14) Tuesday, March 6. The Great Depression

Story Line: The Great Depression led Americans to rethink the meaning of prosperity. Here, we are looking at some of the causes and onset of the Great Depression. We are surveying its consequences in a major industrial city: Detroit. (No discussions this week) because of the MIDTERM   [Lecture 13] Outline [Lecture 15]	Readings for lecture 14 Document Number: DJ2306200083 Ann Marie Low, Dust Bowl Diary, 1931 FDR, No Fear Speech, Inaugural Address, 1933 Report on Economic Conditions in the South, 1938 John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath, 1939
Images for lecture 5: Job Seekers in Detroit, 1930 Detroit Relief Center, with Children, 1931 Mayor's Relief Project, 1931 Receiving Seeds, Mayor's Thrift Gardens, 1931 Ultimatum to Detroit Mayor Murphy by the Communists, 1931 Communist Hunger March Funeral, 1932

I. Causes and Onset of the Depression

A. Long term causes: The 1920s

1. 1) changes in the composition of production
2. 2) purchasing power
3. 3) European unemployment
4. 4) strict international gold standard
5. 5) Europe's loss of markets
6. 6) The US as creditor.

B. Onset of the Depression.

1. 1) US monetary policy, Andrew Mellon
2. 2) the crash
3. 3) Depression spreads
4. 4) Federal reserve monetary policy (again)
5. 5) Smoot-Hawley Tariff
6. 6) Wages/costs ratio
7. 7) 1932 tax increase

II. A Case Study: Detroit

• Frank Murphy
• Fiorello LaGuardia

III. Responses to the economic conditions

1) Reactions from the Left

• Sidney Hillman

2) Response from the right

• Huey Long
• Father Coughlin

3) Response from the Center

4) Women's movement at its lowest, Section 213 of the 1932 Federal Economy Act

IV. To make it all worse, there was bad weather of gigantic proportions.

• The dust bowl

V. Rethinking Prosperity.

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