Экономическое развитие США в начале ХХ века и Великая Депрессия

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Secondary School № 8

The Ministry of Defence

Of the Russian Federation

The Economic Development of the USA in the First Half of the XX Century and the Great Depression.

Research paper by

Tsarev Dmitri

Grade 10”A”

Scientific adviser (teacher)

Nadezhda Prokosheva

Sevastopol

2006

The outline

Introduction. p.2

Chapter I: The rise of industry. p.3

  1. The rapid expansion of the railroads

  2. The growth of big business and government’s control over it

  3. People’s struggle for a better life

Chapter II: The wave of the immigration and its influence on the social and economic life in the country. p.6

  1. The growth of the cities

  2. The great inventions and a new way of life in cities

  3. Trade unions and the era of fight for rights

Chapter III: World war I and its consequences for the USA. p.10

  1. Labor unrest

  2. Racial unrest (ku-klux Klan, anti – immigration laws)

  3. The new era (jazz age)

Chapter IV. The Great Depression and The New Deal.:

p.13

  1. The beginning of the Great Depression and its reasons

  2. F. D. Roosevelt and his New Deal

  3. Government’s efforts to reduce the immigration

  4. The opposition to the New Deal

  5. The role of the New Deal in coping the depression

Conclusion. p.17

Introduction

The modern USA represents an interesting object of researches for economists of the whole world. The country that has managed for a rather short period of time to become the world’s economic leader should cause interest. Besides, nowadays America shows significant success in carrying out social programs: in supporting the poorest layers of the population, in solving the problems of unemployment, racial discrimination, criminality, etc. Certainly, a number of problems still remains, but the general dynamics of development are evident.

The 1920s were called the New Era in American life. This decade was the time of unprecedented social, economic and political change. It was the time when America was becoming a modern nation. It was a period of almost uninterrupted prosperity and economic expansion. In 1928 Herbert Hoover, President of the country, proclaimed,” We in America are nearer to the final triumph over poverty that ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us”. Only fifteen months later, the nation plunged into the severest and most prolonged economic depression in its history-a depression that continued in one form or another for a full decade. The Depression was a traumatic experience for individual Americans, who faced unemployment, the loss of land and other property, and in some cases homelessness and starvation. But the country had been able to survive and recover.

There are a lot of problems in the national economy of Russia and Ukraine nowadays: the industrial production is decreasing, the prices are constantly rising, and the rate of inflation is very high. People are losing their jobs because many factories and plants are being closed. This process reminds the period of the Great Depression in the USA. I got interested in this theme for my research because I would like to understand the processes taking place in my country better.

So, the main aim of this research paper is to understand how America being influenced so much by the Depression in the first half of the century was able to become a super power again in the second half of the XX century. Also I want to understand why this depression began in the beginning of the XX century despite positive social and economic development in the country at that period of time.

In my research I would like to find out:

  • how the life of America changed after the Civil War of 1861-1865;

  • how America, being such a young country has become a super nation;

  • the processes in American life that preceded the Great Depression and how they influenced social and economic life of the United States;

  • if the Great Depression was an inevitable, or predictable phenomenon;

  • how the United States managed to cope with the Depression and its consequences.

Chapter 1

The Rise of Big Business.

Life in America changed very much after the Civil war. Americans lost no time in industrializing their nation and in building trade relations with other countries.

As a result of new inventions, economic activity increased. By the time Americans celebrated their first hundred years of independence in 1876, the US was one of the world’s leading industrialized powers. The American economy was booming and prosperity was spreading, though half of industrial workers lived in poverty.

The driving force behind the industrial growth of the United States was the booming railroad industry. As an example I can give the following statistics: in 1865 the nation had about 48.000 km of track and by the 1900 320.000 km of tracks covered the nation like a giant spider web. It was the biggest railroad in the world.

Some railroaders were laying tracks in the West; others were making lines in the East and the Midwest. The south repaired lines which were wrecked during the Civil War and added seven times more miles of tracks. As railroad crisscrossed the United States, they created a national market for the country’s raw materials and manufactured goods. Railroads carried coal from mines, oil from wells, etc.

Also railroads made life better for different merchants who could now deliver goods across the country, shopping by the mail again. In 1872 Aaron Montgomery Ward, a young salesman had an idea for giving farmers a greater selection of goods than they could find in local stores. That year he sent out one – page list of items for sale. By 1874 his single sheet had grown to a 72 – page catalog.

Ward soon had a competitor which rushed after the pioneer into this new field of work - Sears, Roebuck and Company. Their catalog including more 1000 pages of items was called “the Great Wish Book”.

Madame C. J. Walker created a national market for her hair – care products both by sending them through the mail and by hiring young women to sell these products door to door. Starting her company in the early 1900s with $1.50, she was the first African American women in the nation to become the millionaire.

