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who
what hoover dam
where
when 1936
why to hold water

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See all the wonderful things Mayra Hernandez-Hernandez has made

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Who: Nazis and Germans
What: zeppelin blew up
When:  1852
Where: in the sky
Why: one of the propellers blew up  

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Who: Nazis and Germans
What: zeppelin blew up
When:  1852
Where: in the sky
Why: one of the propellers blew up  

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The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crew-members, on May 6, 1937.

Frenchman Henri Giffard constructed the first successful airship in 1852. His hydrogen-filled blimp carried a three-horsepower steam engine that turned a large propeller and flew at a speed of six miles per hour. The rigid airship, often known as the "zeppelin" after the last name of its innovator, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, was developed by the Germans in the late 19th century. Unlike French airships, the German ships had a light framework of metal girders that protected a gas-filled interior. However, like Giffard's airship, they were lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas and vulnerable to explosion. Large enough to carry substantial numbers of passengers, one of the most famous rigid airships was the Graf Zeppelin, a dirigible that traveled around the world in 1929. In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the Hindenburg, a larger passenger airship.

On May 3, 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany, for a journey across the Atlantic to Lakehurst's Navy Air Base. Stretching 804 feet from stern to bow, it carried 36 passengers and crew of 61. While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames, probably after a spark ignited its hydrogen core. Rapidly falling 200 feet to the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Thirteen passengers, 21 crewmen, and 1 civilian member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries.

Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared, "Oh, the humanity!" The recording of Morrison's commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America's first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster, and no rigid airships survived World War II.

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The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crew-members, on May 6, 1937. Frenchman Henri Giffard constructed the first successful airship in 1852.

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Culture in the Thirties

Despite the Great Depression, culture in the 1930s, both commercial and funded by New Deal programs as part of the relief effort, flourished.

Learning Objectives

Describe the culture in the 1930s

Key Takeaways

Key Points

Despite the Great Depression 's devastating impact on many Americans, the 1930s witnessed the emergence of many influential cultural trends. Literature, arts, music, and cinema of the period became vehicles for establishing and promoting what would be presented as truly American traditions and values.

A number of New Deal programs were established to support artists, writers, musicians, and theater professionals. Projects funded through these programs were often seen as serving an important mission of bringing culture and arts to the masses.

Fine arts followed both global and regional trends, including Social Realism, American Regionalism, and Precisionism. Photography also became a popular medium of documenting the lives of ordinary Americans.

The 1930s came to be known as the "golden age" of Hollywood. Many popular low-budget and epic expensive movies that reached the status of classic were produced during the period.

The Motion Picture (or Hollywood) Production Code of 1930 forbade certain subjects from being addressed or portrayed in film.

The 1930s were also a very important and productive decade for American literature.

Key Terms

Public Works of Art Project: The first New Deal program that employed artists to create public art works. It ran from December 1933 to June 1934.

Section of Painting and Sculpture: A New Deal program that aimed to select high quality art to decorate public buildings in the form of murals, making art accessible to all people.

Federal Art Project: The visual arts arm of the Federal Project Number One (under the Works Progress Administration) operating from August 29, 1935, until June 30, 1943. Through the program, artists created posters, murals, and paintings, some of which still stand among the most significant pieces of public art in the country.

Motion Picture (or Hollywood) Production Code of 1930: A set of rules and guidelines that major Hollywood film studios agreed upon under the pressure of Christian leaders and organizations that sought to remove what was considered obscene and indecent from the movie industry.

The Great Depression and American Culture

Despite the Great Depression's devastating impact on many Americans, the 1930s witnessed the emergence of many influential cultural trends. Historians note that literature, arts, music, and cinema of the period flourished and became vehicles for establishing and promoting what would be presented as truly American traditions and values-a phenomenon that was a response to the demoralizing effect of the economic crisis. The New Deal, with its core idea of the government's intervention in the economy, politics, and social life, included also programs that funded and promoted various cultural projects, many of them focusing on the documentation of the experience of ordinary Americans during the dramatic economic depression.

The New Deal and Culture

The first short-lived New Deal program that supported cultural projects was the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) that ran from December 1933 to June 1934. PWAP was a relief program that created jobs for artists who were hired to paint scenes depicting contemporary ordinary American life in public buildings and spaces. PWAP was replaced by the Federal Art Project (FAP), one of the cultural programs under the 1935 Works Progress Administration (WPA) and a much more ambitious and expansive arts program than its predecessor. FAP provided funding for artists and artisans to create murals, easel paintings, sculpture, graphic art, posters, photography, theater design, and arts and crafts. It established more than 100 community art centers throughout the country, researched and documented American design, commissioned a significant body of public art without restriction to content or subject matter, and sustained some 10,000 artists and craft workers during the Great Depression. Additionally, in 1934, the Section of Painting and Sculpture was established in order to commission high quality murals in public buildings. Artists worked with government-provided guidelines that focused on realistic themes relevant to the life of local communities.

FAP was part of the Federal Project Number One, a WPA umbrella program that supported not only visual arts but also literature (under the Federal Writers' Project), music (the Federal Music Project), and theater (the Federal Theater Project). Writers, musicians, and theater artists were funded to create both their own original projects and projects under the auspices of the government. Documenting what was seen as American traditions drove many of the latter. For example, literary professionals were hired to produce the State Guide Series-a series of popular guidebooks for every state. Writers and musicians engaged in a series of ethnographic and archival projects that aimed to preserve American history and cultural legacy, including collecting oral histories among former slaves, recording traditional folk songs, or preserving and organizing archival collections. Public funding was also used to make theater productions easily available to mass audiences.

Arts

Visual arts in the United States of the 1930s followed both global and regional trends. Many of the works created under WPA belonged to Social Realism-an international art movement that depicted the everyday life of ordinary people, most notably, the working class and the poor. The movement's aim was not simply to represent but to critique the realities of social inequalities and injustice. Related to Social Realism was American Regionalism, which depicted rural America, both realistic and as a subject of myths and folk legends, as well as images drawn from American history. Regionalism and Social Realism are sometimes described as a rural branch and an urban branch (respectively) of American Scene Painting, although borders between the meanings of these three terms are not always clear. Another movement of the era, Precisionism, focused on images of urban industrial America. While sometimes differences between artists and art works belonging to these movements may be blurry, the one characteristic that they all shared was realism, or focusing on depicting American life as it was.

The commitment to realism resulted also in the popularization of photography. For example, under the Farm Security Administration, a New Deal agency that aimed to combat rural poverty, photographers documented rural areas and the misery of working class rural Americans. The works of such photographers as Dorothea Lange or Walker Evans remain among the most iconic images of the Great Depression. Much later, these documentary photography projects would be criticized for their racial bias. Despite the fact that at the time, so many poor rural Americans were black, the New Deal photographs create an impression that poor rural America was predominantly white.

In architecture and design, the 1930s was the height of Art Deco-an eclectic style inspired by industrialization that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials.

Hollywood

1930 marks the beginning of what is considered to be the "golden age" of Hollywood, a period which lasted through the 1940s. The studio system was at its height, with studios having great control over creative decisions. While in the first years of the Great Depression all the major studios experienced losses (much less people went to see movies and ticket prices decreased), already in the mid-1930s, they began to record profits.

A lasting example of the studio influence was the Motion Picture (or Hollywood) Production Code of 1930 (known also as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, who was the president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America). In response to a number of scandals in the 1920s and under the pressure of Christian leaders and organizations, the studios adopted a series of topics that were to be avoided (e.g., strictly defined sexual content and ridicule of clergy) and guidelines for how certain topics should be depicted (e.g., a kiss could not last longer than three seconds). The code was not strictly implemented until 1934, when the Production Code Administration was established. The PCA enforced the code by reviewing and making suggestions on all studio scripts before they went into production, then doing the same with all completed films before issuing a PCA certificate. Directors frequently found a way to manipulate the codes that were enforced more and more loosely during the post-World War period and finally abandoned in the 1960s.

As the late 1920s witnessed the popularization and commercialization of a sound film, both popular and more ambitious cinema flourished in the 1930s. A number of popular genres, including gangster films, musicals, comedies, or monster movies, attracted mass audiences, regardless of the economic crisis. Careers of some of iconic Hollywood's performers also flourished in the 1930s, including Greta Garbo, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Mae West, the Marx Brothers, Errol Flynn (best known for his role as Robin Hood), or child star Shirley Temple. Charlie Chaplin, the greatest star of the silent era, successfully transitioned into sound film.

In addition to more popular and low-budget genres, the most acclaimed works of the period were much more ambitious and expensive films with epic stories at their center. Adaptations of classic or best-selling literary works, biographies of famous individuals, and big adventure movies were the most common examples. Among them are such classics of American cinema as King Kong (1933), Anna Karenina (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Gone With the Wind (1939), and Grapes of Wrath (1940).

Literature

The Great Depression produced some of the greatest works in American literature. Similar to visual artists, writers focused on blunt and direct representation of American life and offered social criticism, coming often from the perspective of leftist political views. John Steinbeck (1902-1968) became the quintessential author of the era. He often wrote about poor, working-class people and their struggle to lead a decent and honest life. The Grapes of Wrath, considered his masterpiece, is a socially-oriented novel that tells the story of the Joads, a poor family from Oklahoma, and their journey to California in search of a better life. Other popular novels include Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, and East of Eden. Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.

Other important literary works of the Great Depression that reached the status of American classics include William Faulkner 's Absalom, Absalom!, Light in August, and As I Lay Dying; F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night; Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God; John Dos Passos's U.S.A. trilogy; Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra; and Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. Among American authors in the 1930s who wrote their usually more controversial or experimental and less realistic works were Gertrude Stein, who in 1933 published the memoir of her Paris years entitled The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, and Henry Miller, who in the 1930s wrote and published his semi autobiographical novels Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, and Tropic of Capricorn. Although their themes and stylistic innovations exerted a major influence on succeeding generations of American writers, Miller's groundbreaking novels were banned in the United States until the early 1960s.

The 1930s also witnessed the development of popular literary genres. Pulp fiction magazines began to feature distinctive, gritty, adventure heroes that combined elements of hard-boiled detective fiction and the fantastic adventures of the earlier pulp novels. Two particularly noteworthy characters introduced were Doc Savage and The Shadow, who would later influence the creation of characters such as Superman and Batman. Near the end of the decade, two of the world's most iconic superheroes and recognizable fictional characters, Superman and Batman, were introduced in comic books.

Popular Culture

The 1930s witnessed the development of mass cultural trends fueled by contemporary technological advances, including radio and sound film.

Learning Objectives

Describe the popular culture of the 1930's

Key Takeaways

Key Points

Despite the Great Depression, popular culture flourished in the United States in the 1930s. Similar to visual arts and literature, popular culture of the era focused on emphasizing what was presented as uniquely American experiences and contributions.

Technological advances like radio and sound in film contributed to the massive popularity these forms of entertainment.

Next to jazz, blues, gospel, and folk music, swing jazz became immensely popular in the 1930s.

Radio, increasingly easily accessibly to most Americans, was the main source of entertainment, information, and political propaganda.

Despite the Great Depression, Hollywood and popular film production flourished.

The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, were a key popular sporting event of the era that caused controversy over Hitler's politics.

Key Terms

fireside chats: Term used to describe a series of 30 evening radio conversations (chats) given by President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944.

Motion Picture (or Hollywood) Production Code of 1930: A set of rules and guidelines that major Hollywood film studios agreed upon under the pressure of Christian leaders and organizations that sought to remove what was considered obscene and indecent from the movie industry.

Leni Riefenstahl: An innovative and favorite filmmaker of Adolf Hitler. She was commissioned by the German Olympic Committee to film the games for $7 million and her film, titled Olympia, pioneered many of the techniques now common in the filming of sports.

Despite the Great Depression, popular culture flourished in the United States in the 1930s. Similar to visual arts and literature, popular culture of the era focused on emphasizing what was presented as uniquely American experiences and contributions. The mass popularization of culture was also linked to important technological advances. Many Americans, even in poor rural areas, had access to phonographs and radios. The latter was incredibly popular in the 1930s, becoming the critical source of information and entertainment. Another contemporary groundbreaking technological development was the popularization of sound film. While in the first years of the Great Depression, Americans did not visit movie theaters as frequently as prior to the economic crisis, in the mid-1930s, cinema was one of the favorite forms of entertainment.

