditions/dust bowl in the Great Plains- drought really brought the depression to the Great Plains and caused people to sell their farms etc.
2. What impact did the stock market crash and Great Depression have on the lives of people in the United States?
Children:
- Boxcar Kids = children (older kids that felt like a burden on their family) that ran away from home and lived on railroads/trains in order to travel from city to city to find jobs to make some money for their families. Girls would dress like boys to get jobs
Women
- Household jobs were enhanced
- They were fired because in order to make more jobs for the men
Men
- Felt the failures because they couldn’t get jobs and provide for their families
- Suicide rates increased
Families
- Marriages/divorces/child birth were all put off (decreased in rate) during this time period because of money issues.
Farmers
- Many lived off of the land
- Bartered for the things they needed
Hoovervilles
- A town made small little areas with shakes and boxes where homeless people lived; it was a slam to Hoover
3. What did the United States government do to help alleviate the problems the Great Depression brought to our country?
Hoover Presidency
- Hoover initiated the Hoover Dam which made many jobs, prevented floods(helped farmers out), provided electricity (that the government could tax and make money on)
- Reconstruction Finance- purpose was to lend money to help the economy. The government would loan money to big businesses and banks to help create jobs for people. This was the trickle-down theory in action.
- Trickle-down theory- government gives out tax deduction to big businesses in hopes that it reaches the other classes as well.
- He stopped immigrants and kind of kicked them out so that more Americans could have jobs.
- Lowered Taxes
Roosevelt Presidency
- New Deal = relief for unemployed and poor, recover of economy, reform financial system to prevent repeat of depression.
- AAA = Agricultural adjustment Act, government would pay the farmers to kill off an area of their crops in order to prevent overproduction of goods
- FERA Federal Emergency Relief Act = helped distribute millions of dollars of aid to the unemployed workers.
- National youth Administration = focused on providing education and work for younger/middle age people
- SEC Securities and Exchange Commission = created to regulate security markets (stock market action) and protect investors (keep them better informed)
- PWA, CWA, WPA were all construction projects that built schools, hospitals, and office buildings that created jobs for people.
- EBRA- FDR shut down banks and completely reconstructed them to be more safe- tried to gain people’s trust back in banks
4. What long lasting impact did the Great Depression have on the US and world?
Impacts on United States
- Medicare = federal system of health insurance for people over the age of 65
- A generation of fear (fear of spending money and distrust in banks)
- Retirement Income – putting money away through your lifetime so when you retire, you have enough money
- Welfare- giving a certain amount of money to states to distribute as they please to people who need help and aid.
- Wagner Act = companies must treat their employees right
Impacts on World
- Unemployment rate increased nationally
- Germany: had to pay off war debt; the Treaty of Versataile took away Germany’s army and made them pay 33 billion dollars to Britain and France. These difficult times were a big reason Hitler rose to power
- UK: Unemployment rate was the worse here (70-90%). Their economy really relied on exports with other countries, so when others stopped buying from them their economy was hit hard.
5. What were the causes of WWII?
- The Great Depression (worldwide)
- Germany Invaded Poland (with the help of the Soviets) in order to get that land back
- Pearl Harbor got the United States Involved (Dec, 7 1941)
- Asia got involved when Japan invaded Manchuria
6. What impact did the United States have on WWII?
- Our troops and factories; the amount of troops that we had was huge; the amount of war goods we produced equaled and bettered all the other countries combined
- Nuclear Bombs; it ended the war in Japan much more quickly than it would have without it
- War bonds; the people of the United States paid for this war, without that help we wouldn’t have been able to afford this war
7. What were the goals for the US during the Cold War?
- Stopping Communism
- Promote Democracy
- Policy of Containment – containing communism
8. What were some of the major events that took place during the Cold War?
Berlin Blockade/airlift – Germany and Berlin were split into 4 zones after WW2. United States were giving supplies to West Berlin, so the Soviets put up a blockade. All we did was use aircrafts to send supplies into them. Stalin ended up just taking down the blockade to avoid war.
Cuban Missile Crisis- started because United States had missiles in Turkey pointing toward the Soviets. The Soviets then proceeded to place their missiles in Cuba at us. Then there was a 13 day stand-off with bad communication between the Soviets and United States. We were on the brink of war when we came to a resolution. The Soviets would pull their missiles out of Cuba and we would take ours out of Turkey (6 months later); we also promised we would never invade Cuba.
Red Scare/McCarthyism- The Red Scare was when the United States was worried about communism being spread in our country (either by outsiders or war) and McCarthy said he had a briefcase of all the names of people who were communists; McCarthyism is making false accusations without having proper information.
Space Race- It was a competition between us and the Soviets involving our space technology. The soviets launched Sputnik, first space satellite in space, had the first women in space, then we sent Sally Ride; we kept coming in second. It united our country, education wise, and everything else, and we landed the first man on the moon (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Cullins)
Bay of Pigs – Cuban Exiles wanted to overtake their government, Fidel Castro, with the help of the United States and hopefully the civilians that were still in Cuba. At the last minute, United States dropped out and didn’t help them in battle.
Berlin Wall – West Germany was democracy and east was communism; the people trapped in the east kept escaping to the west so the Soviets put up a wall in order to keep their people on the east communist side. Just one day, a new German/Soviet leader just said they weren’t going to stop people anymore and many of them fled to the west.
End of the Cold War- Reagan had great communication with the Soviet leader; he was very tough on communism. The Soviet leader, Gurbatrab, was willing for change in his country.
9. Why did the US go to war in Korea and Vietnam and what were outcome of those wars?
- To stop the spread of communism
- To promote democracy
- Promote open market goods for US goods to prevent another depression
- Korea (didn’t spread) Vietnam, we didn’t necessarily win but didn’t necessarily lose
- Nixon called for the Vietnamization of the war; kind of like Iraq now
- The treaty between north and South Vietnam didn’t last and US did not help the South the second time.
10. How did the Cold War come to an end?
- Reagan was very anti-communists
- The Soviet leader, Gurbatrab, was willing for change in his country
11. Know these major post-Cold War Events:
-JFK Assassination – Harvard Lee Oswald killed him while riding in a car on the way to a political party; he was shot twice and conspiracies say that there was more than one person who did it. Later Oswald was shot and killed (Possible attackers:
-Watergate- Nixon’s Republican party broke into Democratic party and Nixon denied it
-Iran Hostage Crisis- Iran held 52 Americans for 444 days because we had their “Shaw” and they wanted him back. They ended up giving them back when they went to war with Iraq and were desperate.
-Persian Gulf War(1991)- Iran invaded Kewait
Iraq- Sudam Husan; we thought they had WMD
-War in Afghanistan- Bin Laden; 9-11
-9/11- 4 planes (2 towers, pentagon, pennsylvania) Al Queda terrorists attack
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