Of course, such a big system as the railroads of the United States needed very strict system of regulation. In the beginning of this system it was very difficult to regulate it. People had to risk helping trains to go on rails without failures or disasters on railroads. John Westinghouse’s air brakes and George M. Pullman’s sleeping cars made rail travels safer and more comfortable.

As the USA industrialized and broadened its trade links, a group of men emerged who would dominate the economic future of the country. These were the industrial giants. They had a sense of vision to see opportunities for production and marketing where others had not. And they had the willingness to take risks. The industrial giants were able to use new inventions and corporate systems to make production costs lower and provide products and services to growing numbers of consumers.

When America entered the 20th century, industrial power became concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people.

Among them there were such people as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J. Piermont Morgan and Henry Ford.

Andrew Carnegie was an immigrant from Scotland. When he was young his family emigrated from Scotland to the USA. His young life was very difficult. He tried so many different jobs that it is difficult to imagine how he could work so hard. He started to work, earning only $1.20 and then he earned $2.50 per week. It was hardly to imagine that this boy would be a millionaire in future. But suddenly his talent of being businessman was recovered with his employer which impressed him greatly – Thomas A. Scott. Than his career began growing rapidly.

Andrew Carnegie pioneered many of the changes in American business. He followed a simple formula for success: “Adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most” about your business. That formula made Carnegie into what admires called a “captain of the industry.” Carnegie’s first venture was building iron bridges. In 1865 Carnegie and four partners formed the Keystone Bridge Company.

Carnegie knew that steel was better than iron for large construction projects because it was stronger and more flexible. However, making iron into steel was expensive. But salvation of this problem came to him during the visit to the Britain to his colleague Henry Bessemer. Process that was invented by the Henry Bessemer reduced the cost of the making steel. Upon his return Carnegie began to produce steel instead of iron. A year later, Carnegie and several partners chose Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, as the site for a steel mill that used the Bessemer process.

Carnegie’s main wealth started in the period between 1870s and 1890s, in the period when steel production was growing rapidly. Competition for customers was fierce. Carnegie was determined to win only by selling a better product at a lower cost than other companies. He hired scientists to improve his steel and the best managers he could find to produce it. He also set out to control every step in the steelmaking process. He did not want to pay outsiders for work his own company could do at a lower cost. By the 1890s Carnegie’s company was mining all the ore it needed from its own mines. His own ships and railroad transported the ore to his Pittsburgh mill.

Carnegie was also gaining control of the steel industry through consolidation. In the 1870s and 1880s he bought out several rival companies. In 1892 he combined them to form giant Carnegie Steel Company. It produced 25 percent of the nation’s steel.

J. Piermont Morgan was another man to start new era of the American economy. In the late 1880s he was the most powerful investment banker in the United States. Believing that cutthroat competition was wasteful, he bought failing railroads and consolidated them.

Next Morgan decided to merge his railroads with steel companies into a single large corporation. Only Andrew Carnegie stood in his way. Instead of challenging Carnegie, the wily Morgan offered to buy him out. The idea appeared to Carnegie who was now 66 years old. He sent Morgan a scrap of paper with his paper with his price on it: $480 million. Morgan agreed on the spot.

In 1901 Morgan formed the United States Steel Corporation. The largest corporation in the world at that time, it made three-fifths of the nation’s steel.

John D. Rockefeller was a person that started his work in the unknown field of business – oil.

In 1855 a scientist reported that oil was a good lubricant for machinery. Refined oil also made an excellent source of light and heat.

In 1859 the nation’s first oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania, spurring a frantic rush for “black gold.” Soon oil wells were pumping in Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and West Virginia. By the early 1900s huge new oil fields had been discovered in Texas, California, and Oklahoma.

One of the early visitors to Pennsylvania’s oil fields was John D. Rockefeller. Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, he had started a business to sell farm produce when he was 20 years old. Instead of fighting in the Civil War, he paid for a substitute and expended his business. In 1862 Rockefeller established an oil-refinering business in Cleveland. Eight years later he reorganized the business as a corporation, Standard Oil of Ohio. Faced with intense competition and falling prices, Rockefeller set out to gain control of the oil-refinering industry. He made deals with railroads to give rebates to Standard Oil .He could then lower his prices and force rival refineries out of business. In a depression that began in 1873, he bought the bankrupt companies.

Henry Ford was another person who began to restore American economy. One of the greatest business successes of the 1920s – the “Automobile Boom” is closely connected with the name of Henry Ford. Automobile had been produced since 1890s but only the wealthy could afford them.

By the 1920s, however, automobile factories were using a less expensive production method. Developed by Henry Ford in 1913, the assembly line (conveyor belt) is a system which is used in different kinds of production all over the world even now. This system made the production of automobiles much cheaper and faster, so almost every American had an opportunity to buy a model of Ford’s production. The popularity of automobiles helped fuel the economic boom. Industries essential to auto manufacturing, such as steel, glass, rubber, oil refining, and road construction, experienced rapid growth and created thousands of new jobs. Gas stations and tourist courts (motels) – unknown in horse-and-buggy days – lined the roadsides. So, Henry Ford made his contribution into economic development and changing of the US.