Music

Trends in popular music reflected social processes triggered by the economic crisis. Although the Great Migration of African Americans from the South (initiated around 1910) slowed down with the onset of the economic depression, hundreds of thousands of black Southerners continued to seek opportunities somewhere else, mostly in northern cities. With the transfer of people, music created and popularized by African Americans, including jazz, blues, and gospel, became increasingly popular in the North. Despite the existing racial inequalities and the ongoing black civil rights struggle, the American origins of these musical genres fit into the narrative of uniquely American cultural contributions. Analogously, American folk music, created and performed by both white performers and musicians of color, attracted mass audiences across the country. With their focus on the plight of ordinary Americans, folk songs were now collected and recorded as part of the American legacy by the Library of Congress and artists working for the Works Progress Administration.

The 1920s (known as the "Jazz Age") witnessed the transformation of jazz from its modest African American/New Orleans origin to a global phenomenon. By 1930, new forms and styles developed and swing emerged as a dominant form in American music. Virtuoso soloists often led their swing big bands (thus swing was also known as "big jazz") and their popularity was enormous, also because swing music developed with corresponding swing dance. Live swing bands were broadcast on the radio nationally every evening. Among the most famous bandleaders and arrangers were Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Harry James, and Jimmie Lunceford. The pioneer of jazz music, Louis Armstrong, continued to inspire both mass audiences and fellow musicians. Musical theater also followed the predominant trend and contributed some of the most popular standards of the 1930s, including George and Ira Gershwin's "Summertime," Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's "My Funny Valentine," and Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's "All the Things You Are."

Swing uses a strong rhythm section of double bass and drums as the anchor for a lead section of brass instruments such as trumpets, trombones, saxophones, clarinets, and sometimes stringed instruments such as violin and guitar at medium to fast tempos and a "lilting" swing time rhythm. The period between 1935 and 1946 is known as the Swing Era.

Radio

The 1930s was the era of the immense popularity of radio. Those Americans who did not own a radio could still access one in their communities through friends or neighbors. Popular content spanned from comedy, with Bob Hope being one of the biggest comedic radio personalities of the time, and music, theater, and soap operas, to news and political content. Never before was radio used as such a powerful tool of dissemination of political messages. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt informed about and advocated for New Deal policies in his fairly regular "fireside chats." His political opponents also used radio to attract their supporters. Huey Long and Charles Coughlin, FDR's two most fervent populist critics, built their vast popular support through radio shows that attracted tens of millions of Americans. In 1938, Orson Welles' famous broadcast of War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, caused panic among the show's listeners who feared that the conflict between humans and aliens (the subject of Wells' novel) was real. Although historians debate over how wide the audience of the show was and thus how widespread the panic could be, the episode demonstrates the incredible power of radio broadcast at the time.

Hollywood

1930 marks the beginning of what is considered to be the "golden age" of Hollywood, a period which lasted through the 1940s. The studio system was at its height, with studios having great control over creative decisions. While in the first years of the Great Depression all the major studios experienced losses (much less people went to see movies and ticket prices decreased), in the mid-1930s, they began to record profits.

A lasting example of the studio influence was the Motion Picture (or Hollywood) Production Code of 1930 (known also as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, who was the president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America). In response to a number of scandals in the 1920s and under the pressure of Christian leaders and organizations, the studios adopted a series of topics that were to be avoided (e.g., strictly defined sexual content and the ridicule of clergy) and guidelines for how certain topics should be depicted (e.g., a kiss could not last longer than three seconds). The code was not strictly implemented until 1934, when the Production Code Administration was established. The PCA enforced the code by reviewing and making suggestions on all studio scripts before they went into production, then doing the same with all completed films before issuing a PCA certificate. Directors frequently found a way to manipulate the codes that were enforced more and more loosely during the post-World War period and finally abandoned in the 1960s.

As the late 1920s witnessed the popularization and commercialization of a sound film, both popular and more ambitious cinema flourished in the 1930s. A number of popular genres, including gangster films, musicals, comedies, or monster movies, attracted mass audiences, regardless of the economic crisis. Careers of some of the iconic Hollywood's performers also flourished in the 1930s, including Greta Garbo, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Mae West, the Marx Brothers, Errol Flynn (best known for his role as Robin Hood), and child star Shirley Temple. Charlie Chaplin, the greatest star of the silent era, successfully transitioned into sound film.

In addition to more popular and low-budget genres, the most acclaimed works of the period were much more ambitious and expensive films with epic stories in their center. Adaptations of classic and best-selling literary works, biographies of famous individuals, and big adventure movies were the most common examples. Among them are such classics of American cinema as King Kong (1933), Anna Karenina (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Gone With the Wind (1939), and Grapes of Wrath (1940).

1936 Summer Olympics

The 1936 Summer Olympics was an international multi-sport event that was held in Berlin, Germany. To outdo the Los Angeles games of 1932, the Nazis built a new 100,000-seat track and field stadium, six gymnasiums, and many other smaller arenas. The games were the first to be televised, and radio broadcasts reached 41 countries. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, a favorite of Adolf Hitler, was commissioned by the German Olympic Committee to film the Games for $7 million. Her film, entitled Olympia, pioneered many of the techniques now common in the filming of sports.

Hitler saw the games as an opportunity to promote his government and its ideals of racial supremacy. The United States considered boycotting the games, as to participate in the festivity might be considered a sign of support for the Nazi regime and its anti-Semitic policies. However, others argued that the Olympic Games should not reflect political views, but rather be strictly a contest of the greatest athletes. The 1936 Summer Olympics ultimately boasted the largest number of participating nations of any Olympics to that point. However, some individual athletes, including Jewish Americans Milton Green and Norman Cahners, chose to boycott the games.

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Despite the Great Depression, culture in the 1930s, both commercial and funded by New Deal programs as part of the relief effort, flourished. Describe the culture in the 1930s Key Points Despite the Great Depression 's devastating impact on many Americans, the 1930s witnessed the emergence of many influential cultural trends.

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Who people in the united states
 What the people were losing money and prices were going up
 When In the 1929-1939
Where the united states
Why Because the stock market dropped

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Who people in the united states
 What the people were losing money and prices were going up
 When In the 1929-1939
Where the united states
Why Because the stock market dropped

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What Caused the Great Depression?

Throughout the 1920s, the U.S. economy expanded rapidly, and the nation's total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, a period dubbed " the Roaring Twenties."

The stock market, centered at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City, was the scene of reckless speculation, where everyone from millionaire tycoons to cooks and janitors poured their savings into stocks. As a result, the stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929.

By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stock prices much higher than their actual value. Additionally, wages at that time were low, consumer debt was proliferating, the agricultural sector of the economy was struggling due to drought and falling food prices and banks had an excess of large loans that could not be liquidated.

The American economy entered a mild recession during the summer of 1929, as consumer spending slowed and unsold goods began to pile up, which in turn slowed factory production. Nonetheless, stock prices continued to rise, and by the fall of that year had reached stratospheric levels that could not be justified by expected future earnings.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

On October 24, 1929, as nervous investors began selling overpriced shares en masse, the stock market crash that some had feared happened at last. A record 12.9 million shares were traded that day, known as "Black Thursday."

Five days later, on October 29, or "Black Tuesday," some 16 million shares were traded after another wave of panic swept Wall Street. Millions of shares ended up worthless, and those investors who had bought stocks "on margin" (with borrowed money) were wiped out completely.

As consumer confidence vanished in the wake of the stock market crash, the downturn in spending and investment led factories and other businesses to slow down production and begin firing their workers. For those who were lucky enough to remain employed, wages fell and buying power decreased.

Many Americans forced to buy on credit fell into debt, and the number of foreclosures and repossessions climbed steadily. The global adherence to the gold standard, which joined countries around the world in fixed currency exchange, helped spread economic woes from the United States throughout the world, especially in Europe.

Bank Runs and the Hoover Administration

Despite assurances from President Herbert Hoover and other leaders that the crisis would run its course, matters continued to get worse over the next three years. By 1930, 4 million Americans looking for work could not find it; that number had risen to 6 million in 1931.

Meanwhile, the country's industrial production had dropped by half. Bread lines, soup kitchens and rising numbers of homeless people became more and more common in America's towns and cities. Farmers couldn't afford to harvest their crops and were forced to leave them rotting in the fields while people elsewhere starved. In 1930, severe droughts in the Southern Plains brought high winds and dust from Texas to Nebraska, killing people, livestock and crops. The " Dust Bowl " inspired a mass migration of people from farmland to cities in search of work.

In the fall of 1930, the first of four waves of banking panics began, as large numbers of investors lost confidence in the solvency of their banks and demanded deposits in cash, forcing banks to liquidate loans in order to supplement their insufficient cash reserves on hand.

Bank runs swept the United States again in the spring and fall of 1931 and the fall of 1932, and by early 1933 thousands of banks had closed their doors.

In the face of this dire situation, Hoover's administration tried supporting failing banks and other institutions with government loans; the idea was that the banks in turn would loan to businesses, which would be able to hire back their employees.

FDR and the Great Depression

Hoover, a Republican who had formerly served as U.S. secretary of commerce, believed that government should not directly intervene in the economy and that it did not have the responsibility to create jobs or provide economic relief for its citizens.

In 1932, however, with the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression and some 15 million people unemployed, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won an overwhelming victory in the presidential election.

By Inauguration Day (March 4, 1933), every U.S. state had ordered all remaining banks to close at the end of the fourth wave of banking panics, and the U.S. Treasury didn't have enough cash to pay all government workers. Nonetheless, FDR (as he was known) projected a calm energy and optimism, famously declaring "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Roosevelt took immediate action to address the country's economic woes, first announcing a four-day "bank holiday" during which all banks would close so that Congress could pass reform legislation and reopen those banks determined to be sound. He also began addressing the public directly over the radio in a series of talks, and these so-called " fireside chats " went a long way toward restoring public confidence.

During Roosevelt's first 100 days in office, his administration passed legislation that aimed to stabilize industrial and agricultural production, create jobs and stimulate recovery.

In addition, Roosevelt sought to reform the financial system, creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ( FDIC) to protect depositors' accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash.

The New Deal: A Road to Recovery

Among the programs and institutions of the New Deal that aided in recovery from the Great Depression was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which built dams and hydroelectric projects to control flooding and provide electric power to the impoverished Tennessee Valley region, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a permanent jobs program that employed 8.5 million people from 1935 to 1943.

When the Great Depression began, the United States was the only industrialized country in the world without some form of unemployment insurance or social security. In 1935, Congress passed the Social Security Act, which for the first time provided Americans with unemployment, disability and pensions for old age.

After showing early signs of recovery beginning in the spring of 1933, the economy continued to improve throughout the next three years, during which real GDP (adjusted for inflation) grew at an average rate of 9 percent per year.

A sharp recession hit in 1937, caused in part by the Federal Reserve's decision to increase its requirements for money in reserve. Though the economy began improving again in 1938, this second severe contraction reversed many of the gains in production and employment and prolonged the effects of the Great Depression through the end of the decade.

Depression-era hardships fueled the rise of extremist political movements in various European countries, most notably that of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany. German aggression led war to break out in Europe in 1939, and the WPA turned its attention to strengthening the military infrastructure of the United States, even as the country maintained its neutrality.

African Americans in the Great Depression

One-fifth of all Americans receiving federal relief during the Great Depression were Black, most in the rural South. But farm and domestic work, two major sectors in which Black workers were employed, were not included in the 1935 Social Security Act, meaning there was no safety net in times of uncertainty. Rather than fire domestic help, private employers could simply pay them less without legal repercussions. And those relief programs for which African Americans were eligible on paper were rife with discrimination in practice since all relief programs were administered locally.

Despite these obstacles, Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet," led by Mary McLeod Bethune, ensured nearly every New Deal agency had a Black advisor. The number of African Americans working in government tripled.

Women in the Great Depression

There was one group of Americans who actually gained jobs during the Great Depression: Women. From 1930 to 1940, the number of employed women in the United States rose 24 percent from 10.5 million to 13 million Though they'd been steadily entering the workforce for decades, the financial pressures of the Great Depression drove women to seek employment in ever greater numbers as male breadwinners lost their jobs. The 22 percent decline in marriage rates between 1929 and 1939 also created an increase in single women in search of employment.

Women during the Great Depression had a strong advocate in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who lobbied her husband for more women in office-like Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman to ever hold a cabinet position.

