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Generation Date: 02/16/2009
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Economy of the 1930's
1.
People who have lost their homes leave the Great Plains for California.
Crops are ruined and farmers cannot pay back their debts.
Migrant workers cannot find work because the farms have been destroyed.
The list above best describes the effects of
A. the Dust Bowl days.
B. Hoovervilles.
C. the Roaring Twenties.
D. Black Tuesday.
2. When the stock market suddenly crashed in October of 1929, which of these
events happened soon after?
A. Banks went out of business.
B. Stock prices started to rise.
C. Big investors made a fortune.
D. Companies hired more workers.
3.
Greensboro N.C.
February 12, 1938
Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt,
Washington D.C.
Dear Mrs. Roosevelt
On January 1st I was laid off from my work, leaving my father the whole support of our
family. Just recently he was cut down to three days a week with a cut in pay. With seven
of us in the family, it is just about impossible for us to live on this amount of money. Our
bills are piling up, and we are behind on our rent.
I am 18 years of age, the oldest girl in the family, and it just seems impossible for me
to get a job any where. I have been to mills, stores and firms of all sorts. I am willing and
able to work. It just seems impossible to find work.
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If you could help us out with money from $35.00 to $50.00, I believe we would be the
happiest family in the world. Just as soon as I get back to work, I will pay you back as
much a week as possible until your kind favor has been fully repaid.
Gratefully yours,
D.B.
adapted from http://newdeal.feri.org/eleanor/db0238.htm
This letter was written during the Great Depression. The young woman has
written to Mrs. Roosevelt because
A. she needs money to help her family pay their bills.
B. she would like some money so her family can go on vacation.
C. her family is doing well, and she wants Mrs. Roosevelt to know.
D. she wants to go to work for the Roosevelts in Washington.
www.livinghistoryfarm.org/.../ money_02.html
4. Why did people like those in the picture have to line up for free food in the
1930s?
A. The war left people with no money to spend.
B. Most people had money in the thirties, but a few were poor and got free food.
C. The Great Depression left many without jobs or money.
D. They were on a lunch break from their jobs in factories.
5. American families were often broken apart during the Great Depression of the
1930s. This most likely happened because parents had to
A. move from town to town in search of work.
B. go to Germany to fight in World War II.
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C. work in factories and come home late at night.
D. leave the country because they were here illegally.
6. During the Roaring Twenties, people made lots of money on the stock market.
Prices of U.S. stocks kept climbing until September and October of 1929. They
hit a peak at that time and then started to gradually fall. This started a panic in
which
A. nobody bought or sold very much stock.
B. people thought they better buy all the stock they can.
C. thousands of investors sold off their stocks.
D. people had renewed faith in the stock market.
7. Which of these environmental conditions increased the destruction of the Dust
Bowl of the 1930s?
A. All the bushes and trees helped to keep the soil in place.
B. Years of drought had made the ground very dry.
C. Flooding in the Great Plains had ruined miles of farmland.
D. There had been heavy rains for many months.
8. Why did many people in the Great Depression live in makeshift towns, or
"Hoovervilles"?
A. President Hoover made them live in these towns.
B. It was the place where escaped criminals lived.
C. They had lost their money and their homes.
D. They could live closer to their workplaces.
9. The Great Depression caused many people to lose their money and their jobs. In
cities from New York to California, many people who had lost their homes did
which of these?
A. became farmers
B. built Hoovervilles
C. went back to school
D. worked and saved their money
10. Which of these economic effects did the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s have on
America?
A. Farmers in the Great Plains planted more crops after the dust storms.
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B. Stock prices rose and people started to make more money.
C. People packed up and moved east to the Great Plains.
D. Crops in the Great Plains failed and farmers went bankrupt.
11.
For many people in the Great Depression, life was a daily struggle. As many as 25%
of the nation's workers - one out of four - were out of work. No job meant no money to
make house payments or buy food and clothes for the family. Times were hard whether
you lived in a city or on a farm, whether you were an adult or a child. Many families lost
their homes and farms. As a result, about 250,000 young people were homeless in the
early years of the Depression. Many people moved from place to place, along the
highways and railways. They looked for food and work wherever they could.
http://newdeal.feri.org/eleanor/er2a.htm
Which of these is a true statement about the Great Depression?
A. Many families lost their homes.
B. It was easy to find employment.
C. Times were only hard for farm families.
D. Half the nation's adults were out of work.
12. Which of these best completes the diagram above?
A. Settlements called "Hoovervilles" are built by the poor.
B. People invest large amounts of money in the stock market.
C. President Hoover agrees to help America out of poverty.
D. Banks allow people to borrow whatever money they need.
13.
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"Now the wind grew strong and hard and it worked at the rain crust in the corn fields.
