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Name Date GEOGRAPHY APPLICATION: MOVEMENT The Great Depression Takes Its Toll Section 2 Directions: Read the paragraphs below and study the map carefully. Then answer the questions that follow. he effects of the Great Depression were heart breaking. In 1932, for example, not a single person was employed in 28 percent of the families in the United States. Widespread unemployment contributed greatly to the steep 40—percent fall in average funilv income in the four years 1929—19:3:3. In 1933 nearly 13 million workers, about 25 per cent of the U.S. total, had no jobs. Rates of unemployment, though, the Some states—with industries such radio and airplane production— were relatively well off, that at point, in 1934, there difference between the highest and lowest state unemployment rates. This disparity in unemployment rates started people moving all over the country. At the begin- T were far from uniform across country. as so one was a 33-percent ning, many unemployed city dwellers moved to the countryside, hoping that farms were better off nomically than cities. But soon agriculture suffered just as much as other businesses, especially during the Dust Bowl drought that began in 1933. Tens of thousands of families in the hardest-hit states— North Dakota. South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas —put everything they owned into cars and trucks and left home. (By 1936, some areas were ghostlike, with more than half of the houses abandoned.) By the end of the decade, all of the hardest-hit states except for Colorado and Texas had experienced population declines, even though the U.S. population grew by 9 million people during the decade. unemployment and Major Migration Routes 1934 I C’) a) Cl) -C c’s C a) Os 0 C) a) a) 0 C,) C 0 a) E Persons receiving unemployment as % of total state population a) -C Fr’ j tl-t5% o 400 blues 0-10% — o Migration route ooo Kilometers Q 40 UNIT 6, CHAPTER 22 The Great Depression Takes Its Toll continued Name Interpreting Text and Visuals 1. Which four states had the highest unemployment rate in 1934? 2. Which region of the country—east or west of the Mississippi River— was better off in 1934? What statistics support your choice? 3. Which of the hardest-hit Dust Bowl states lost population in the 1930s? 4. What was the main destinationof most people leaving the northern part of the Dust Bowl? Through which states did they travel? d 5. What was the first destination of most people leaving the southern part of the Dust Bowl? c,) D 0 W at oes t e migration nort war rom Los Ange es imp y. 0 a) E a) 1— The Great Depression Begins Geography Application 41 Date Name PRACTICE Section 2 Formulating Historical Questions The Depression changed the face of rural America as many farmers lost the land that had been in their families for generations. Read the passage below and think of questions that would lead you to find out more about the situation. Fill in the chart with a question for each category (See Skillbuilder Handbook, p. 1044.) s prices for corn, wheat, and other crops plum meted during the 1930s, many farmers couldn’t meet payments on their farms or equipment and fell deeply into debt. To recover some of the money the farmers owed them, loan companies auctioned off the farmers’ possessions. The money from the auction, of course, went to the loan com pany rather than to the farmer. In the following passage, an elderly man whose family had farmed the same land in Iowa for nearly a century, describes the “Thirties Depression” and how it affected his community. A The farmers became desperate. It got so a neighbor wouldn’t buy from a neighbor, because the farmer didn’t get any of it. It First they’d take went to the creditors. your farm, then they took your livestock, then your farm machinery. Even your . . . household goods. And they’d move you off. The farmers were almost united. We had penny auction sales. Some neighbor would bid a penny [for an item on sale] and give it back to the owner. Grain was being burned [for fuel]. It was cheaper than coal. Corn was being burned... In South Dakota, the county elevator listed corn as minus three cents. Minus three cents a bushel. If you wanted to sell ‘em a bushel of corn, you had to bring in three cents. They couldn’t afford to handle it. Just think what happens when you can’t get out from under. . from Oscar Heline, quoted in Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel (New York: Pantheon, 1970), 217—218. 0 a) Your questions 0 Who? C,) C G) What? c,) D 0 a0 When? aD 0) 0) Cl) C Where? 