Jobs available to women paid less but were more stable during the banking crisis: nursing, teaching and domestic work. They were supplanted by an increase in secretarial roles in FDR's rapidly-expanding government. But there was a catch: over 25 percent of the National Recovery Administration's wage codes set lower wages for women, and jobs created under the WPA confined women to fields like sewing and nursing that paid less than roles reserved for men.

Married women faced an additional hurdle: By 1940, 26 states had placed restrictions known as marriage bars on their employment, as working wives were perceived as taking away jobs from able-bodied men-even if, in practice, they were occupying jobs men would not want and doing them for far less pay.

Great Depression Ends and World War II Begins

With Roosevelt's decision to support Britain and France in the struggle against Germany and the other Axis Powers, defense manufacturing geared up, producing more and more private-sector jobs.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 led to America's entry into World War II, and the nation's factories went back into full production mode.

This expanding industrial production, as well as widespread conscription beginning in 1942, reduced the unemployment rate to below its pre-Depression level. The Great Depression had ended at last, and the United States turned its attention to the global conflict of World War II.

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Great Depression: Black Thursday, Facts & Effects

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The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. At its peak, the U.S. unemployment rate topped 20 percent.

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Who:36 passengers and 61 crewman
what:caught fire and was destroyed
when: May 6, 1937
where: Manchester township, new jersey, united states
why: something caused it to start on fire.

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Who:  People from Germany, Japan, Italy, United States, Soviet Union, and many more.
What:
When: September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945
Where: Europe, Pacific, Atlantic, South-East Asia, China, Middle East, Mediterranean and Northern Africa.
Why:

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Facts, information and articles about World War II, 1939-1945

World War II Facts

Dates

September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945

Location

Europe, Pacific, Atlantic, South-East Asia, China, Middle East, Mediterranean, and Northern Africa.

Commanders

Allies:

Joseph Stalin
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Winston Churchill
Chiang Kai-shek
Charles de Gaulle

Axis:

Adolf Hitler
Hirohito
Benito Mussolini

Outcome

Allied Victory

World War II summary: The carnage of World War II was unprecedented and brought the world closest to the term “total warfare.” On average 27,000 people were killed each day between September 1, 1939, until the formal surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. Western technological advances had turned upon itself, bringing about the most destructive war in human history. The primary combatants were the Axis nations of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and the Allied nations, Great Britain (and its Commonwealth nations), the Soviet Union, and the United States. Seven days after the suicide of Adolf Hitler, Germany unconditionally surrendered on May 7, 1945. The Japanese would go on to fight for nearly four more months until their surrender on September 2, which was brought on by the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on the Japanese towns of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Despite winning the war, Britain largely lost much of its empire, which was outlined in the basis of the Atlantic Charter.  The war precipitated the revival of the U.S. economy, and by the war’s end, the nation would have a gross national product that was nearly greater than all the Allied and Axis powers combined. The USA and USSR emerged from World War II as global superpowers. The fundamentally disparate, one-time allies became engaged in what was to be called the Cold War, which dominated world politics for the latter half of the 20th century.

Casualties in World War II

The most destructive war in all of history, its exact cost in human lives is unknown, but casualties in World War II may have totaled over 60 million service personnel and civilians killed. Nations suffering the highest losses, military and civilian, in descending order, are:
USSR: 42,000,000
Germany: 9,000,000
China: 4,000,000
Japan: 3,000,000

When did World War II begin?

Some say it was simply a continuation of the First World War that had theoretically ended in 1918. Others point to 1931, when Japan seized Manchuria from China. Others to Italy’s invasion and defeat of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935, Adolf Hitler’s re-militarization of Germany’s Rhineland in 1936, the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and Germany’s occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 are sometimes cited. The two dates most often mentioned as “the beginning of World War II” are July 7, 1937, when the “Marco Polo Bridge Incident” led to a prolonged war between Japan and China, and September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, which led Britain and France to declare war on Hitler’s Nazi state in retaliation. From the invasion of Poland until the war ended with Japan’s surrender in September 1945, most nations around the world were engaged in armed combat.

Origins of World War II

No one historic event can be said to have been the origin of World War II. Japan’s unexpected victory over czarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) left open the door for Japanese expansion in Asia and the Pacific. The United States U.S. Navy first developed plans in preparation for a naval war with Japan in 1890. War Plan Orange, as it was called, would be updated continually as technology advanced and greatly aided the U.S. during World War II.

The years between the first and second world wars were a time of instability. The Great Depression that began on Black Tuesday, 1929 plunged the worldwide recession. Coming to power in 1933, Hitler capitalized on this economic decline and the deep German resentment due to the emasculating Treaty of Versailles, signed following the armistice of 1918. Declaring that Germany needed Lebensraum or “living space,” Hitler began to test the Western powers and their willingness to monitor the treaty’s provision. By 1935 Hitler had established the Luftwaffe, a direct violation of the 1919 treaty. Remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936 violated Versailles and the Locarno Treaties (which defined the borders of Europe) once again. The Anschluss of Austria and the annexation of the rump of Czechoslovakia was a further extension of Hitler’s desire for Lebensraum. Italy’s desire to create the Third Rome pushed the nation to closer ties with Nazi Germany. Likewise, Japan, angered by their exclusion in Paris in 1919, sought to create a Pan-Asian sphere with Japan in order to create a self-sufficient state.

Competing ideologies further fanned the flames of international tension. The Bolshevik Revolution in czarist Russia during the First World War, followed by the Russian Civil War, had established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a sprawling communist state. Western republics and capitalists feared the spread of Bolshevism. In some nations, such as Italy, Germany and Romania, ultra-conservative groups rose to power, in part in reaction to communism.

Germany, Italy and Japan signed agreements of mutual support but, unlike the Allied nations they would face, they never developed a comprehensive or coordinated plan of action.

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Facts, information and articles about World War II, 1939-1945 World War II Facts Dates September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945 Location Europe, Pacific,

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who: Franklin D Roosevelt 
What: Was elected as president
When:1930
Where: it was by the village of Hyde park
Why: The reason he was elected was because

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who: Franklin D Roosevelt 
What: Was elected as president
When:1930
Where: it was by the village of Hyde park
Why: The reason he was elected was because

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Contents

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Early Life and Career

2. FDR's Polio and Election as Governor

3. Roosevelt Enters the White House

4. Roosevelt and the New Deal

5. Roosevelt's Reelection and "Court-Packing"

6. FDR and World War II

7. Yalta Conference and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Death

Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his second term as governor of New York when he was elected as the nation's 32nd president in 1932. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or "fireside chats." His ambitious slate of New Deal programs and reforms redefined the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans.

Reelected by comfortable margins in 1936, 1940 and 1944, FDR led the United States from isolationism to victory over Nazi Germany and its allies in World War II. He spearheaded the successful wartime alliance between Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States and helped lay the groundwork for the post-war peace organization that would become the United Nations. The only American president in history to be elected four times, Roosevelt died in office in April 1945.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Early Life and Career

Born on January 30, 1882, on a large estate near the village of Hyde Park, New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only child of his wealthy parents, James and Sara Delano Roosevelt. He was educated by private tutors and elite schools (Groton and Harvard), and early on began to admire and emulate his fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, elected president in 1901. While in college, Franklin fell in love with Theodore's niece (and his own distant cousin), Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, and they married in 1905. The couple had a daughter, Anna Roosevelt, and four sons who survived into adulthood: James Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., Elliott Roosevelt, and Jr., John A. Roosevelt. A fifth son named Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. died in infancy.

Did you know? Encouraged by his wife, Eleanor, FDR appointed more women to federal posts than any previous president; he also included Black Americans in federal job programs (though they remained largely segregated).

Roosevelt attended law school at Columbia University and worked for several years as a clerk in a Wall Street law firm. In 1910, he entered politics, winning a state senate seat as a Democrat in the heavily Republican Dutchess County. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson named Roosevelt assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy. He would hold that post for the next seven years, traveling to Europe in 1918 to tour naval bases and battlefields after the U.S. entrance into World War I.

FDR's Polio and Election as Governor

In 1921, Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio when he was 39 years old. Unable to walk, he temporarily removed himself from public life and focused on rehabilitation at his home in Hyde Park, where he'd swim three times a week in the Astor pool, slowly regaining strength. By the spring of 1922, he was able to stand again with braces. In 1924, he traveled to Warm Springs, Georgia, hoping to be healed by the spring's mineral waters. He ended up purchasing the resort and turning it into a rehabilitation center for Polio patients.

With the support of his wife and his longtime supporter, the journalist Louis Howe, Roosevelt began to return to public life, issuing statements on issues of the day and keeping up a correspondence with Democratic leaders. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke publicly throughout New York State, keeping her husband's reputation strong despite his illness; she also organized the women's division of the Democratic Party. In 1924, Franklin made a triumphant public appearance at the Democratic National Convention to nominate New York's Governor Alfred E. Smith for president (though Smith lost the nomination and the Democrats lost the general election).

He nominated Smith again in 1928, this time successfully, and at Smith's urgings agreed to run for governor of New York. Smith lost to Herbert Hoover, but Roosevelt won. Governor Roosevelt grew more liberal in his policies as New York (and the nation) sank deeper into economic depression after the stock market crash of 1929. In particular, he set up the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA), which aimed at finding jobs for the unemployed, and by 1932 TERA was helping nearly one out of every 10 families in New York.

Roosevelt Enters the White House

Re-elected as governor in 1930, Roosevelt emerged as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination two years later. He broke tradition and appeared in person in Chicago to accept the nomination, famously pledging himself to "a new deal for the American people." In the general election, a confident and exuberant Roosevelt triumphed by an overwhelming margin over the incumbent Hoover, who had become a symbol for many people of the ongoing Great Depression.

In addition, Democrats won sizeable majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. By the time Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, the Depression had reached desperate levels, including 13 million unemployed. In the first inaugural address to be widely broadcast on the radio, Roosevelt boldly declared that "This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and prosper...[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Roosevelt began the momentous first 100 days of his presidency by closing all banks for several days until Congress could pass reform legislation. He also began holding open press conferences and giving regular national radio addresses in which he spoke directly to the American people. The first of these "fireside chats," about the banking crisis, was broadcast to a radio audience of some 60 million, and would go a long way toward restoring public confidence and preventing harmful bank runs. After passage of the Emergency Banking Relief Act, three out of every four banks were open within a week.

Roosevelt and the New Deal

Other key pieces of legislation during FDR's first "Hundred Days" created some of the most important programs and institutions of Roosevelt's New Deal, including the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), the Public Works Administration (PWA), the Civilian Conservations Corps (CCC) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). In addition to programs aimed at providing economic relief for workers and farmers and creating jobs for the unemployed, Roosevelt also initiated a slate of reforms of the financial system, notably the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to protect depositors' accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash.

In 1935, after the economy had begun to show signs of recovery, Roosevelt asked Congress to pass a new wave of reforms, known as "Second New Deal." These included the Social Security Act (which for the first time provided Americans with unemployment, disability, and pensions for old age) and the Works Progress Administration. The Democratic-led Congress also raised taxes on large corporations and wealthy individuals, a hike that was derisively known as the "soak-the-rich" tax.

Roosevelt's Reelection and "Court-Packing"

Controversial but extremely popular with voters, Roosevelt won re-election by a huge margin in 1936 over Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas. He faced opposition from the Supreme Court over his New Deal programs, and proposed an expansion of the court that would allow him to appoint one new justice for every sitting justice 70 or older. After heated debate, Congress rejected this "court-packing" scheme, handing FDR the biggest setback of his career. Nonetheless, the Court abruptly changed direction, upholding both the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act (officially the National Labor Relations Act).

Labor unrest and another economic downturn in 1937 hurt Roosevelt's approval ratings, but the crisis had largely passed by the following year. Republicans gained ground in the midterm congressional elections, however, and soon formed an alliance with conservative Democrats that would block further reform legislation. By the end of 1938, as support for the New Deal was waning, Roosevelt faced a new looming challenge, this time on the international stage.

FDR and World War II

As early as 1937, FDR warned the American public about the dangers posed by hard-line regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan, though he stopped short of suggesting America should abandon its isolationist policy. After World War II broke out in September 1939, however, Roosevelt called a special session of Congress in order to revise the country's existing neutrality acts and allow Britain and France to purchase American arms on a "cash-and-carry" basis. Germany captured France by the end of June 1940, and Roosevelt persuaded Congress to provide more support for Britain, now left to combat the Nazi menace on its own. Despite the two-term tradition for presidents in place since the time of George Washington, Roosevelt decided to run for reelection again in 1940; he defeated Wendell L. Wilkie by nearly 5 million votes.