Little by little the sky was darkened by the mixing dust, and carried away. The wind grew
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stronger. The rain crust broke and the dust lifted up out of the fields and drove gray
plumes into the air like sluggish smoke. The corn threshed the wind and made a dry,
rushing sound. The finest dust did not settle back to earth now, but disappeared into the
darkening sky. ... The people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air
and covered their noses from it.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
The people in this story by John Steinbeck are most likely
A. fishermen who were angry about the long drought.
B. farm families living through the Dust Bowl days.
C. homeless people who had lost all their money on Black Tuesday.
D. factory workers in the textile and steel industries.
14. October 29, 1929, is known as Black Tuesday. On that day, the stock market
crashed, and this caused
A. President Hoover to build Hoovervilles.
B. the beginning of the Great Depression.
C. President Roosevelt to declare war on Germany.
D. people to invest all of their money.
15.
The Great Depression hit farmers especially hard. Many had gone into debt to buy
machinery and land and now could not make their payments. Low crop prices meant
farmers could not make any profits. In addition, a great drought took place in 1931 and
1932 in the Midwest and the South and turned much of the area into a dust bowl. Crops
failed and many farmers went broke.
http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures/lecture18.html
According to the reading selection above, how did the Great Depression affect
farmers in the Midwest and the South?
A. Many owed money and could not make their payments.
B. Farmers made a good profit from the low crop prices.
C. They were able to break even and not owe any money.
D. They were finally able to pay off the debts they owed.
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Answers
1.
A
2.
3.
A
A
4.
5.
C
A
6.
7.
C
B
8.
9.
C
B
10. D
11. A
12. A
13. B
14. B
15. A
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Explanations
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1.
In the 1930s, there was a series of terrible dust storms that blew across the Great Plains.
Millions of acres of good topsoil were blown away. Crops were ruined, and the lands
became barren and dry. Farmers could not pay their debts and many lost their homes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
2.
One of the big problems that led to the stock market crash was that people had been
investing using credit. They had borrowed large amounts of money in order to invest,
thinking they would get rich on the stock market and could pay it all back. When prices
suddenly fell, on October 29, 1929, people lost millions of dollars. They could not pay back
the money they had borrowed from banks. As a result, many banks had to close.
3.
Eleanor Roosevelt had a reputation for helping the poor as much as she could. This young
woman wrote to Mrs. Roosevelt to ask her for a small amount of money. She told the first
lady that her family is unable to pay the bills.
4.
After the stock market crash of 1929, businesses lost money in the stock market and had
to lay off workers. The workers who were laid off could not afford to pay their bills or care
for their children. People who had always been able to put food on the table suddenly found
themselves standing in bread lines and soup lines.
5.
Families were often broken apart in the 1930s. There were few jobs available, and people
had to go wherever they could find work. It was often easier to leave one parent with the
children, and the other parent would go from town to town to find work.
6.
As soon as prices of stocks started to fall on their own, people panicked. They were afraid
of losing all their money so they tried to sell as much stock as they could. This made the
prices of stocks fall very sharply.
7.
Farmers had used poor farming methods and did not leave enough vegetation to keep the
soil in place. Also, the Great Plains had been in many years of drought. This made the
ground very dry. When the winds came up, there was nothing to keep the soil in place, and
it just blew away. This ruined crops and destroyed many farms.
8.
During the Depression, one out of every four people was unemployed. Many people went
broke and lost their homes. Some of these people got together and built groups of houses
from tin or other cheap materials. These "towns" were nicknamed Hoovervilles because
Herbert Hoover was the president at the time. He did not believe in having the government
step in to help the poor, and this made many people bitter and angry toward him.
9.
Herbert Hoover was president when the Depression started. Many people who had lost their
homes built shacks out of cardboard or anything they could find. They were so angry at
Hoover that they called these settlements "Hoovervilles."
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10. There had been a long drought, and farmers had also used farming methods that left little
vegetation. For these reasons, there was nothing to keep the soil in place when the storms
came. The terrible dust storms blew away all the topsoil from the farmland. The lands
became barren and dry and crops were ruined. This meant that farmers could not make any
money. Thousands of farm families went bankrupt and lost their farms.
11. The reading selection says that times were hard whether you lived in a city or on a farm. It
also says that many people were out of work. If people did not have jobs, there was no
way to make house payments or pay rent.
12. The Depression, which followed the great stock market crash of 1929, left many people
without any money. By the early 1930s, hundreds of thousands of people were homeless.
Many people built their homes out of cardboard or tin—whatever they could find. They were
so angry at President Hoover that they called the settlements "Hoovervilles."
13. Steinbeck wrote about farmers who left the Midwest and headed for California. The 1930s
were hard on everyone in America. The stock market crash had caused the economy to
nearly come to a halt. Farmers in the Great Plains states were hit even harder. There had
been many years of drought. Then the terrible dust storms came and blew away the good
topsoil. Crops were ruined, and farmers lost so much money that many of them left
everything to start over somewhere else.
14. In the 1920s, people invested lots of money in the stock market. Unfortunately, they were
borrowing the money to do this. They assumed they would make a lot of money and could
pay back what they owed. When stock prices started to fall, people panicked. They sold off
their stock in a hurry. This made the price of stocks go even lower. Pretty soon even the
richest people in America had lost their money. .
15. When crop prices dropped, farmers could no longer make a profit. They could not pay off
their farm machinery or make payments on their farms. Many farmers lost their homes and
their land during the 1930s.
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