Chapter 2

The wave of immigration

1. The role of the immigrants and their life in the cities.

One of the characteristic features of the immediate post-Civil War years was the tidal wave of immigration washing across the United States. Between 1860 and 1900 the United States received more than 13 million immigrants. Those were people from all corners of the world who hoped to find a better life in America. They were landless peasants from Italy, unemployed craftsmen from Germany, starving farmers from Ireland…Besides, Americans themselves also moved to the West after America had obtained new lands there and the transcontinental railroad had been built. Americans flocked to the cities from farms and small towns in huge numbers seeking better jobs and betters lives. The growth of cities was phenomenal.

The immigrants that were arriving from overseas were, for the most part, the landless, the unskilled, the poor. Part of their problem was that without money and job skills most of them were trapped in the great eastern sea cities that simply couldn’t handle them.

So, most of the people who came to the United States didn’t have happy and rich life in America. They lived in small poor houses, and they joined the army of the workless and poor people. Many immigrants worked at small dirty factories and were endangered by many different diseases. They were not protected enough, so this problem needed to be solved fast.

Many families were able to survive in America only because their children could earn some money.

Despite this, millions of immigrants helped build America. Some of them became rather rich and wealthy. But most of them still were poor, and lived in poor conditions.

2. The great new inventions change life of American citizens.

The great technical advances in American industry owed much to American inventors. After the American Revolution there were no machines to make people’s life easier. There were no cars, telephones, or electric lights. The new inventions that were made in the 19th century helped to transform America from an agricultural country to a highly developed industrial nation.

Alexander Graham Bell was an immigrant from Scotland. Alexander Bell was a teacher of the deaf children. He taught them how to speak. But we know him as the inventor of the telephone. He was the first person to get a patent for this invention. In 1876 he made the first telephone.. In a few years there were telephones completely in every house of American cities and people who were far apart could communicate with each other.

Thomas Alva Edison was the greatest inventor in the world’s history. He made more than 3000 different inventions: the “ballot machine”, quadruples, he upgraded the Bell’s telephone, he made the phonograph, and many other inventions. One of the most useful inventions was the electric bulb that made houses and streets of the United States full with light.

Jan Matzeliger was an African American who simplified the process of making shoes. He invented a special machine that could make shoes of many different sizes easily. Today most of the factories work using the same technology.

In this respect, special attention should be paid to Henry Ford. He was not only a great businessman, but he was also an inventor. For many years people in America had to ride horses but in 1896 Ford made one of the first cars in America.

He started a factory, the “Ford Motor Company” that made cars. He wanted his cars to be cheap and available for every American. .He used a conveyor belt in his factory. Thank to it, the cars were put together quickly, in less than two hours, and were not expensive. With the help of the conveyor line, it was also much easier and quicker to make different products. Conveyor lines are still used in many factories of America and other countries of the world.

All these inventions changed American way of life greatly. People began to live better with the help of different machines. The inventions like the electric bulb, the traffic light (made by Garrett Morgan in 1923), the telephone, the car and the conveyor belt changed the way Americans lived..

3. Immigrants are restrained in rights.

The beginning of the XX century was marked with the beginning of the company of social minorities for their rights. Immigrants, workers, women and children were those people who felt bad in the beginning of the XX century As it has been mentioned in one of the previous chapters, the living conditions of immigrants were very poor. They often knew English badly, they lived in small crowded houses, and many of them had to work at factories, being endangered by different diseases. Sometimes immigrants had to make their children work at factories to feed their families. Taking into consideration these problems, Government accepted a program about building many free schools where children of immigrants could study and some night schools where their parents joined. After few years the child labor was prohibited in the United States. Then the law was approved, which told that if an immigrant had been living in the United States for five years already he could be a citizen of the United States and exercise the right to vote. After changing their life many immigrants helped America greatly. Some of them became teachers or doctors, workers or diplomats. Their life was becoming better from year to year, though they still had a lot of problems.

Immigrants played an important role in the history of the United States. They made their contribution into building railroads, making new inventions, that helped America to become a more developed industrialized country, they took a active part in the working movement for a better life and civil rights.

  1. Women fight for their rights.

Four women were founding ways to make life of the simple Americans better.

Jane Addams helped people in a neighborhood of immigrants in Chicago. In 1889 she bought a large old house called Hull House. She bought Hull House with her own and with money of some other people. Hull House helped people from the neighborhood in many ways. Hull House workers took care of small children while their parents were at work. Immigrants learned to speak English at Hull House. Addams helped them to become American citizens. Addams started clubs at summer camp for children. She started the first playground in Chicago. She also worked to get new laws that would help the immigrants.

Janie Porter Barrett became the colleague of the Jane Addams. She was one who has followed the lead of Jane Addams. In 1890 she started the Locust Street Social Settlement House in Virginia. At this house Barrett helped African American women learn better ways to care for their homes and children.