Roosevelt increased his support of Great Britain with passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 and met with Prime Minister Winston Churchill in August aboard a battleship anchored off Canada. In the resulting Atlantic Charter, the two leaders declared the " Four Freedoms " on which the post-war world should be founded: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

On December 8, 1941, the day after Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress, which declared war on Japan. The first president to leave the country during wartime, Roosevelt spearheaded the alliance between countries combating the Axis, meeting frequently with Churchill and seeking to establish friendly relations with the Soviet Union and its leader, Joseph Stalin. Meanwhile, he spoke constantly on the radio, reporting war events and rallying the American people in support of the war effort (as he had for the New Deal).

Yalta Conference and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Death

In 1944, as the tide of war turned toward the Allies, a weary and ailing Roosevelt managed to win election to a fourth term in the White House. The following February, he met with Churchill and Stalin in the Yalta Conference, where Roosevelt got Stalin's commitment to enter the war against Japan after Germany's impending surrender. (The Soviet leader kept that promise, but failed to honor his pledge to establish democratic governments in the eastern European nations then under Soviet control.) The "Big Three" also worked to build foundations for the post-war international peace organization that would become the United Nations.

After Roosevelt returned from Yalta, he was so weak that he was forced to sit down while addressing Congress for the first time in his presidency. In early April 1945, he left Washington and traveled to his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he had long before established a nonprofit foundation to aid polio patients. Roosevelt suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died on April 12, 1945. He was succeeded in office by his vice president, Harry S. Truman.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected as the nation's 32nd president in 1932. With the country mired in the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or "fireside chats," and implementing his New Deal programs and reforms. The only American president in history to be elected four times, Roosevelt died in office in April 1945.

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Scotch tape 
Who was invented Richard Gurley Drew
What   first transparent adhesive tape
When the 1930
where by the drop out Richard Gurley Drew
why
 moisture-proof seal for the cellophane food packaging

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Scotch tape 
Who was invented Richard Gurley Drew
What   first transparent adhesive tape
When the 1930
where by the drop out Richard Gurley Drew
why
 moisture-proof seal for the cellophane food packaging

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Despite the name, Scotch tape wasn't invented by the Scottish. It was invented by a college dropout named Richard Drew from Minnesota who worked for a small sandpaper company founded in 1902 called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, later known as 3M. The name "Scotch" itself has an origin story almost as interesting as the invention of Scotch tape.

Born Richard Gurley Drew in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1899, Drew spent a year at the University of Minnesota in the Mechanical Engineering program before dropping out. He paid for that time at school and his correspondence school course in machine design by playing banjo, and he included all of that information in his application to the open position of lab technician with 3M. He got the job and was set on the path to make history.

In the 1920s, a two-tone paint job was popular for cars and a headache for automotive painters. The two-tone look was created by painting the car one color, applying a barrier of some sort to the painted portion, and then painting the next section. In order to get around the difficulties of this type of paint job, painters and mechanics tested out different ways to achieve the look. Unfortunately, their attempts tended to be less than successful. Some automotive shops would glue newspapers over the already painted sections while others used tape to prevent paint transfer. However those techniques often left a sticky residue on the paint that was difficult to remove. Sometimes, it would even mean the painters had to do the entire paint job over again.

One of Drew's responsibilities at 3M was to deliver samples of sandpaper to local automotive shops for testing, where he often overheard workers who were painting complain about the problems with tape used for these paint jobs. The twenty-three year old then lab assistant got the idea to create a new tape that would create a seal so that the paint wouldn't get through and yet also come off clean without leaving any sticky residue that ruined the paint finish. Drew used the adhesive that 3M utilized in the construction of its sandpaper as a starting point. From there, it took him two years of experimentation with different types of adhesives that he applied to a crepe paper backing to come up with the right combination. Thus, what would be called "Scotch" Masking Tape was born in 1925.

The success of the Scotch Brand Masking Tape allowed Drew to move up the ranks at 3M. In 1929, his position as technical director at the fabrication laboratory allowed him to pursue another idea. Cellophane had recently been invented by DuPont and was being used by grocers and bakers as a neat way to package their groceries. However, there wasn't a good way to seal the cellophane with tape because the colored backing ruined the clear look. So Drew and his team of inventors worked to create a tape that used this clear cellophane as a backing.

Unfortunately, the machinery that 3M used in order to apply the adhesive to the cellophane backing tore the material, and the glue that worked for the masking tape appeared amber on the clear cellophane. The team ultimately invented new clear adhesive and modified machinery to handle the cellophane. The new tape was called Scotch Brand Cellulose Tape, but it appeared that it might have missed its opportunity with grocers and bakers despite ringing endorsements from several test clients. You see, DuPont had introduced into the market a cellophane that could be sealed with heat. Nonetheless, despite missing their original target market and being released during the Great Depression, the Scotch Brand Cellulose Tape thrived with various home uses.

So this all brings us back to how the term "Scotch" came to be associated with 3M's Masking and Cellulose tapes. When Drew and 3M began allowing car painters to test the new Scotch Brand Masking Tape, one painter supposedly complained about the lack of adhesive on the tape. One version of the story claims that the painter asked "Why so Scotch with the adhesive?" Another version states that the painter said "Take this back to your Scotch bosses and tell them to put more adhesive on it."

Whatever the case, in the 1920s, the term "Scotch" was a racial slang term that meant something or someone that was cheap or stingy. Based on the feedback, Drew applied more adhesive to the tape and ultimately branded the tape with the pejorative "stingy" name of "Scotch."

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:
Sarah Stone writes for the mildly popular interesting fact website TodayIFoundOut.com. To subscribe to Today I Found Out's "Daily Knowledge" newsletter, click here or like them on Facebook here. You can also check 'em out on YouTube here.
has been republished with permission from TodayIFoundOut.com. Image by Daniel under Creative Commons license.

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Despite the name, Scotch tape wasn't invented by the Scottish. It was invented by a college dropout named Richard Drew from Minnesota who worked for a small sandpaper company founded in 1902 called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, later known as 3M. The name "Scotch" itself has an origin story almost as interesting as the invention of Scotch tape.

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Who: USA, Germany,
What: Germany attacked the USA  and they bombed pearl harbor
When: September 1, 1939
Where: In Hawaii and the seas and the USA and Germany
Why: Cause the Germany wanted to bomb us cause we hurt them

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Who: United states
What:severe economic depression
What 1929-1939
Where :Varied across nations
Why :Stock market Crash of 1929

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Who: Franklin D. Roosevelt
What: He was elected president
When: 1932
Where: Near the village of Hyde Park, New York
Why: He was elected because Hoover was blamed for The Great Depression.

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Contents

1. Franklin D. Roosevelt's Early Life and Career

2. FDR's Polio and Election as Governor

3. Roosevelt Enters the White House

4. Roosevelt and the New Deal

5. Roosevelt's Reelection and "Court-Packing"

6. FDR and World War II

7. Yalta Conference and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Death

Franklin D. Roosevelt was in his second term as governor of New York when he was elected as the nation's 32nd president in 1932. With the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, proclaiming a bank holiday and speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or "fireside chats." His ambitious slate of New Deal programs and reforms redefined the role of the federal government in the lives of Americans.

Reelected by comfortable margins in 1936, 1940 and 1944, FDR led the United States from isolationism to victory over Nazi Germany and its allies in World War II. He spearheaded the successful wartime alliance between Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States and helped lay the groundwork for the post-war peace organization that would become the United Nations. The only American president in history to be elected four times, Roosevelt died in office in April 1945.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's Early Life and Career

Born on January 30, 1882, on a large estate near the village of Hyde Park, New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the only child of his wealthy parents, James and Sara Delano Roosevelt. He was educated by private tutors and elite schools (Groton and Harvard), and early on began to admire and emulate his fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, elected president in 1901. While in college, Franklin fell in love with Theodore's niece (and his own distant cousin), Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, and they married in 1905. The couple had a daughter, Anna Roosevelt, and four sons who survived into adulthood: James Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., Elliott Roosevelt, and Jr., John A. Roosevelt. A fifth son named Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. died in infancy.

Did you know? Encouraged by his wife, Eleanor, FDR appointed more women to federal posts than any previous president; he also included Black Americans in federal job programs (though they remained largely segregated).

Roosevelt attended law school at Columbia University and worked for several years as a clerk in a Wall Street law firm. In 1910, he entered politics, winning a state senate seat as a Democrat in the heavily Republican Dutchess County. In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson named Roosevelt assistant secretary of the U.S. Navy. He would hold that post for the next seven years, traveling to Europe in 1918 to tour naval bases and battlefields after the U.S. entrance into World War I.

FDR's Polio and Election as Governor

In 1921, Roosevelt was diagnosed with polio when he was 39 years old. Unable to walk, he temporarily removed himself from public life and focused on rehabilitation at his home in Hyde Park, where he'd swim three times a week in the Astor pool, slowly regaining strength. By the spring of 1922, he was able to stand again with braces. In 1924, he traveled to Warm Springs, Georgia, hoping to be healed by the spring's mineral waters. He ended up purchasing the resort and turning it into a rehabilitation center for Polio patients.

With the support of his wife and his longtime supporter, the journalist Louis Howe, Roosevelt began to return to public life, issuing statements on issues of the day and keeping up a correspondence with Democratic leaders. Eleanor Roosevelt spoke publicly throughout New York State, keeping her husband's reputation strong despite his illness; she also organized the women's division of the Democratic Party. In 1924, Franklin made a triumphant public appearance at the Democratic National Convention to nominate New York's Governor Alfred E. Smith for president (though Smith lost the nomination and the Democrats lost the general election).

He nominated Smith again in 1928, this time successfully, and at Smith's urgings agreed to run for governor of New York. Smith lost to Herbert Hoover, but Roosevelt won. Governor Roosevelt grew more liberal in his policies as New York (and the nation) sank deeper into economic depression after the stock market crash of 1929. In particular, he set up the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA), which aimed at finding jobs for the unemployed, and by 1932 TERA was helping nearly one out of every 10 families in New York.

Roosevelt Enters the White House

Re-elected as governor in 1930, Roosevelt emerged as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination two years later. He broke tradition and appeared in person in Chicago to accept the nomination, famously pledging himself to "a new deal for the American people." In the general election, a confident and exuberant Roosevelt triumphed by an overwhelming margin over the incumbent Hoover, who had become a symbol for many people of the ongoing Great Depression.

In addition, Democrats won sizeable majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. By the time Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, the Depression had reached desperate levels, including 13 million unemployed. In the first inaugural address to be widely broadcast on the radio, Roosevelt boldly declared that "This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and prosper...[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Roosevelt began the momentous first 100 days of his presidency by closing all banks for several days until Congress could pass reform legislation. He also began holding open press conferences and giving regular national radio addresses in which he spoke directly to the American people. The first of these "fireside chats," about the banking crisis, was broadcast to a radio audience of some 60 million, and would go a long way toward restoring public confidence and preventing harmful bank runs. After passage of the Emergency Banking Relief Act, three out of every four banks were open within a week.

Roosevelt and the New Deal

Other key pieces of legislation during FDR's first "Hundred Days" created some of the most important programs and institutions of Roosevelt's New Deal, including the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), the Public Works Administration (PWA), the Civilian Conservations Corps (CCC) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). In addition to programs aimed at providing economic relief for workers and farmers and creating jobs for the unemployed, Roosevelt also initiated a slate of reforms of the financial system, notably the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to protect depositors' accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash.

In 1935, after the economy had begun to show signs of recovery, Roosevelt asked Congress to pass a new wave of reforms, known as "Second New Deal." These included the Social Security Act (which for the first time provided Americans with unemployment, disability, and pensions for old age) and the Works Progress Administration. The Democratic-led Congress also raised taxes on large corporations and wealthy individuals, a hike that was derisively known as the "soak-the-rich" tax.

Roosevelt's Reelection and "Court-Packing"

Controversial but extremely popular with voters, Roosevelt won re-election by a huge margin in 1936 over Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas. He faced opposition from the Supreme Court over his New Deal programs, and proposed an expansion of the court that would allow him to appoint one new justice for every sitting justice 70 or older. After heated debate, Congress rejected this "court-packing" scheme, handing FDR the biggest setback of his career. Nonetheless, the Court abruptly changed direction, upholding both the Social Security Act and the Wagner Act (officially the National Labor Relations Act).

