Download The Great Depression Takes Its Toll I

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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
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UNIT
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CHAPTER
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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?
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5. What was the first destination of most people leaving the southern part
of the Dust Bowl?
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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.
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The Great Depression Begins 39
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CLASS
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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
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Highest fifth
Lowest fifth
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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
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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
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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
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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
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