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America, 1920–1973: Opportunity and Inequality

American society during the Depression

  • 3 things to know
  • Paper 1 section A

Overview

Mass unemployment and the Hoovervilles, the ruin of farmers and the Dust Bowl, the bank failures, Hoover's beliefs and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Bonus Army of 1932, and Roosevelt's promise of a New Deal and his landslide victory.

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Key term

What was a Hooverville?

Key term

Why did American farmers suffer so badly in these years?

Key term

What was the Dust Bowl?

Questions from this subtopic

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  1. 1

    What happened to unemployment in America between 1929 and 1933?

    Model answer

    It climbed to around 13 million, roughly a quarter of the workforce, and there was no national system of benefits to support them.

  2. 2

    What was a Hooverville?

    Model answer

    A shanty town of shacks made from scrap on waste ground near a city, built by families who had lost their homes and named in mockery of the president.

  3. 3

    Why did American farmers suffer so badly in these years?

    Model answer

    Crop prices collapsed below the cost of growing them, so families could not meet their mortgage payments and were evicted from land they had farmed for generations.

  4. 4

    What was the Dust Bowl?

    Model answer

    Years of drought and over-ploughing turned the soil of the southern plains to dust, and the storms that blew it away drove thousands of families west to look for work.

  5. 5

    What happened to banks and businesses after the crash?

    Model answer

    Thousands of firms went bankrupt as spending dried up, and thousands of banks closed their doors, destroying the savings of the people who had trusted them.

  6. 6

    What did Hoover believe about how recovery should come about?

    Model answer

    He trusted that business would right itself and that help for the poor should come from charity and local government rather than from Washington.

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ABlight destroyed the potato crop the poor lived on.
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