Labor unrest and another economic downturn in 1937 hurt Roosevelt's approval ratings, but the crisis had largely passed by the following year. Republicans gained ground in the midterm congressional elections, however, and soon formed an alliance with conservative Democrats that would block further reform legislation. By the end of 1938, as support for the New Deal was waning, Roosevelt faced a new looming challenge, this time on the international stage.

FDR and World War II

As early as 1937, FDR warned the American public about the dangers posed by hard-line regimes in Germany, Italy and Japan, though he stopped short of suggesting America should abandon its isolationist policy. After World War II broke out in September 1939, however, Roosevelt called a special session of Congress in order to revise the country's existing neutrality acts and allow Britain and France to purchase American arms on a "cash-and-carry" basis. Germany captured France by the end of June 1940, and Roosevelt persuaded Congress to provide more support for Britain, now left to combat the Nazi menace on its own. Despite the two-term tradition for presidents in place since the time of George Washington, Roosevelt decided to run for reelection again in 1940; he defeated Wendell L. Wilkie by nearly 5 million votes.

Roosevelt increased his support of Great Britain with passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 and met with Prime Minister Winston Churchill in August aboard a battleship anchored off Canada. In the resulting Atlantic Charter, the two leaders declared the " Four Freedoms " on which the post-war world should be founded: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

On December 8, 1941, the day after Japan bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt appeared before a joint session of Congress, which declared war on Japan. The first president to leave the country during wartime, Roosevelt spearheaded the alliance between countries combating the Axis, meeting frequently with Churchill and seeking to establish friendly relations with the Soviet Union and its leader, Joseph Stalin. Meanwhile, he spoke constantly on the radio, reporting war events and rallying the American people in support of the war effort (as he had for the New Deal).

Yalta Conference and Franklin D. Roosevelt's Death

In 1944, as the tide of war turned toward the Allies, a weary and ailing Roosevelt managed to win election to a fourth term in the White House. The following February, he met with Churchill and Stalin in the Yalta Conference, where Roosevelt got Stalin's commitment to enter the war against Japan after Germany's impending surrender. (The Soviet leader kept that promise, but failed to honor his pledge to establish democratic governments in the eastern European nations then under Soviet control.) The "Big Three" also worked to build foundations for the post-war international peace organization that would become the United Nations.

After Roosevelt returned from Yalta, he was so weak that he was forced to sit down while addressing Congress for the first time in his presidency. In early April 1945, he left Washington and traveled to his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he had long before established a nonprofit foundation to aid polio patients. Roosevelt suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died on April 12, 1945. He was succeeded in office by his vice president, Harry S. Truman.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected as the nation's 32nd president in 1932. With the country mired in the Great Depression, Roosevelt immediately acted to restore public confidence, speaking directly to the public in a series of radio broadcasts or "fireside chats," and implementing his New Deal programs and reforms. The only American president in history to be elected four times, Roosevelt died in office in April 1945.

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this has most of the events like everything

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SEC ASR No. 4

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission struggled over accounting presentations it considered incorrect, accepting full disclosure of incorrect accounting rather than restatement. Accounting Series Release No. 4, Administrative Policy on Financial Statements, clarified that disclosure would be inadequate for accounting practices for which there was no substantial authoritative support or if the practice varied from a published SEC view. Through ASR No. 4, the SEC reserved the right to say who had substantial authoritative support, but opened the way to give that recognition to standards issued by the accounting profession.

In response to ASR No. 4, the American Institute of Accountants expanded its Committee on Accounting Procedure and gave it responsibility to issue pronouncements on accounting principles without the approval of the AIA membership or governing Council.

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Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission struggled over accounting presentations it considered incorrect, accepting full disclosure of incorrect accounting rather than restatement. Accounting Series Release No. 4, Administrative Policy on Financial Statements, clarified that disclosure would be inadequate for accounting practices for which there was no substantial authoritative support or if the practice varied from a published SEC view.

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Who: The United States
What: Who had the great depression and how it happened
When: 1929-1939
Where: New York
Why: Because the nation's total wealth more than doubled between 1920-1929.

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What Caused the Great Depression?

Throughout the 1920s, the U.S. economy expanded rapidly, and the nation's total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, a period dubbed " the Roaring Twenties."

The stock market, centered at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City, was the scene of reckless speculation, where everyone from millionaire tycoons to cooks and janitors poured their savings into stocks. As a result, the stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929.

By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stock prices much higher than their actual value. Additionally, wages at that time were low, consumer debt was proliferating, the agricultural sector of the economy was struggling due to drought and falling food prices and banks had an excess of large loans that could not be liquidated.

The American economy entered a mild recession during the summer of 1929, as consumer spending slowed and unsold goods began to pile up, which in turn slowed factory production. Nonetheless, stock prices continued to rise, and by the fall of that year had reached stratospheric levels that could not be justified by expected future earnings.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

On October 24, 1929, as nervous investors began selling overpriced shares en masse, the stock market crash that some had feared happened at last. A record 12.9 million shares were traded that day, known as "Black Thursday."

Five days later, on October 29, or "Black Tuesday," some 16 million shares were traded after another wave of panic swept Wall Street. Millions of shares ended up worthless, and those investors who had bought stocks "on margin" (with borrowed money) were wiped out completely.

As consumer confidence vanished in the wake of the stock market crash, the downturn in spending and investment led factories and other businesses to slow down production and begin firing their workers. For those who were lucky enough to remain employed, wages fell and buying power decreased.

Many Americans forced to buy on credit fell into debt, and the number of foreclosures and repossessions climbed steadily. The global adherence to the gold standard, which joined countries around the world in fixed currency exchange, helped spread economic woes from the United States throughout the world, especially in Europe.

Bank Runs and the Hoover Administration

Despite assurances from President Herbert Hoover and other leaders that the crisis would run its course, matters continued to get worse over the next three years. By 1930, 4 million Americans looking for work could not find it; that number had risen to 6 million in 1931.

Meanwhile, the country's industrial production had dropped by half. Bread lines, soup kitchens and rising numbers of homeless people became more and more common in America's towns and cities. Farmers couldn't afford to harvest their crops and were forced to leave them rotting in the fields while people elsewhere starved. In 1930, severe droughts in the Southern Plains brought high winds and dust from Texas to Nebraska, killing people, livestock and crops. The " Dust Bowl " inspired a mass migration of people from farmland to cities in search of work.

In the fall of 1930, the first of four waves of banking panics began, as large numbers of investors lost confidence in the solvency of their banks and demanded deposits in cash, forcing banks to liquidate loans in order to supplement their insufficient cash reserves on hand.

Bank runs swept the United States again in the spring and fall of 1931 and the fall of 1932, and by early 1933 thousands of banks had closed their doors.

In the face of this dire situation, Hoover's administration tried supporting failing banks and other institutions with government loans; the idea was that the banks in turn would loan to businesses, which would be able to hire back their employees.

FDR and the Great Depression

Hoover, a Republican who had formerly served as U.S. secretary of commerce, believed that government should not directly intervene in the economy and that it did not have the responsibility to create jobs or provide economic relief for its citizens.

In 1932, however, with the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression and some 15 million people unemployed, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won an overwhelming victory in the presidential election.

By Inauguration Day (March 4, 1933), every U.S. state had ordered all remaining banks to close at the end of the fourth wave of banking panics, and the U.S. Treasury didn't have enough cash to pay all government workers. Nonetheless, FDR (as he was known) projected a calm energy and optimism, famously declaring "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Roosevelt took immediate action to address the country's economic woes, first announcing a four-day "bank holiday" during which all banks would close so that Congress could pass reform legislation and reopen those banks determined to be sound. He also began addressing the public directly over the radio in a series of talks, and these so-called " fireside chats " went a long way toward restoring public confidence.

During Roosevelt's first 100 days in office, his administration passed legislation that aimed to stabilize industrial and agricultural production, create jobs and stimulate recovery.

In addition, Roosevelt sought to reform the financial system, creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ( FDIC) to protect depositors' accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash.

The New Deal: A Road to Recovery

Among the programs and institutions of the New Deal that aided in recovery from the Great Depression was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which built dams and hydroelectric projects to control flooding and provide electric power to the impoverished Tennessee Valley region, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a permanent jobs program that employed 8.5 million people from 1935 to 1943.

When the Great Depression began, the United States was the only industrialized country in the world without some form of unemployment insurance or social security. In 1935, Congress passed the Social Security Act, which for the first time provided Americans with unemployment, disability and pensions for old age.

After showing early signs of recovery beginning in the spring of 1933, the economy continued to improve throughout the next three years, during which real GDP (adjusted for inflation) grew at an average rate of 9 percent per year.

A sharp recession hit in 1937, caused in part by the Federal Reserve's decision to increase its requirements for money in reserve. Though the economy began improving again in 1938, this second severe contraction reversed many of the gains in production and employment and prolonged the effects of the Great Depression through the end of the decade.

Depression-era hardships fueled the rise of extremist political movements in various European countries, most notably that of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany. German aggression led war to break out in Europe in 1939, and the WPA turned its attention to strengthening the military infrastructure of the United States, even as the country maintained its neutrality.

African Americans in the Great Depression

One-fifth of all Americans receiving federal relief during the Great Depression were Black, most in the rural South. But farm and domestic work, two major sectors in which Black workers were employed, were not included in the 1935 Social Security Act, meaning there was no safety net in times of uncertainty. Rather than fire domestic help, private employers could simply pay them less without legal repercussions. And those relief programs for which African Americans were eligible on paper were rife with discrimination in practice since all relief programs were administered locally.

Despite these obstacles, Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet," led by Mary McLeod Bethune, ensured nearly every New Deal agency had a Black advisor. The number of African Americans working in government tripled.

Women in the Great Depression

There was one group of Americans who actually gained jobs during the Great Depression: Women. From 1930 to 1940, the number of employed women in the United States rose 24 percent from 10.5 million to 13 million Though they'd been steadily entering the workforce for decades, the financial pressures of the Great Depression drove women to seek employment in ever greater numbers as male breadwinners lost their jobs. The 22 percent decline in marriage rates between 1929 and 1939 also created an increase in single women in search of employment.

Women during the Great Depression had a strong advocate in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who lobbied her husband for more women in office-like Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman to ever hold a cabinet position.

Jobs available to women paid less but were more stable during the banking crisis: nursing, teaching and domestic work. They were supplanted by an increase in secretarial roles in FDR's rapidly-expanding government. But there was a catch: over 25 percent of the National Recovery Administration's wage codes set lower wages for women, and jobs created under the WPA confined women to fields like sewing and nursing that paid less than roles reserved for men.

Married women faced an additional hurdle: By 1940, 26 states had placed restrictions known as marriage bars on their employment, as working wives were perceived as taking away jobs from able-bodied men-even if, in practice, they were occupying jobs men would not want and doing them for far less pay.

Great Depression Ends and World War II Begins

With Roosevelt's decision to support Britain and France in the struggle against Germany and the other Axis Powers, defense manufacturing geared up, producing more and more private-sector jobs.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 led to America's entry into World War II, and the nation's factories went back into full production mode.

This expanding industrial production, as well as widespread conscription beginning in 1942, reduced the unemployment rate to below its pre-Depression level. The Great Depression had ended at last, and the United States turned its attention to the global conflict of World War II.

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Great Depression: Black Thursday, Facts & Effects

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The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. At its peak, the U.S. unemployment rate topped 20 percent.

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Who: There was 5 states that were effected those states were Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and a little of Colorado.
What: There was a lot of dust and everything was covered in sand.
When: It happened all through the 1930's until 1939 when the drought ended.
Where: It happened in the southern plains.
Why: It happened because of a drought.

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The Modern American Poetry Site is a comprehensive learning environment and scholarly forum for the study of modern and contemporary American poetry. MAPS welcomes submissions of original essays and teaching materials related to MAPS poets and the Anthology of Modern American Poetry. We are also happy to take questions and suggestions for future materials.

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Who: The United States
What:The dust bowl
When: 1930s, it lasted a decade after that.
Where: Midwest and Southern great plains.
Why: Major droughts

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What Caused the Dust Bowl?

