Download The World Between the Wars + The Great Depression File

A study of the events that occurred after World War 1 and
leading up to World War 2
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCXSuaOozDE
 This power point summarises the key events that
occurred after World War 1 and eventually lead to the
outbreak of World War 2
 Many countries went though restructures and
revolutions in the form of:
 Economies
 Politics
 Social ideologies (ideas, beliefs, aspirations of a
particular group, culture or individual)
 World War I left the whole world in an economic
depression with high unemployment everywhere
 Creation of League of Nation was formed in an attempt to
restore world order
 Proved to be ineffective and did not work
 Russia, hurt economically from the first World War. Lost
millions of men and farmland because of Germany. In
order to try and restore their nation, Russia's three main
leaders, Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky, tried to change Russia-the "Russian Revolution
 We will look into this more deeply after the EID break
 Germany suffered from World War I. Wanted to gain power
to defend itself from the French's threatening desires – did
this by quickly and quietly building its army. Germany also
began to have a change in economic, political, and social
views. The nation converted into a mercantilist society
 High tariffs, especially on manufactured goods, are an almost
universal feature of mercantilist policy
 Japan – economic downfall, starts using imperialistic ideals
in an attempt to restore and expand economy
 Imperialistic: extending a nation’s authority by territorial
acquisition
 In an attempt to restore plummeting economy, the
United States decides to play it safe and instead of
pursuing action into what could have been and what
was World War II, began to undertake isolationist
policies under the basis of the Monroe Doctrine
 Monroe Doctrine: principle of US foreign policy that
opposes the influence or interference of outside powers
in America
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYD9fb---Gs
 Summary of points from the clip?
 Stock market
crash
 Didn’t realize
the effect it
would have
 No money to
replenish what
was borrowed
Many found being broke
humiliating.
Leading up to this
terrible event in
history………………
 The new concept of
“credit”
 People were buying:
 Automobiles
 Appliances
 Clothes
 Fun times reigned
 Dancing
 Flappers
 Drinking
 Remind you of the movie the Great Gatsby?
 Set in 1922 – see the lavish lifestyle that lots of
Americans lived by
 Displays American society in the ‘roaring twenties’
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIVUlxVfOSw
 Credit system
 People didn’t really have the
money they were spending
 WWI
 The U.S. was a major credit
loaner to other nations in
need
 Many of these nations could
not pay us back
 People bought
stocks on margins
 If a stock is $100 you
can pay $10 now and
the rest later when
the stock rose
 Stocks fall
 Now the person has
less than $100 and no
money to pay back
 With people panicking
about their money
investors tried to sell
their stocks
 This leads to a huge
decline in stocks
 Stocks were worthless now
 People who bought on “margins”
now could not pay
 Investors were average people
that were now broke
 Americans were not prepared for the financial
crisis. Those who were speculating & “making a
killing” on Wallstreet, trying to get rich quick by
playing the Stock Market in the short term, were
hit with a grim reality in October of 1929.
 Farmers were already feeling the effects
 Prices of crops went down
 Many farms foreclosed
 People could not afford luxuries
 Factories shut down
 Businesses went out
 Banks could not pay out money
 People could not pay their taxes
 Schools shut down due to lack of funds
 Many families became homeless and had to live
in shanties
 Herbert Hoover was
president at the start
 Philosophy: We’ll make it!
 What He Did: Nothing
 The poor were looking for
help and no ideas on how
to correct or help were
coming
People everywhere were
effected by the depression
It wasn’t till President
Roosevelt took over and
tried to put the economy
back together that people
even saw a glimmer of hope
 Determination and help from a new president, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, turned the country around.
 Roosevelt, elected in 1932, created countless government
programs that altered the role of government in American
society forever.
 Among the many programs Roosevelt created, the CCC
(Civilian Conservation Corps) was phenomenal. Teenagers
and young adults all over the country were put to work in
national forests, rebuilding and cleaning. They were given
room and board on camps in the national forests and were
required to send home a percentage of their earnings to
their families.