Underlying Causes of the Great Depression

Underlying Causes of the Great

Depression

• over-production and over-

expansion

• high tariffs killed

international trade

• dependence on too few

primary products

• only natural resources for export

Underlying Causes continued

• Low standard of living for

many – not everyone

prospered in the 1920’s

• Canadians and

businesses overly

optimistic about the future

• Overuse of credit – buy

now, pay later

• Stocks bought on margin

(credit)

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First Symptom- Stock Market Crash

Immediate Causes – Drought/Dustbowl

• On top of dropping prices and increasing costs, farmers faced droughts for 10 years which resulted in dustbowl storms

• This is one of the reasons for the decade being called “The Dirty Thirties”

Dustbowl Storm

• Day turned to night

Dustbowls

• Not rotating crops also contributed to

dustbowls

• Farmers only planted wheat because that

was what earned them the most

• But,

• Wheat erodes the top of the soil and in dry

conditions, the soil blows away in a dust

storm

After the Storm

It finally rained, no soil left to hold the

moisture – too late for this farmer

Impact of Great Depression

• This iconic image is of

a migrant farm worker

and mother in the

U.S.

• What is the impact of

the Great Depression

on her and her

family?

Preparing a Meal

No where to go

• Not necessarily 1930’s

• Can be seen any day in

downtown Toronto, 2009

Where to go?

What about impact on Immigrants?

• “In my search for employment I was free to

range the whole of commercial Winnipeg

and nobody denied me a job from any

ulterior motive. This did not hold for the

Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews. … As much

as two-thirds of it (Winnipeg) was barred

and bolted against them.”

Cinderella Man

Hooverville – Central Park - NYC