The Dust Bowl was caused by several economic and agricultural factors, including federal land policies, changes in regional weather, farm economics and other cultural factors. After the Civil War, a series of federal land acts coaxed pioneers westward by incentivizing farming in the Great Plains.

The Homestead Act of 1862, which provided settlers with 160 acres of public land, was followed by the Kinkaid Act of 1904 and the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. These acts led to a massive influx of new and inexperienced farmers across the Great Plains.

Many of these late 19th and early 20th-century settlers lived by the superstition "rain follows the plow." Emigrants, land speculators, politicians and even some scientists believed that homesteading and agriculture would permanently affect the climate of the semi-arid Great Plains region, making it more conducive to farming.

Manifest Destiny

This false belief was linked to Manifest Destiny -an attitude that Americans had a sacred duty to expand west. A series of wet years during the period created a further misunderstanding of the region's ecology and led to the intensive cultivation of increasingly marginal lands that couldn't be reached by irrigation.

Rising wheat prices in the 1910s and 1920s and increased demand for wheat from Europe during World War I encouraged farmers to plow up millions of acres of native grassland to plant wheat, corn and other row crops. But as the United States entered the Great Depression, wheat prices plummeted. In desperation, farmers tore up even more grassland in an attempt to harvest a bumper crop and break even.

Crops began to fail with the onset of drought in 1931, exposing the bare, over-plowed farmland. Without deep-rooted prairie grasses to hold the soil in place, it began to blow away. Eroding soil led to massive dust storms and economic devastation-especially in the Southern Plains.

When Was the Dust Bowl?

The Dust Bowl, also known as "the Dirty Thirties," started in 1930 and lasted for about a decade, but its long-term economic impacts on the region lingered much longer.

Severe drought hit the Midwest and southern Great Plains in 1930. Massive dust storms began in 1931. A series of drought years followed, further exacerbating the environmental disaster.

By 1934, an estimated 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land had been rendered useless for farming, while another 125 million acres-an area roughly three-quarters the size of Texas-was rapidly losing its topsoil.

Regular rainfall returned to the region by the end of 1939, bringing the Dust Bowl years to a close. The economic effects, however, persisted. Population declines in the worst-hit counties-where the agricultural value of the land failed to recover-continued well into the 1950s.

'Black Blizzards' Strike America

During the Dust Bowl period, severe dust storms, often called "black blizzards," swept the Great Plains. Some of these carried topsoil from Texas and Oklahoma as far east as Washington, D.C. and New York City, and coated ships in the Atlantic Ocean with dust.

Billowing clouds of dust would darken the sky, sometimes for days at a time. In many places, the dust drifted like snow and residents had to clear it with shovels. Dust worked its way through the cracks of even well-sealed homes, leaving a coating on food, skin and furniture.

Some people developed "dust pneumonia" and experienced chest pain and difficulty breathing. It's unclear exactly how many people may have died from the condition. Estimates range from hundreds to several thousand people.

On May 11, 1934, a massive dust storm two miles high traveled 2,000 miles to the East Coast, blotting out monuments such as the Statue of Liberty and the U.S. Capitol.

The worst dust storm occurred on April 14, 1935. News reports called the event Black Sunday. A wall of blowing sand and dust started in the Oklahoma Panhandle and spread east. As many as three million tons of topsoil are estimated to have blown off the Great Plains during Black Sunday.

An Associated Press news report coined the term "Dust Bowl" after the Black Sunday dust storm.

New Deal Programs

President Franklin D. Roosevelt established a number of measures to help alleviate the plight of poor and displaced farmers. He also addressed the environmental degradation that had led to the Dust Bowl in the first place.

As part of Roosevelt's New Deal, Congress established the Soil Erosion Service and the Prairie States Forestry Project in 1935. These programs put local farmers to work planting trees as windbreaks on farms across the Great Plains. The Soil Erosion Service, now called the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) developed and promoted new farming techniques to combat the problem of soil erosion.

Okie Migration

Roughly 2.5 million people left the Dust Bowl states- Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma-during the 1930s. It was one of the largest migrations in American history.

Oklahoma alone lost 440,000 people to migration. Many of them, poverty-stricken, traveled west looking for work. From 1935 to 1940, roughly 250,000 Oklahoma migrants moved to California. A third settled in the state's agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley.

These Dust Bowl refugees were called "Okies." Okies faced discrimination, menial labor and pitiable wages upon reaching California. Many of them lived in shantytowns and tents along irrigation ditches. "Okie" soon became a term of disdain used to refer to any poor Dust Bowl migrant, regardless of their state of origin.

Dust Bowl in Arts and Culture

The Dust Bowl, and the suffering endured by those who survived it, captured the hearts and imaginations of the nation's artists, musicians and writers.

John Steinbeck memorialized the plight of the Okies in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. Photographer Dorothea Lange documented rural poverty with a series of photographs for FDR's Farm Securities Administration, and artist Alexandre Hogue achieved renown with his Dust Bowl landscapes.

Folk musician Woody Guthrie, and his semi-autobiographical first album Dust Bowl Ballads of 1940, told stories of economic hardship faced by Okies in California. Guthrie, an Oklahoma native, left his home state with thousands of others looking for work during the Dust Bowl.

Sources

FDR and the New Deal Response to an Environmental Catastrophe. Roosevelt Institute.
About The Dust Bowl. English Department; University of Illinois.
Dust Bowl Migration. University of California at Davis.
The Great Okie Migration. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Okie Migrations. Oklahoma Historical Society.
What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation. Population and Environment.
The Dust Bowl. Library of Congress.
Dust Bowl Ballads: Woody Guthrie. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
The Dust Bowl. Ken Burns; PBS.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Dust Bowl: Causes, Definition & Years - HISTORY

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The Dust Bowl refers to the drought-stricken southern plains of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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Who: President Herbert Hoover
What: Star Spangled Banner becomes official
Where: United States of America
When: In 1931
Why:

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President Herbert Hoover signs a congressional act making "The Star-Spangled Banner" the official national anthem of the United States.

On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key composed the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner" after witnessing the massive overnight British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812. Key, an American lawyer, watched the siege while under detainment on a British ship and penned the famous words after observing with awe that Fort McHenry's flag survived the 1,800-bomb assault.

After circulating as a handbill, the patriotic lyrics were published in a Baltimore newspaper on September 20, 1814. Key's words were later set to the tune of "To Anacreon in Heaven," a popular English song. Throughout the 19th century, "The Star-Spangled Banner" was regarded as the national anthem by most branches of the U.S. armed forces and other groups, but it was not until 1916, and the signing of an executive order by President Woodrow Wilson, that it was formally designated as such. In March 1931, Congress passed an act confirming Wilson's presidential order, and on March 3 President Hoover signed it into law.

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"The Star-Spangled Banner" becomes official

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President Herbert Hoover signs a congressional act making "The Star-Spangled Banner" the official national anthem of the United States. On September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key composed the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner" after witnessing the massive overnight British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812.

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Who:  Architects Shreve, Lamb & Harmon Associates
What: The building of the Empire State
When: March 17, 1930
Where: New York City
Why: Competition between Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and John Jakob Raskob of General Motors, to see who could erect the taller building.
How: Architects

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On May 1, 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City's Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turns on the building's lights. Hoover's gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York.

The idea for the Empire State Building is said to have been born of a competition between Walter Chrysler of the Chrysler Corporation and John Jakob Raskob of General Motors, to see who could erect the taller building. Chrysler had already begun work on the famous Chrysler Building, the gleaming 1,046-foot skyscraper in midtown Manhattan. Not to be bested, Raskob assembled a group of well-known investors, including former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith. The group chose the architecture firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon Associates to design the building. The Art-Deco plans, said to have been based in large part on the look of a pencil, were also builder-friendly: The entire building went up in just over a year, under budget (at $40 million) and well ahead of schedule. During certain periods of building, the frame grew an astonishing four-and-a-half stories a week.
READ MORE: 10 Surprising Facts About the Empire State Building
At the time of its completion, the Empire State Building, at 102 stories and 1,250 feet high (1,454 feet to the top of the lightning rod), was the world's tallest skyscraper. The Depression-era construction employed as many as 3,400 workers on any single day, most of whom received an excellent pay rate, especially given the economic conditions of the time. The new building imbued New York City with a deep sense of pride, desperately needed in the depths of the Great Depression, when many city residents were unemployed and prospects looked bleak. The grip of the Depression on New York's economy was still evident a year later, however, when only 25 percent of the Empire State's offices had been rented.

In 1972, the Empire State Building lost its title as world's tallest building to New York's World Trade Center, which itself was the tallest skyscraper for but a year. Today the honor belongs to Dubai's Burj Khalifa tower, which soars 2,716 feet into the sky.

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On May 1, 1931, President Herbert Hoover officially dedicates New York City's Empire State Building, pressing a button from the White House that turns on the building's lights. Hoover's gesture, of course, was symbolic; while the president remained in Washington, D.C., someone else flicked the switches in New York.

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the game monopoly was invented
who Charles Darrow's Monopoly
what what happened Charles created a game but it was too long and complicated then companies wouldn't take the game later he shorten it up.
when 1934

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The Great Depression was happening in New York and America. It was when stock markets crash and that sent people into panic. It happened during 1929-1939. It happened at the stock markets in New York. Many Americans got umployed because of the sock market crashing.

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What Caused the Great Depression?

Throughout the 1920s, the U.S. economy expanded rapidly, and the nation's total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, a period dubbed " the Roaring Twenties."

The stock market, centered at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City, was the scene of reckless speculation, where everyone from millionaire tycoons to cooks and janitors poured their savings into stocks. As a result, the stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929.

By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stock prices much higher than their actual value. Additionally, wages at that time were low, consumer debt was proliferating, the agricultural sector of the economy was struggling due to drought and falling food prices and banks had an excess of large loans that could not be liquidated.

The American economy entered a mild recession during the summer of 1929, as consumer spending slowed and unsold goods began to pile up, which in turn slowed factory production. Nonetheless, stock prices continued to rise, and by the fall of that year had reached stratospheric levels that could not be justified by expected future earnings.

Stock Market Crash of 1929

On October 24, 1929, as nervous investors began selling overpriced shares en masse, the stock market crash that some had feared happened at last. A record 12.9 million shares were traded that day, known as "Black Thursday."

Five days later, on October 29, or "Black Tuesday," some 16 million shares were traded after another wave of panic swept Wall Street. Millions of shares ended up worthless, and those investors who had bought stocks "on margin" (with borrowed money) were wiped out completely.

As consumer confidence vanished in the wake of the stock market crash, the downturn in spending and investment led factories and other businesses to slow down production and begin firing their workers. For those who were lucky enough to remain employed, wages fell and buying power decreased.

Many Americans forced to buy on credit fell into debt, and the number of foreclosures and repossessions climbed steadily. The global adherence to the gold standard, which joined countries around the world in fixed currency exchange, helped spread economic woes from the United States throughout the world, especially in Europe.

Bank Runs and the Hoover Administration

Despite assurances from President Herbert Hoover and other leaders that the crisis would run its course, matters continued to get worse over the next three years. By 1930, 4 million Americans looking for work could not find it; that number had risen to 6 million in 1931.

Meanwhile, the country's industrial production had dropped by half. Bread lines, soup kitchens and rising numbers of homeless people became more and more common in America's towns and cities. Farmers couldn't afford to harvest their crops and were forced to leave them rotting in the fields while people elsewhere starved. In 1930, severe droughts in the Southern Plains brought high winds and dust from Texas to Nebraska, killing people, livestock and crops. The " Dust Bowl " inspired a mass migration of people from farmland to cities in search of work.

In the fall of 1930, the first of four waves of banking panics began, as large numbers of investors lost confidence in the solvency of their banks and demanded deposits in cash, forcing banks to liquidate loans in order to supplement their insufficient cash reserves on hand.

Bank runs swept the United States again in the spring and fall of 1931 and the fall of 1932, and by early 1933 thousands of banks had closed their doors.

In the face of this dire situation, Hoover's administration tried supporting failing banks and other institutions with government loans; the idea was that the banks in turn would loan to businesses, which would be able to hire back their employees.

FDR and the Great Depression

Hoover, a Republican who had formerly served as U.S. secretary of commerce, believed that government should not directly intervene in the economy and that it did not have the responsibility to create jobs or provide economic relief for its citizens.

In 1932, however, with the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression and some 15 million people unemployed, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won an overwhelming victory in the presidential election.