Lillian Wald was one more woman that wanted other people to be happy. She was a nurse. Her parents were Jewish immigrant. In 1895 Wald started the Henry Street Settlement House. This house had a kindergarten, clubs, English classes, and a library. Lillian Wald also helped sick people. So she started a visiting nurse program in the New York City. Also she started school nurse program.

Alice Hamilton was a doctor who lived first worked at Hull House. She took care of sick children here. She understood that workers were working at terrible conditions. She understood that workers that worked at paint factories became poisoned because of lead that is in the paint. After the poisoned workers became weak . She showed how to work not to have such poisoning. Alice Hamilton worked also worked to get mew laws for factory workers.

Jane Addams, Janie Porter Barrett, Lillian Wald, Alice Hamilton, and other women proved that women could make important changes in America.

But soon, after World War I, women began to protest against their discrimination. They helped the country, working as doctors, workers at factories, but they still had no right to vote. They couldn’t vote for their country’s leaders. Many years before that time Susan B. Anthony and later Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted women to have such a right. They traveled through all over America and told men and women that the Constitution needed such an amendment. Anthony and Stanton worked together for many years. Elisabeth Cady Stanton died in 1902 and Susan B. Anthony died in 1906. When they died the Constitution still didn’t allow women to vote.

Other women were working for an amendment to the Constitution. And in 1920 their efforts were a success. Congress accepted the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution which has guaranteed the right of voting to the American women. Nowadays women work not only in Congress, they accept such jobs that used to be considered men’s ones. Now rights of women are written in the Constitution. Now there are many women who are successful n different spheres of economy of the USA.

  1. Unions help the working people.

By 1900 millions of Americans were working in factories. Many of them were immigrants. They spoke little English, some of them used to be criminals, some of them had to make their elder children work, too to feed their family. They could not earn enough money and they were afraid of being fired. Their children had no opportunity to visit school so in future they could join the army of unemployed.

Factory workers decided to start helping themselves. They started labor unions that worked for better conditions and higher salaries for workers. When employers didn’t want to increase salaries, workers started demonstrations called strikes. Often these actions brought losses to the bosses of the factories so they had to accept requirements of the workers. Labor unions have helped workers to improve working conditions.

Samuel Gompers was one of the most famous leaders of the unions. He was a Jewish immigrant from England. He started working in factories when he was only 13 years old. He became the leader of the one of the labor unions. Sam felt that workers all over America should have unions. He began working to get new legislation that would protect civil rights of proletarians. In 1886 he helped to start the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Many unions joined the AFL. Gompers was deserved president of the AFL. During his work here this organization prospered and became popular. Slowly AFL changed state of affairs: from that time workers were given big salaries, the conditions of places their worked in were completely always excellent. If something was wrong AFL tried to solve every problem which was caused by the masters of the factories.

There was one more person that worried about destiny of workers in United States. Mary Jones was an Irish immigrant who also helped workers to attend unions. She traveled all over the United States and called people to enter unions. She was called by workers “Mother Jones” because she was more than seventy years old and very kind to them. She also told people about their rights, helped them in a fight with their bosses. Mother Jones lived to be 100 he died in 1930.

By the beginning of the Great Depression millions of workers were joining unions.

  1. The politics of the Progressives.

Between 1900 and 1920 a reform movement developed in America which sought to remove injustices and hard ships caused by the new industrial society. The people involved in this movement came to be called Progressives. They took special measures concerning the health of women and children. They wanted the secret ballot, which would make elections more honest. Higher education and vocational training would help people earn more money. Regulation of the railroads would protect the public. The Progressives worked for all these things. The most important Progressive idea was that government had the responsibility to help the individual citizen.

On the whole it was a radically new movement. It differed from the former politics of the US government, because it was less conservative than previous generations of the governments that substituted each other from year to year in America’s office. The integrating of America to the world’s business began. From that moment the role of simple citizen became also rather high.

  1. The “Jazz Age”

In the 1920s praised morality of the Americans cracked. It was a dizzying time. The nation was experiencing greater prosperity than ever before. With prosperity came change. People began to create new forms of music and literature. New fashions became the rage. The writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose novels and stories captured the spirit of the decade, called it the “Jazz Age.” Others called it the “Roaring Twenties.”

The 1920s was also a time of conflict. Some Americans, alarmed by rapid changes in values and behavior, struggled to hold on to more familiar ideas and ways of life.

Chapter 3

World War I and its influence on the post-war life of the USA

In the beginning of World War I, President of the United States Woodrow Wilson tried to follow the policy of avoiding involvement in some dangerous conflicts in Europe. He hoped the United States would not play the role of mediator to help bring peace to Europe. So, America was not going to enter this war, and kept neutrality.

Only something extraordinary could make the United States interfere this this bloody war. And soon the reason occurred. The passenger steam – ship “Lusitania” was torpedoed by the German submarine on May 7,1915. This tragic event took the lives of 1.198 people, including 128 American citizens.