0 a) S a) Why? F- How? The Great Depression Begins 39 NAME CLASS DATE Identifying Central Issues: Signs of Trouble Income distribution—how money is divided among the people in a nation—is a subject of great interest to economic policy makers who pose such questions as: What proportion of the population controls the wealth of the country? What are the major causes of poverty? While such questions troubled some Americans in the late 1920s, policy makers seemed relatively unconcerned about the way in which income was distributed in the United States. Being able to identify and analyze economic problems presented in graphs will make complex issues easier to understand. The graph to the right pre sents information about personal income in the United States in 1929. Use the information in the graph to answer the questions that follow. DISTRIBUTION OF U. S. PERSONAL INCOME IN 1929 E 0 C) C,, C.) 0 (J) C.) -C.: ci) 0 cci 0 H C C.) CC. C,, CC. C) I 1 Highest fifth Lowest fifth I C C,, C) C) Population (Divided by Income) C C Cd, 1. What proportion of the total personal income in the country went to the top 5 percent of the population? To the lowest two-fifths, or 40 percent? 2. How would you describe the distribution of personal income in the United States in 1929? 3. If labor unions had been a stronger force in the United States in the 1920s, do you think income distribution might have been different in 1929? Explain. 4. In what way was income distribution in 1929 a sign of a troubled economy? © Prentice-Hall, Inc. Chapter 22 Critical Thinking • 65 C H A p T E R 22 CLASS NAME DATE The Great Flood of 1993 Snaking its way through the center of the continent, the Mississippi River serves as the great drainage ditch of the continent’s heartland. Runoff from the slopes of the eastern Rockies and western Appalachians wends its way through a complex river system to the Mississippi, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Over millions of years, as a result of periodic flooding, broad alluvial plains have spread out on either side of the river’s banks. Flooding also has changed the course of the river and has created islands that slow its southward flow to the Gulf of Mexico. These natural changes have served to protect the land down stream from being inundated by floods. Look at the map below. Which rivers shown are tributaries of the Mississippi River? 14 • Unit 7 Survey Edition Unit 3 Modern American History Edition © Prentice-Hall, Inc. NAME CLASS DATE (continued) CHANGING THE RIVER Over years, people too have made changes to the river. First they built on the flood plains. Then they constructed levees, or walls, to protect lives and property from floods. To make the river more navigable for shipping, engineers eliminated the islands, straightened the river, and dredged the riverbed to make the river deeper. Such changes caused the river to flow faster. Then dams and reservoirs were built to hold back excess water and prevent flooding of farms and towns downstream. Such engineering feats made day-to-day life easier and more profitable for the people of the region. Dredging and straightening made the river a reliable transportation route for large cargo ships. Dams and levees removed the con stant threat of flood damage to towns and farm land along the banks of the Mississippi and its tributaries, High water levels in the reservoirs provided opportunities for recreational boating, fishing, and waterskiing. INTERACTION: RAIN AND HUMAN ACTIVITY LED TO FLOODING The year 1993 was an unusually wet one in the Midwest. The Mississippi River and its major trib utaries were filled to capacity by the summer. In July, an unusual weather pattern kept warm, wet air hovering over the entire region and released 150 to 200 percent more rainfall than normal. The rivers were overloaded as runoff from 1,250,000 square miles, or about one third of the total area of the United States, made its way to the Gulf. Without the natural braking action of islands and bends, the waters of the narrowed and straightened river sped downstream. Reservoirs GEOGRAPHY&HISTORYJ that should have accommodated some of the overflow were of little help because their water levels had been kept high for recreational uses. In an effort to prevent the river from over flowing and damaging property along its banks, thousands of volunteers reinforced levees and riverbanks with sandbags. But with nowhere to go, the water rose and in many places broke through levees and flooded the land. Towns, roads, bridges, and valuable cropland were deluged. Look again at the map. What areas were the hardest hit? Cleaning up the flood area would cost bil lions in federal disaster relief funds. Like most natural disasters, the great flood revived the debate about the role of people in such catastro phes. In this case, debate centered on the artificial flood controls that protect against overflows in normal years but may intensify flood damage in extraordinary years like 1993. However, if people insist on living in flood plains, “you have to take precautions,” says a water control chief in the Army Corps of Engineers in Illinois. LINKS I I I I TOTHE PRESENT The ability to understand the impact of human interaction with the environment helps us make better deci sions today to avoid disaster tomorrow, GEOGRAPHIC CONNECTIONS 1. Movement navigable? How was the Mississippi River changed to make it more 2. Interaction What caused the great flood of 1993? 3. Identifying Alternatives What might people living along the Mississippi River do to prevent future flood damage? © Prentice-Hall, Inc. Unit 7 Survey Edition Unit 3 Modern American History Edition • 15