By Inauguration Day (March 4, 1933), every U.S. state had ordered all remaining banks to close at the end of the fourth wave of banking panics, and the U.S. Treasury didn't have enough cash to pay all government workers. Nonetheless, FDR (as he was known) projected a calm energy and optimism, famously declaring "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Roosevelt took immediate action to address the country's economic woes, first announcing a four-day "bank holiday" during which all banks would close so that Congress could pass reform legislation and reopen those banks determined to be sound. He also began addressing the public directly over the radio in a series of talks, and these so-called " fireside chats " went a long way toward restoring public confidence.

During Roosevelt's first 100 days in office, his administration passed legislation that aimed to stabilize industrial and agricultural production, create jobs and stimulate recovery.

In addition, Roosevelt sought to reform the financial system, creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ( FDIC) to protect depositors' accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash.

The New Deal: A Road to Recovery

Among the programs and institutions of the New Deal that aided in recovery from the Great Depression was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which built dams and hydroelectric projects to control flooding and provide electric power to the impoverished Tennessee Valley region, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a permanent jobs program that employed 8.5 million people from 1935 to 1943.

When the Great Depression began, the United States was the only industrialized country in the world without some form of unemployment insurance or social security. In 1935, Congress passed the Social Security Act, which for the first time provided Americans with unemployment, disability and pensions for old age.

After showing early signs of recovery beginning in the spring of 1933, the economy continued to improve throughout the next three years, during which real GDP (adjusted for inflation) grew at an average rate of 9 percent per year.

A sharp recession hit in 1937, caused in part by the Federal Reserve's decision to increase its requirements for money in reserve. Though the economy began improving again in 1938, this second severe contraction reversed many of the gains in production and employment and prolonged the effects of the Great Depression through the end of the decade.

Depression-era hardships fueled the rise of extremist political movements in various European countries, most notably that of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany. German aggression led war to break out in Europe in 1939, and the WPA turned its attention to strengthening the military infrastructure of the United States, even as the country maintained its neutrality.

African Americans in the Great Depression

One-fifth of all Americans receiving federal relief during the Great Depression were Black, most in the rural South. But farm and domestic work, two major sectors in which Black workers were employed, were not included in the 1935 Social Security Act, meaning there was no safety net in times of uncertainty. Rather than fire domestic help, private employers could simply pay them less without legal repercussions. And those relief programs for which African Americans were eligible on paper were rife with discrimination in practice since all relief programs were administered locally.

Despite these obstacles, Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet," led by Mary McLeod Bethune, ensured nearly every New Deal agency had a Black advisor. The number of African Americans working in government tripled.

Women in the Great Depression

There was one group of Americans who actually gained jobs during the Great Depression: Women. From 1930 to 1940, the number of employed women in the United States rose 24 percent from 10.5 million to 13 million Though they'd been steadily entering the workforce for decades, the financial pressures of the Great Depression drove women to seek employment in ever greater numbers as male breadwinners lost their jobs. The 22 percent decline in marriage rates between 1929 and 1939 also created an increase in single women in search of employment.

Women during the Great Depression had a strong advocate in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who lobbied her husband for more women in office-like Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman to ever hold a cabinet position.

Jobs available to women paid less but were more stable during the banking crisis: nursing, teaching and domestic work. They were supplanted by an increase in secretarial roles in FDR's rapidly-expanding government. But there was a catch: over 25 percent of the National Recovery Administration's wage codes set lower wages for women, and jobs created under the WPA confined women to fields like sewing and nursing that paid less than roles reserved for men.

Married women faced an additional hurdle: By 1940, 26 states had placed restrictions known as marriage bars on their employment, as working wives were perceived as taking away jobs from able-bodied men-even if, in practice, they were occupying jobs men would not want and doing them for far less pay.

Great Depression Ends and World War II Begins

With Roosevelt's decision to support Britain and France in the struggle against Germany and the other Axis Powers, defense manufacturing geared up, producing more and more private-sector jobs.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 led to America's entry into World War II, and the nation's factories went back into full production mode.

This expanding industrial production, as well as widespread conscription beginning in 1942, reduced the unemployment rate to below its pre-Depression level. The Great Depression had ended at last, and the United States turned its attention to the global conflict of World War II.

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HISTORY Vault

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Great Depression: Black Thursday, Facts & Effects

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The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. At its peak, the U.S. unemployment rate topped 20 percent.

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Who:
What:
When:
Where:
Why:

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The most visible evidence of how dry the 1930s became was the dust storm. Tons of topsoil were blown off barren fields and carried in storm clouds for hundreds of miles. Technically, the driest region of the Plains – southeastern Colorado, southwest Kansas and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas – became known as the Dust Bowl, and many dust storms started there. But the entire region, and eventually the entire country, was affected.

The Dust Bowl got its name after Black Sunday, April 14, 1935. More and more dust storms had been blowing up in the years leading up to that day. In 1932, 14 dust storms were recorded on the Plains. In 1933, there were 38 storms. By 1934, it was estimated that 100 million acres of farmland had lost all or most of the topsoil to the winds. By April 1935, there had been weeks of dust storms, but the cloud that appeared on the horizon that Sunday was the worst. Winds were clocked at 60 mph. Then it hit.

"The impact is like a shovelful of fine sand flung against the face," Avis D. Carlson wrote in a New Republic article. "People caught in their own yards grope for the doorstep. Cars come to a standstill, for no light in the world can penetrate that swirling murk... We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it, watch it strip us of possessions and the hope of possessions. It is becoming Real."

The day after Black Sunday, an Associated Press reporter used the term "Dust Bowl" for the first time. "Three little words achingly familiar on the Western farmer's tongue, rule life in the dust bowl of the continent – if it rains." The term stuck and was used by radio reporters and writers, in private letters and public speeches.

In the central and northern plains, dust was everywhere.

The impact of the Dust Bowl was felt all over the U.S. During the same April as Black Sunday, 1935, one of FDR's advisors, Hugh Hammond Bennett, was in Washington D.C. on his way to testify before Congress about the need for soil conservation legislation. A dust storm arrived in Washington all the way from the Great Plains. As a dusty gloom spread over the nation's capital and blotted out the sun, Bennett explained, "This, gentlemen, is what I have been talking about." Congress passed the Soil Conservation Act that same year.

Written by Bill Ganzel of the Ganzel Group. First written and published in 2003.

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The most visible evidence of how dry the 1930s became was the dust storm. Tons of topsoil were blown off barren fields and carried in storm clouds for hundreds of miles. Technically, the driest region of the Plains - southeastern Colorado, southwest Kansas and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas - became known as the Dust Bowl, and many dust storms started there.

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WHO- the states
What- the dust was ruin crops for farmers  and the dust was killing people
where- In the USA
why- the high winds picked up the topsoil and created the dust bowl
when- 1930-1936

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What Caused the Dust Bowl?

The Dust Bowl was caused by several economic and agricultural factors, including federal land policies, changes in regional weather, farm economics and other cultural factors. After the Civil War, a series of federal land acts coaxed pioneers westward by incentivizing farming in the Great Plains.

The Homestead Act of 1862, which provided settlers with 160 acres of public land, was followed by the Kinkaid Act of 1904 and the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. These acts led to a massive influx of new and inexperienced farmers across the Great Plains.

Many of these late 19th and early 20th-century settlers lived by the superstition "rain follows the plow." Emigrants, land speculators, politicians and even some scientists believed that homesteading and agriculture would permanently affect the climate of the semi-arid Great Plains region, making it more conducive to farming.

Manifest Destiny

This false belief was linked to Manifest Destiny -an attitude that Americans had a sacred duty to expand west. A series of wet years during the period created a further misunderstanding of the region's ecology and led to the intensive cultivation of increasingly marginal lands that couldn't be reached by irrigation.

Rising wheat prices in the 1910s and 1920s and increased demand for wheat from Europe during World War I encouraged farmers to plow up millions of acres of native grassland to plant wheat, corn and other row crops. But as the United States entered the Great Depression, wheat prices plummeted. In desperation, farmers tore up even more grassland in an attempt to harvest a bumper crop and break even.

Crops began to fail with the onset of drought in 1931, exposing the bare, over-plowed farmland. Without deep-rooted prairie grasses to hold the soil in place, it began to blow away. Eroding soil led to massive dust storms and economic devastation-especially in the Southern Plains.

When Was the Dust Bowl?

The Dust Bowl, also known as "the Dirty Thirties," started in 1930 and lasted for about a decade, but its long-term economic impacts on the region lingered much longer.

Severe drought hit the Midwest and southern Great Plains in 1930. Massive dust storms began in 1931. A series of drought years followed, further exacerbating the environmental disaster.

By 1934, an estimated 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land had been rendered useless for farming, while another 125 million acres-an area roughly three-quarters the size of Texas-was rapidly losing its topsoil.

Regular rainfall returned to the region by the end of 1939, bringing the Dust Bowl years to a close. The economic effects, however, persisted. Population declines in the worst-hit counties-where the agricultural value of the land failed to recover-continued well into the 1950s.

'Black Blizzards' Strike America

During the Dust Bowl period, severe dust storms, often called "black blizzards," swept the Great Plains. Some of these carried topsoil from Texas and Oklahoma as far east as Washington, D.C. and New York City, and coated ships in the Atlantic Ocean with dust.

Billowing clouds of dust would darken the sky, sometimes for days at a time. In many places, the dust drifted like snow and residents had to clear it with shovels. Dust worked its way through the cracks of even well-sealed homes, leaving a coating on food, skin and furniture.

Some people developed "dust pneumonia" and experienced chest pain and difficulty breathing. It's unclear exactly how many people may have died from the condition. Estimates range from hundreds to several thousand people.

On May 11, 1934, a massive dust storm two miles high traveled 2,000 miles to the East Coast, blotting out monuments such as the Statue of Liberty and the U.S. Capitol.

The worst dust storm occurred on April 14, 1935. News reports called the event Black Sunday. A wall of blowing sand and dust started in the Oklahoma Panhandle and spread east. As many as three million tons of topsoil are estimated to have blown off the Great Plains during Black Sunday.

An Associated Press news report coined the term "Dust Bowl" after the Black Sunday dust storm.

New Deal Programs

President Franklin D. Roosevelt established a number of measures to help alleviate the plight of poor and displaced farmers. He also addressed the environmental degradation that had led to the Dust Bowl in the first place.

As part of Roosevelt's New Deal, Congress established the Soil Erosion Service and the Prairie States Forestry Project in 1935. These programs put local farmers to work planting trees as windbreaks on farms across the Great Plains. The Soil Erosion Service, now called the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) developed and promoted new farming techniques to combat the problem of soil erosion.

Okie Migration

Roughly 2.5 million people left the Dust Bowl states- Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma-during the 1930s. It was one of the largest migrations in American history.

Oklahoma alone lost 440,000 people to migration. Many of them, poverty-stricken, traveled west looking for work. From 1935 to 1940, roughly 250,000 Oklahoma migrants moved to California. A third settled in the state's agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley.

These Dust Bowl refugees were called "Okies." Okies faced discrimination, menial labor and pitiable wages upon reaching California. Many of them lived in shantytowns and tents along irrigation ditches. "Okie" soon became a term of disdain used to refer to any poor Dust Bowl migrant, regardless of their state of origin.

Dust Bowl in Arts and Culture

The Dust Bowl, and the suffering endured by those who survived it, captured the hearts and imaginations of the nation's artists, musicians and writers.

John Steinbeck memorialized the plight of the Okies in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. Photographer Dorothea Lange documented rural poverty with a series of photographs for FDR's Farm Securities Administration, and artist Alexandre Hogue achieved renown with his Dust Bowl landscapes.

Folk musician Woody Guthrie, and his semi-autobiographical first album Dust Bowl Ballads of 1940, told stories of economic hardship faced by Okies in California. Guthrie, an Oklahoma native, left his home state with thousands of others looking for work during the Dust Bowl.

Sources

FDR and the New Deal Response to an Environmental Catastrophe. Roosevelt Institute.
About The Dust Bowl. English Department; University of Illinois.
Dust Bowl Migration. University of California at Davis.
The Great Okie Migration. Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Okie Migrations. Oklahoma Historical Society.
What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation. Population and Environment.
The Dust Bowl. Library of Congress.
Dust Bowl Ballads: Woody Guthrie. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
The Dust Bowl. Ken Burns; PBS.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Dust Bowl: Causes, Definition & Years - HISTORY

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The Dust Bowl refers to the drought-stricken southern plains of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

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Who: Only the richest wore these clothing
What:
When: In the 1930
Where:Mead County
Why:because the other people couldnt afford that type of fashion they were really poor

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Even though people were broke in the 1930s they still didn't dress like it.