Americans were outraged, and President Wilson lodged a strong protest with the German government. Although the Lusitania was in fact carrying arms and explosives to England, Germany apologized, offered to pay damages, and promised not to sink passenger vessels in future.

After the sinking of the Lusitania, Wilson realized that the United States could not remain neutral much longer. At his urging in 1916 Congress passed a series of measures designed to prepare the United States to defend itself from the Central Powers.

The National Defense Act doubled the size of the army, and the Naval Appropriations Bill provided money to build warships. The Council of National Defense was formed to direct and control the supply of the nation’s industries and natural resources.

To raise a large army on short notice, Congress passed the Selective Service Act on May 18, 1917. The “draft” required man between ages of 21 and 30(later between 18 and 45) to register for military. By war’s end 4 million men were in army, half of whom served overseas.

From the very beginning of the American military action in Europe it was clear that it was going to be costly. To help finance this unexpected expense, in October 1917 Congress passed the War Revenue Act, increasing income taxes.

The government also raised money by selling liberty bonds. Politicians and movie stars gave speeches urging people to buy bonds. Some 21 million Americans bought bonds – in effect, loaning money to the government. Through these measures, and by increasing taxes on corporations and on goods such as alcohol and tobacco, the government raised $10.8 billion.

The war also placed extraordinary demands on American industry. Almost overnight, factories began producing great quantities of tanks, airplanes, guns, and other war materials. The dramatic increase in production would not have been possible without the dedication of factory workers. Samuel Gompers and other labor leaders pledged their support, and union members did the rest. During the war, union membership rose from 2.74 million in 1916 to 4.05 million in 1919.

More than 1 million women entered the work force, often taking the jobs of men who had joined the military. They drove trucks, delivered mail, and made ammunition.

The war also brought many more African Americans into work force. Northern industries sent agents to the South, looking for workers. By 1917, responding to promises of good salaries and fair treatment, as many as half a million black workers had moved north to take factory jobs.

Although most Americans threw themselves into the war effort, a few held back. Some people firmly believed that the nation should stay out of Europe’s wars. Others were pacifists. There were about 20.000 pacifists to be drafted.

Afraid that the opposition would hurt the war effort, Congress passed the Espionage Act in June 1917. The act set strict penalties for anyone who interfered with recruiting soldiers or made statements that might hinder the war effort.

The Sedition Act of May 16, 1918, made it illegal to utter disloyal statements about the Constitution, the government, the flag or the armed forces. In 1919 the Supreme Court ruled that the government had the right to suspend free speech during wartime.

Labor unrest

During the war, American industry had focused on producing weapons and supplies. With the war over pent – up demands for goods, and for better wages and working hours were unleashed.

However, factories that had been producing war materials could not immediately change to making clothing, shoes, cars, and other goods that a peacetime population demanded. Prices for these scarce products rose. Meanwhile, returning soldiers, looking for places to live, drove up the cost of housing. By 1920 prices were twice as high as in 1914.

As rents and prices rose, however workers’ wages remained low. During the war American workers had not gone on strike so as not to hurt the war effort. It was now time, they believed, to push for higher wages and workdays shorter than 12 hours.

In 1919 union leaders across the nation led workers out on strike. While early strikes succeeded, workers faced growing opposition as the year wore on.

When shipyard workers in Seattle walked off their jobs, other unions in the city showed support by striking, too. Seattle’s mayor turned the public against the strikers claiming their leaders they are radical and extremists.

In Pennsylvania and the Midwest, striking steelworkers called for an end to 12 – hour workdays and 7-day workweeks. Steel mill owners ignored their demands. They also accused the strikers of being linked with radicals. Whether the accusations were true or not, political leaders and newspapers turned against the workers and sided with business leaders.

After four months the striking steelworkers gave up. This failure dealt a crushing blow to the union movement.

Racial unrest

The tense mood of the nation was seen in racial violence as well. In 1919 white mobs terrorized black communities from Texas to Washington D.C. Black tenant farmers in Arkansas were attacked for attempting to form a union. In Chicago a white mob stoned to death a black swimmer who had strayed into a “white section” of a beach on Lake Michigan. In the violence which followed, 38 people were killed.

Faced with such attacks, and thousands of lynchings since 1890, African Americans launched an anti-lynching campaign. In this campaign, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called on Congress to make lynching a federal crime. The Senate, however, refused.

Despite its failure in Congress the National Association continued to bring attention to the issue of lynchings. It won several victories in the 1920s, as when a court struck down an Oklahoma law denying blacks the right to vote.

Chapter 4

The Great Depression

1.The beginning of the Great depression and its reasons.

Business began to slow in the fall 1929. The value of stocks drifted down. The decline prompted some people predict that the economic boom was coming to an end.

