Lessons from the Great Depression for Dummies (ISBN - 0470487488)

292 Pages·2021·5.17 MB·English

Steve Wiegand
Author, U.S. History For Dummies,
2nd Edition

• Understand key theories about what
led to the Great Depression

• Trace the social, cultural, and
economic effects of the crisis

• Recognize the triggers of the 1929
stock market crash

• Distinguish between a recession
and a depression

Learn to:

Lessons from the
Great Depression

Making Everything Easier!™

Open the book and find:

• Explanations of basic economic
terms and concepts

• Discussion of the U.S. political
climate that fueled the country’s
economic woes

• What it meant to live in
“Hooverville”

• What Hoover and FDR thought
about each other

• What happened across the globe
during the Great Depression

• The story of how organized labor
grew and changed in response to
hard times

• What FDR accomplished during
his first 100 days as president

• How the Great Depression’s legacy
affects your life today

Steve Wiegand has been an award-winning political
journalist and history writer for more than 30 years. His
journalism career has included stints at the San Diego
Evening Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and Sacramento
Bee, where he currently covers state government and
California politics.

History

$19.99 US / $23.99 CN / £14.99 UK

ISBN 978-0-470-48748-8

Go to Dummies.com®
for videos, step-by-step photos,
how-to articles, or to shop the store!

Your concise guide to
the worst time in America’s
financial history

Want to understand the circumstances that
brought about the Great Depression? This friendly,
authoritative guide explains the perfect storm of
problems that led to the 1929 stock market crash
and subsequent economic disaster. You’ll discover
the lessons that continue to shape today’s political
and financial landscape.

• The key players — get to know the colorful cast of
characters who peopled the government, unions,
and other key institutions during this tumultuous
time

• The lack of a government safety net — find out
what happened when banks closed, panic ensued,
and lines formed for bread, soup, and jobs as
Americans received little help from Washington

• A portrait of depression — discover the impact of
a constricting economy, the effects on family and
social life, and the plight of the American farmer

• Living through the truly hard times — see how
Americans coped by moving west to find work and
escaped their troubles through entertainment

Lessons from the Great Depression

Wiegand

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Lessons from the
Great Depression

FOR
DUMmIES

‰

by Steve Wiegand

A

Lessons from the Great Depression For Dummies®

Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
111 River St.
Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2009928167

ISBN: 978-0-470-48748-8

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Steve Wiegand has been an award-winning political journalist and
history writer for more than 30 years. His journalism career has
included stints at the San Diego Evening Tribune, San Francisco
Chronicle, and Sacramento Bee, where he currently covers state
government and California politics.

Wiegand is a graduate of Santa Clara University, where he majored
in American literature and U.S. history. He also has a Master of
Science degree in Mass Communications from California State
University, San Jose.

Wiegand is the author of U.S. History For Dummies, which is in its
second edition. He is also the author of Papers of Permanence
(McClatchy) and Sacramento Tapestry (Towery Books), coauthor of
The Mental_Floss History of the World (HarperCollins), and a contrib-
uting author to Mental_Floss Presents Forbidden Knowledge
(HarperCollins).

He lives in Northern California.

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Dedication

To my mom and dad, for having lived through the Great
Depression, and my wife and daughter, for keeping me out of one.

Acknowledgments

Thanks first to acquisitions editor Lindsay Lefevere at Wiley for
successfully pitching the idea for this book, and then catching my
pitch to do it. A big thank-you also to Joan Friedman, who served
double duty as project editor and copy editor (the readable parts
are all due to her). Thanks also to art editor Alicia South for making
the nice-looking parts nice looking, and to technical editor David
Goldberg for making the correct parts correct. Everything else is
my fault.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online
registration form located at http://dummies.custhelp.com. For other comments, please
contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at
317-572-3993, or fax [phone].

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media
Development

Project Editor: Joan Friedman
Acquisitions Editor:
Lindsay Sandman Lefevere
Assistant Editor: Erin Calligan Mooney
Editorial Program Coordinator: Joe Niesen
Technical Editor: David Goldberg, PhD
Senior Editorial Manager: Jennifer Ehrlich
Editorial Supervisor: Carmen Krikorian
Editorial Assistant: Jennette ElNaggar
Art Coordinator: Alicia B. South
Cover Photos: © Index Stock Imagery
Cartoons: Rich Tennant
(www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Lynsey Stanford
Layout and Graphics: Christin Swinford,
Christine Williams
Proofreaders: Laura Albert,
Laura Bowman, Reuben W. Davis
Indexer: Dakota Indexing

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies
Kristin Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies
Ensley Eikenburg, Associate Publisher, Travel
Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Contents at a Glance

Introduction ...................................................... 1

Part I: Heading into a Mess ............................... 7
Chapter 1: It Was a Dark and Stormy Decade ........................................ 9
Chapter 2: Economic Basics: You Say “Depression,” I Say “Broke” .... 17
Chapter 3: Prelude to Disaster: The Economy Prior to 1929 ............. 25

Part II: Getting Depressed ............................... 43
Chapter 4: Going Bust: A Depression Is Born ...................................... 45
Chapter 5: Coming Face to Face with Hard Times .............................. 65
Chapter 6: Troubles on the Farm .......................................................... 85
Chapter 7: Misery Loves Company:
How the Rest of the World Fared .................................................. 107

Part III: Living Through the Great Depression ... 125
Chapter 8: On the Road ........................................................................ 127
Chapter 9: Demagogues and Desperadoes......................................... 145
Chapter 10: Having Fun in Spite of It All ............................................. 159
Chapter 11: Labor Rising: Unions in the Great Depression ............. 175

Part IV: Fixing Things .................................... 193
Chapter 12: A Tale of Two Presidents ................................................ 195
Chapter 13: Roosevelt’s New Deal ....................................................... 211
Chapter 14: Lessons Learned from the Great Depression ............... 229

Part V: The Part of Tens ................................. 239
Chapter 15: Ten Good Movies Made in or
about the Great Depression........................................................... 241
Chapter 16: Ten Things Invented or Popularized
in the Great Depression ................................................................. 245
Chapter 17: Ten Not-So-Depressing Things about
the Great Depression ...................................................................... 249

Appendix: For Further Reading ....................... 255

Index ............................................................ 257