Men still dressed up nice, sporting fedoras and double-breasted overcoats. The boys wore short shorts and tall socks.

The women wore dresses and kept their hair close to their head. Fur was in and so were floral patterns. Makeup was chic and shoulder pads were very important until the late 1930s.

Although hats were still popular for women, they were gradually becoming less popular.

One way to tell if something is from the Thirties is if it has initials engraved or stitched. This was a common free service that stores offered.

Fashion in the 1930s was just as glamorous as the 1920s, just in a different way.

Read more about the fashion trends of the 1930s with our year-by-year timeline below.

Fashion in 1930

With the Clara Bow flapper look becoming passe, the new rage is the sophisticated Garbo look. The silhouette is tall and slender, emphasizing broad shoulders, a small bosom, streamlined hips and a standard waistline.

Both hair and hems are longer in 1930. The more narrow skirts widen softly below the hip and then stop at mid-calf.

Fashion in 1930 was highly influenced by stars of the silver screen.

Greta Garbo popularized the windblown look, with her side-parted hair, while Joan Crawford embraced the puffed sleeves, which emphasized her slim waist. Jean Harlow strutted her stuff in slinky halter tops and evening gowns.

Thick, clinging fabrics are enormously popular. The gradual broadening of the shoulders lead to three-inch shoulder pads; found even in night gowns.

Makeup emphasizes angularity. In 1930, most every woman owns a close-up mirror to pencil in well-plucked eyebrows and to apply black mascara and eye shadow. The curling iron was another fashion necessity.

Fashion in 1931

In 1931, new fashion accessories include suede gloves with matching bag and shoes, a red or gray fox fur (flung over one shoulder), batik scarves, large rings and watches set with gems.

Women love their hats. In 1931, they are deep and close-fitting with both large and small brims, and women liked them to cover one eye. Women wear their hair a little longer and loosely waved with a side part. Fashionable shoes include the black silk style with ankle strap and the white suede style with a T-strap.

For men, hair was worn short and natural, parted on the side. Men left their pomade in the cabinet, going for the natural look a la Charles Farrell or Buddy Rogers. The older gentlemen still sported a mustache while carrying his cigarette case, wallet, signet ring, cuff links and two handkerchiefs; one in the pocket and one, for actual use, in the coat sleeve. The hearty man appears with a double-breasted, dark-colored suit and the hat brought down over the top of his face.

Fashion in 1932

With the growing vogue in slinky silks popularized via Hollywood, undergarments change dramatically in 1932. Though still embroidered and generally in one piece, there is a notable absence of seams, since they show through tight fitting clothing.

Women turn to corsets in stunning fashion and a new interest emerges in the "uplift," provided by darts and hidden circular stitching. Artificial silks and zippers make clothing less expensive, which is very important in an American society that had a 24% unemployment rate.

A blue and white plaid rayon dress with sashed belt and bow collar, with flowers, ribbons and quills in the hair is the style of the summer. Fashionable hats range from the pillbox, toque, trimmed turban and Basque beret (worn on the side like Marlene Dietrich). Chanel's cotton evening dress was a big hit in 1932.

For the first time, ties made of wool, not silk, are the fab choice for the stylish businessman.

Fashion in 1933

In 1933, the V-shape (wide shoulders to slim waist with flared skirt) placed an even stronger emphasis on the corset. There was a two-way stretch and the new, all-in-one, full-length corset with Lastex bra and six suspenders to hold up stockings.

Bolero jackets and puff sleeves are in style, as are short, fitted sweaters. In the evening, necklines are high in the front, and very low in the back. Large brimmed hats reinforce the long silhouette.

Once again, women follow Greta Garbo in the new "man's" evening suit, while mimicking Joan Crawford's makeup: bright lips, eye shadow and artificial eyelashes - which take a salon two hours to apply.

Chanel's satin suit and Shiaparelli's exotic buttons made fashion news. Some fashionable women even dusted their hair with bright phosphorescent powders.

Fashion in 1934

In 1934, hair is pushed back across the head at a sharp angle and hats, worn on one side of the head, look almost like vinyl records. Many women curl their hair like Jean Harlow, wear red lipstick, rouge and nail polish. Most women also penciled in the eyebrows. A new passion for sports ushered in a new era of smaller, tighter sportswear.

On the beach, shapely women wore what was called "corset bathing suits" that were slashed and backless and molded very closely to the woman's body.

Finally, high-fashion designs were making their way to the average woman in the form of ready-to-wear clothes. The style that was seen in the magazines was being seen in middle class neighborhoods. The tailored look, Chanel's collection and the new surrealism design all experienced great success.

Chanel embraced "understated elegance" by keeping the easy skirt and pairing it with a jersey jacket. Schiaparelli pursued "hard edge chic" and fantasy, with prints designed by Dali and Cocteau, accompanied by wild button shaped like fish, horses or stars.

Padded shoulders were even more pronounced in 1934. The "little black dress" is the new evening style, but some women loved to express themselves in loud-colored long dinner suits.

Hot colors combos in 1943 are brown & pink, and prune & turquoise. Women still loved gloves and silver fox broadtail.

Fashion in 1935

A not-so-subtle military look pervades women's fashion in 1935. This look is accomplished with square shoulders, low heels, plumed hats and gauntlet gloves. Even Shiaparelli designed suits with a tidy look in his drummer-boy jackets.

Evening wear was much different. Women enjoyed an international flair, with Greek and Indian-inspired dresses with heavy jewelry and breathtaking prints.

Hair was brushed to the top of the head in a mass of curls and makeup emphasized bone structure in a bold way. Bra cup sizes (A-D) were introduced in 1935.

Mainbocher's two-piece navy wool dress with lace cuffs and collar was a particularly awesome outfit from 1935.

Fashion in 1936

In 1936, women loved wearing a plum or dark green wool tailored dress with long, tight sleeves and slightly bloused bodice. The dress gently flared at mid-calf, has side pleats and is worn with a wide leather belt.

For the evening, the black silk crepe with white silk over-jacket was a fashionable choice. Another slick outfit was the shiny, brown satin and matching jacket and feather-trimmed sleeves. Formal wear ranged from short dresses in bright colors to gold frocks with pressed pleats and short jackets.

Ferragamo designed the first evening wedge shoe in gold kid and red satin, but ankle boots of embroidered velvet are also worn. The bra is "enhanced" with the high and pointed look.

Shiaparelli's square bag and collarless coat was at the top of the couture world along with Molyneaux's crescent brown calf pouch bag.

Fashion in 1937

In 1937, the hourglass silhouette, with padded shoulders and small waist gave way to a more tubular, natural shape. Evening lengths remained long and in wool, jewels remained bulky and immense. Cartier clips of blackamoors' heads are copied everywhere.

New fashion items include bulky blue fox and silk jersey. Veils on hats make a return. In makeup, Christian Berard introduces cyclamen rouge and deep blue lashes for blondes; and brown suntan rouge and pomegranate lips for brunettes.

Strassner's white pullover with white wool slacks were a popular item in high fashion.

For men, there were a few developments. In the spring and summer, men wore a single-breasted suit with patch pockets and panama hat. In the fall, he wore a double-breasted dark blue suit with wide-cuffed, double-pleated, high-waisted trousers.

He also might have worn a vertical stripe suit, in tow tones with windowpane checks in cotton, wool, nylon and silk.

Fashion in 1938

A special elegance marked fashion in 1938. The popular look was the pencil-thin silhouette with black outfit, skunk jacket, hair piled on top of the head, extravagant hat and enormous artificial jewelry.

At night, the fashion conscious woman wore skin-tight molded dresses and short tailored jackets with embroidery.

Spring 1938 saw romantic styles such as full skirts in delightful patterns, tiny sailor hats trimmed with feathers and flowers, and clogs. Also new are the more formal strapless evening gowns.

Hair is worn in a pageboy with side combs and bobby pins, it is pushed off the ears or it is tied back in George Washington bows. Styles of the 1890s and 1900s are revived for day and evening.

Cyclamen is a popular color in 1938, but lipsticks and rouge have a bluish tint.

Fashion in 1939

For women, suits became more feminine in 1939. Whether they were pleated, straight or flared, they came with tightly fitted jackets and blouses. British Prime Minister Chamberlain's famous umbrella and hat became a motif in accessories and prints.

Snoods were quite popular in 1939. Hair styles in general were more Edwardian (worn up front) with the back hanging in curls. The first permanent waves appear in 1939.

In the summer, bare midriffs, flat sports sandals, Indian moccasins and Carmen Miranda turbans are seen everywhere.

Some winter dresses dresses have fitted bodices for Mainbocher's new corset, which, laced up the back, creates waves across the fashion industry.

From Europe, come "black out" fashions which include tailored suits, white hats, flashlights and boxes for gas masks. Pinguet re-inspires the square shoulder, which stayed in some level of popularity for almost another decade.

In-Depth 1930s Fashion Profiles

1930s Fashion Pictures

More 1930s Fashion

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Even though people were broke in the 1930s they still didn't dress like it. Men still dressed up nice, sporting fedoras and double-breasted overcoats. The boys wore short shorts and tall socks. The women wore dresses and kept their hair close to their head. Fur was in and so were floral patterns.

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Who: family's
What: fashion
Where: Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico.
Why: because making clothes was to expencive

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In the Depression era, women and girls often wore dresses or skirt sets, while men and young boys wore pants with button-up shirts. Many families made their own clothing.

During the Depression, clothing was often handmade from repurposed materials. For example, girls' dresses were made with patterned flour or feed sacks. Children's clothing was often saved for younger siblings to spare the expense of purchasing a new wardrobe for a younger child, particularly in larger families. In some regions, adults and children wore patched clothing to save on the cost of new clothing.

Pleated skirts with matching tops were popular during the early 1930s. Women wore leather boots and high-heeled shoes. Shorter sleeves, such as 3/4-inch sleeves and butterfly sleeves, were common for women. Dresses and skirt sets were often paired with jackets and tights during cooler months. Women's dresses were sewn with pleats or in a cross-cut bias style that created diagonal pleats. Open-front jackets and hats were common for women during the Depression.

Men wore jackets, ties and trousers or pants made from denim. Adult men and young boys living in some regions also wore overalls. Denim jeans and overalls were typically reserved for farming, while men's cotton pants and boys' knee pants were worn for other activities. Leather shoes were common for people of all ages, and shoes were often worn until they were no longer usable.

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What Was Clothing Like During the Great Depression?

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In the Depression era, women and girls often wore dresses or skirt sets, while men and young boys wore pants with button-up shirts. Many families made their own clothing. During the Depression, clothing was often handmade from repurposed materials. For example, girls' dresses were made with patterned flour or feed sacks.

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The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crew-members, on May 6, 1937.

Frenchman Henri Giffard constructed the first successful airship in 1852. His hydrogen-filled blimp carried a three-horsepower steam engine that turned a large propeller and flew at a speed of six miles per hour. The rigid airship, often known as the "zeppelin" after the last name of its innovator, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, was developed by the Germans in the late 19th century. Unlike French airships, the German ships had a light framework of metal girders that protected a gas-filled interior. However, like Giffard's airship, they were lifted by highly flammable hydrogen gas and vulnerable to explosion. Large enough to carry substantial numbers of passengers, one of the most famous rigid airships was the Graf Zeppelin, a dirigible that traveled around the world in 1929. In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin pioneered the first transatlantic air service, leading to the construction of the Hindenburg, a larger passenger airship.

On May 3, 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany, for a journey across the Atlantic to Lakehurst's Navy Air Base. Stretching 804 feet from stern to bow, it carried 36 passengers and crew of 61. While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames, probably after a spark ignited its hydrogen core. Rapidly falling 200 feet to the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Thirteen passengers, 21 crewmen, and 1 civilian member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries.

Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenberg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared, "Oh, the humanity!" The recording of Morrison's commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America's first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast. Lighter-than-air passenger travel rapidly fell out of favor after the Hindenberg disaster, and no rigid airships survived World War II.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crew-members, on May 6, 1937. Frenchman Henri Giffard constructed the first successful airship in 1852.