The greatest economic depression in the world’s history started in 1929. The stock market – source of the profit for the biggest part of the population of the United States crashed on October 29, 1929. It was the worst day in Stock Market history. People lost most of their monetary savings. Most of the banks crashed too. Most of the stocks became very cheap and everyone wanted to get rid of them, but no one wanted to buy them. Panic in every life area started. Unemployment, panic, chaos, together with wrong politics of the government made this depression more serious than it could be.

Herbert Hoover was the President of the United States in the beginning of the Great Depression. His policy was wrong from the very beginning. He thought that this crisis is not very serious, and America would overcome it easily. It was his main mistake. It was silly to underestimate this problem. That is why people didn’t elect him as the President for the second time. The person that got people’s sympathy was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He felt that the country needed serious changes to overcome. Herbert Hoover didn’t share Roosevelt’s viewing of the situation in the country, so he became a rough opposition to Roosevelt. In his turn Roosevelt promised the New Deal to his country that would help to rebuild American business that was in deep knockout after the beginning of the Depression.

Three problems were main causes of the Great Depression.

The first problem was that farmers grew more crops than could sell them. They sold crops for less money than they spent to plant it. So many farmers didn’t earn enough to pay for their farms.

The second problem was that factories were making too many products. Americans had no money to buy all the products that were being made in the USA. Factory owners sold their products for less and less money. Many factories were forced to close. Thousands of workers lost their jobs. Unemployment hadreachedits apogee.

The third problem was that workers were not earning enough money. Prices for everything became lower and lower. Soon almost everyone was losing lots of money.

All these problems caused different consequences: hunger, poverty, unemployment and closing of many factories and companies.

2. Roosevelt and his “NEW DEAL”.

Just before Roosevelt entered office on March 4, 1933, a bank panic swept the country. Thousands of banks failed, people lost their money. They rushed to the banks to get their money out. It became difficult because everyone wanted to do it and completely no one had time to do it. Banks crashed before people had to get their money. Thousands of unsound banks crashed. Millions of dollars disappeared. People were very dissatisfied. Their dissatisfaction influenced the government policy. Roosevelt made a really wise step. He understood that it was difficult even for sound banks to meet the demands. He decided to close all banks for a special bank holiday. When it was time for them to open, he allowed opening only sound banks. This crisis was very difficult and hard but Roosevelt found the way to overcome the problem. Some banks loaned money from government or bank which had better situation and most of them reopened for business. This action and a series of “fireside chats” gave the people new confidence. The first months of Roosevelt’s administration were very busy. During a period of about one hundred days Congress passed many new laws to provide relief and to promote recovery.

  1. Gold ceased to circulate as money, and paper dollars were issued. People could repay debts more easily with the new paper money.

  2. The Securities Act of 1933 provided for government supervision of the issuance of new stock. An act passed in 1934 created the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates the sale of the stock.

  3. A new farm program was created by the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA). The AAA raised prices for farm produce to pre – World War I levels. In return for price supports farmers had to agree to reduce production.

  4. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) began constructing dams on the Tennessee River electrical power. The TVA sponsored many programs for improving life in a large area of the South.

  5. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) set up the National Recovery Administration (NRA) to aid industry and labor. The program tried to help get higher prices for industry and higher wages for labor. The American people were encouraged to buy from stores that displayed the Blue Edge, a sign which indicated participation in NRA programs. The Public Works Administration (PWA), created by the same act as the NRA, provided jobs by financing the construction of roads and other public works.

  6. The Civilian Conversion Corps (CCC) provided government jobs for unemployed youths. Much of their work was devoted to planting trees, protecting, and building parks.

  7. The federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) provided direct aid to the unemployed.

In 1935 the New Deal was concentrated more on reform than on recovery. Roosevelt wanted to deal with the causes of the Great Depression. He wanted American wealth to be distributed more equally. This required the passage of several new laws. The Revenue Act of 1935| provided a national pension system, unemployment insurance, and benefits to the wives and families of deceased workers. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) gave labor unions the opportunity to win better wages.

In July 1935 Congress passed Labor Relations Act. Known as the Wagner Act – after senator Robert E. Wagner, who introduced it – it strengthened the power of the labor unions.

The Wagner Act helped workers by outlawing unfair practices. Employers could no longer refuse no bargain with union representatives or prevent workers from joining unions. The act set up National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) which gave labor unions the opportunity to win better wages.

Probably the hardest battle of the New Deal was fought over the Social Security Act. Many people opposed such a plan because of its costs to businesses.

Roosevelt wanted everyone to be included, however. Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor and the first woman ever appointed to a President’s cabinet knew that many people were against such a sweeping bill. In 1935 she drew up the first Social Security Act. The plan was a form of insurance. Employers and workers would pay taxes to create funds to cover unemployment benefits, old-age pensions, programs for children or insured workers who died. The bill covered only about half the work force. Farm and domestic workers were left out. Despite these limits, however, it gave millions of workers a sense of security.

The New Deal succeeded in putting many people back to work It gave recovery to the farmers and to businesses. But recovery was slow and painful.

