Download Great Depression

Mississippi Studies
Chapter 4 Part 2
Roaring 20s
 After World War 1 America experienced
a period of economic growth
 Many new things were invented
 Two new things influenced Americans
spending
 Installment Plan (buy now pay later)
 Planned Obsolence (going out of style)
 Flappers
Great Depression
 Great Depression – period of economic
downfall
 1929-1941
 October 29, 1929 the day the stock
market crashed
 Herbert Hoover was the President during
the Great Depression
Great Depression
 Causes of the Great
 Buying on credit
 Income Gap
 Regular ups and downs of the business
cycle
Great Depression
 Effects of the Great Depression
 Stock Market Crashed
 Banks Failed
 Businesses Failed
Great Depression
 Americans blamed Hoover and found
ways to misuse his name
 EX:
 Hoovervilles
 Hoover blankets
 Hoover Flags
Great Depression
 How Americans dealt with the Great
Depression
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Rented out rooms of their houses
Sold apples
Raised chickens and sold their eggs
Stood in breadlines – places to get a bowl of
soup and a piece of bread
Great Depression
 Cotton went from 5 cents a pound to .8
cents a pound
 The state was in debt 63 million dollars
Great Depression
 Hoover attempted various things to fix
the problems, but they did not work the
way he wanted
 As a result of his failed policies Franklin
D Roosevelt was elected President
New Deal
 Fireside Chats
 New Deal – FDR’s plan to rebuild the
economy
 New Deal Programs
 CCC – government hired single men 18 to 25 to
create national parks and forests
 CWA – created “make work” jobs for people (raking
leaves)
 AAA – gave farmers money to reduce the amount of
crops they produced
New Deal
 New Deal Programs
 TVA – provided hydroelectric power to seven rural
states including North MS
 Still exist today
 FDIC – insured bank deposits up to $5,000
 Still exist today
 Social Security Act – covers three areas
 Unemployment insurance
 Provided people 65 and older retirement
 Provided money to be people with disabilities
and women and children who lost their father
 Still exist today
New Deal
 These were just some of the programs in
the New Deal
 They did relieve some burdens however
it did cost the government money
World War II
 Many historians believe that WWII got us out of
the Great Depression
 WWII 1939-1941
 Event that caused WWII was Hitler invaded
Poland
 Two sides of the war
 Allied Powers – France, Great Britain, Soviet Union,
and the US
 Axis Powers – Germany, Italy, and Japan
World War II
 The United States entered WWII in 1941
 Reason the US entered the war: Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941
 Doolittle Raid
 Manhattan Project – code name for creating
the atomic bomb
 Two reasons we dropped the atomic bomb on
Japan
 Japanese would not surrender
 Japanese would fight till the death
World War II
 The US dropped two atomic bombs on
Japan on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
 This effectively ended the war
MS and WWII
 World War II resulted in the construction
of Army camps and Air bases
 Construction in MS
 Camp Shelby in Hattiesburg
 Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi
 Columbus Air Force Base
Life After the War in MS
 After World War II sharecropping
disappeared because:
 People went to work in the factories
 They realized they could make more money
 As a result of the war agriculture is no
longer the main employer or the major
source of income
Developing Modern
Agriculture
 Mississippi A and M (MSU) was established to
provide education about agriculture to the MS
farmer
 Cooperative Extensive Service was created by
the federal government to teach MS farmers
new techniques
 New technique: mechanization of farming (using
machines)
 This new method reduced the need for workers
 Also reduced the number of farms and allowed the ones
still producing to be bigger
Modern Agriculture
 Poultry and egg production has become
the states largest cash crop
 Fastest growing crop in MS is catfish
 MS produces 80% of the worlds farm raised
catfish
Industry
 MS politicians realized the state should
practice BAWI because of the Great
Depression
 BAWI – Balancing Agriculture With Industry
 Three reasons for limited industrial
growth
 Lack of coal – source of energy
 Poorly educated people
 Farmed out of habit
Industry
 Three reasons Industries want to come to
Mississippi
 Tax exemptions
 Ready made buildings
 Low wage labor (cost of living is lower)
Industry
 The largest and most important industry
to come to MS under BAWI was ingalls
shipyard
 The shipyard is also the largest industrial
employer
Modern Industry
 By 1996 manufacturing was the largest
employer in MS
 Two new sources of income
 Gaming (casinos)
 Tourism
 Today 75% of Mississippians make their
living in the following ways:
 Factories, Trade, Service, Government, and
Tourism