3. Government’s efforts to reduce immigration to the USA.

Efforts to limit immigration had begun early in the decade. In 1921 Congress passed an act limiting the number of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe – the Europeans most anxious to come to the United States.

In 1924 and 1929 Congress imposed even more restrictions on immigrants. Thus, the nation’s history of nearly unlimited European immigration came to an end. Meanwhile, most Asian immigration was still banned.

Anti-immigration laws, however, did not apply to people from Americas. Nearly 500.000 people immigrated from Mexico in the 1920s, and 950.000 from Canada. Most Mexicans migrated to the Southwest, where their labors played a vital role in the growth of farmlands, railroads, and mines.

As the anti-immigrant mood gripped the nation, an old organization took on new life. Leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, which had terrorized black southerners during Reconstruction, saw a chance to expand the Klan’s strength beyond its base in South.

In 1920 the Klan hired two sales agents to help achieve its goal. In a public campaign boosting “100 percent pure Americanism,” they directed hatred against anyone who was not white or Protestant. White – hooded Klansmen and their wives now terrorized Catholics, Jews, Asians, and immigrants as well as African Americans.

By 1925 the Klan had as many as 5 million members. They helped elect five United States senators and four state governors – in northern as well as southern states.

However, the Klan’s increasing violence began to weaken its appeal. When a Klan leader was convicted of murder in 1925, membership began to drop. By 1930 the Klan had only 50.000 members.

4. Opposition to the New Deal.

There were some people that were unsatisfied with the politics of the new

government. Some of them thought that government was not doing enough. Senator Huey P. Long of Louisiana proposed a Share Our wealth plan which would redistribute the country’s wealth. Dr. Francis Townsend of California wanted the government to give everyone over sixty years of age a pension of two hundred dollars per month. Both men had many supporters. Such demands had a great deal of influence of the establishment of the Social Security system.

Criticism of the New Deal also came from those who felt that government was doing too much. The United States Supreme Court decided that some of the new laws, including the AAA and the NIRA, were unconstitutional. Roosevelt thought otherwise. He tried to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court. He asked Congress to pass a law allowing him to do this. He hoped to appoint enough new justices to the Court to swing its decisions in favor of the New Deal. Roosevelt’s plan failed. But because of vacancies which Roosevelt filled, and changing opinions among the justices, the Court soon came to accept the new programs.

There were many objections to the New Deal. Many business operators resented government interference. Some of them disliked Roosevelt so much that they would not speak his name, referring him profanely as “that man” in the White House. The huge emergency programs which made work for people to do were criticized for being wasteful. The Works Progress Administration (WPA), which spent $11 billion in some four years giving people work, was called by its critics the “we piddle around” agency.

5. The role of the New Deal in coping with the Depression.

As a whole, the New Deal was only partly successful. By 1938, problems still remained high. Unemployment remained high. As the number of jobs declined, women, blacks, and other minorities were most often the last hired and the and the first fired. They found themselves excluded from jobs by employers, unions, and even by government policies. Only the increased demand for goods and workers caused by the World War II brought full recovery. But the New Deal did accomplish something. It held the American people together. Dictators arose in many countries. However, the United States dealt with the depression without giving up its ideals of government. The New Deal did, however, bring a new era if not a revolution in American life. Since the 1930s government has had the responsibility of providing a sound, healthy economy. The government is called upon to reduce unemployment compensation to those who cannot find work, give aid to the elderly, support the price of farm produce, help individuals obtain better housing, and promote quality education. The role of the government changed under the New Deal from noninvolvement to total involvement. The New Deal pointed the nation in the direction it is following today.

Conclusions

While investigating this theme, I have come to the following conclusions:

1. Life had greatly changed in America after the Civil War of 1861- 1865. By the

end of the XIX-th century, the American economy was blooming and prosperity was spreading. The centre of social life moved from farms to cities. Big factories were constructed, big business rose. America was becoming a more powerful industrial power. The reform movement was taking place in all spheres of the USA, and the people who were involved in these reforms were called the Progressives. Progressivism was founded upon the belief that all social problems could be solved through science and enlightened government actions. The role of the government changed: it became more interested in the life of each individual, and working people began to get support from their government. The political system, foreign, social and immigration policies changed in the country.

2. The new inventions, made in the end of the 19-th and the beginning of the 20-th centuries, had greatly changed the life of the United States. The life in the country became more comfortable and convenient and Americans got in the know of the latest use in the country and abroad with the telephone, the radio, electricity, automobiles, the telegraph, the gramophone, new appliances for the home, the conveyor line, clothes and footwear producing equipment, etc. Besides, labor productivity had increased to a considerable extent due to the new machines and modern technology introduced into the process of producing goods.

3. During the first two decades of the XX century the rise of economy had achieved a very high level. The railroads played a very important role in it. They were covering the whole country that stimulated the industrial rise of the country and intensive use of natural resources. Whatever the industrial revolution needed, the railroads could now deliver it to any place of the country.

People started to pioneer in different fields of business, such as oil refining, steel industry, electric power stations, etc. Efficient using of natural resources, fast exploring of new technologies, professionalism of people working in American industry soon made the United States the world’s economic leader.

4. As the USA was being industrialized and broadened its trade links, a group of men emerged who would dominate the economic future of the country. These were the industrial giants. They had a sense of vision to see opportunities for production and marketing where others had not. And they had the willingness to take risks. The industrial giants were able to use new inventions and corporate systems to make production costs lower and provide products and services to growing numbers of consumers. They were Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Henry Ford, etc.

5. World War I had greatly influenced the life of the USA. It became the reason of several serious problems in the society. They appeared well before the severe recession but in the course of time they finally led the country to the collapse-the Great Depression of 1929-1939.

First of all, half of the industrial workers lived in poverty and their dissatisfaction with their life was constantly growing.

The racial climate had become very intensive. Racial violence and hatred were growing. Racial discrimination became the reason of high level of unemployment among minorities. The anti-immigration laws made by the government in order to reduce the number of immigrants in country inspired the immigrants’ dissatisfaction and activated the Unions’. All this resulted in strikes and riots against the government politics.

The economy was unstable: the gross national product declined, some businesses went bankrupt, thousands of farmers lost their land and millions of American workers lost their jobs. As a result, there was a dramatic increase of labor unrest.

6. But during the 1920s it still seemed as if prosperity would go on forever. It was the decade of significant, even dramatic social, economic and political change.

The American economy began to grow again and it developed new forms of organization. The American government experimented with new approaches to public policy. The stock market performed remarkably well.

Salaries rose, and working hours decreased. Americans had the resources and the leisure time to pursue new forms of entertainment: going to movies and sporting events, visiting restaurants and bars, dancing to jazz music and doing the shopping, gambling, etc. Though alcohol was prohibited, it was smuggled across state borders. This period of time is called “the Roaring Twenties” or the “New Era”. It was the time in which American culture reshaped itself to reflect all the changes in the society. It was also an age in which America was becoming a modern nation.

7. The autumn of 1929 began with alarming declines in stock prices and the stock market crash that followed. It was the beginning of the Great Depression.

The causes of this severe crisis were:

  • the US prosperity depended on a few basic industries, mostly construction and automobile but newer industries hadn’t yet developed enough;

  • most families were too poor to buy the goods of the industrial economy;

  • the credit structure of the economy was in trouble: farmers were deeply in debt but crop prices were too low to allow them pay off what they owed; when the market crashed, some of the nation’s biggest banks failed;

  • late in the 1920s America’s position in international trade was bad-European demand for American goods began to decline as European economy was destabilized after World War I;

  • after WWI all allied with the USA nations owed large sums of money to American banks but they were not able to pay their debts because of economic troubles in their countries.

8. The government began working to see how it could end the Great Depression. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had written a plan called the “New Deal”. The main aim was to create jobs through projects such as building highways, dams, bridges, planting parks, etc. The men who worked on these projects were paid by the government. But the government was just as poor as someone else. In a risky move, it began to spend more money than it had. Printing so much money was causing the inflation, going of the value of the dollar. This has troubled the American economy ever since. Though the government helped people temporarily during the Depression, some of the policies set up than have caused serious problems that are still with Americans today. Sometimes it seemed as though the Great Depression would never end, although by the late 1930s things were improving a little. Men found jobs again and earned money to buy food, clothes and other products. But only in America went to World War II, did the last traces of the Great Depression disappear.

Appendix

1. Glossary

  1. Depression – депрессия

  2. Inflation – инфляция

  3. Stagnation – стагнация

  4. Amendment – поправка

  5. Unemployment – безработица

  6. Employer – работодатель

  7. Railroad – железная дорога

  8. Trade Unions – организация рабочих , профсоюзы

  9. Racial Unrests – бунты на почве национальной розни

  10. Economy – экономия

  11. Conditions – условия

  12. To sustain – продолжать

  13. Policy – политика

  14. Predictable- предсказуемое

  15. Phenomenon – явление

  16. Adequate – адекватный

  17. Development – развитие

  18. Tendencies - тенденции

  19. Immigrant – иммигрант

  20. Influence - влияние

  21. Supervision – управление

  22. Government – правительство

  23. Significant – существенный

  24. Entertainment – развлекательный

  25. Approaches – подходы

  26. Sound – нормальные

  27. To decrease – уменьшаться

  28. To increase – увеличиваться

  29. To reflect – размышлять

2. References

  1. Bernstein V. America’s story. – Steck-Vaughn Company.: 1995

  2. H C. Dethloff & A E. Begnaud. – Steck-Vaughn Company.: 1986

  3. Herman J. Viola. Why we remember. Addison – Wesley Publishing Company.: 1998

  4. American History. - Beka Book Publications.: 1990