Unit 6- Reading Guide 3
Vocab: Define each of the following terms
Great Depression
Price supports
Credit
Herbert Hoover
Dow Jones Industrial Average
Speculation
Buying on margin
Hawley- Smoot Tariff
Shantytowns
Bread lines
Name_________________________
Soup kitchens
Dust Bowl
Boulder Dam
Federal Farm Board
National Credit Corporation
Federal Home Loan Bank Act
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
Norris-La Guardia Anti-Injunction Act
The Bonus Army
Guided Reading Questions: Provide comprehensive answers, in complete
sentences, to each of the following questions.
1. The opening paragraph summarizes the causes of the Great Depression.
What were they?
2. Which industries were in trouble by the end of the 1920s?
3. Explain the plight of the nation’s farmers, from the period of the Great War
through the 1920s. What help did they seek from the federal government?
Did they get that help?
4. What happens to consumer demand by the end of the 20s? What caused this?
5. How did the uneven distribution of wealth affect consumer demand by the
end of the decade?
6. What did President Hoover say about the economy in 1928? How did the
Dow corroborate this statement? What was risky about the way Americans
were buying stock?
7. When did the warning tremors begin to rattle the stock market? What
happened on Black Tuesday? How did shareholders react? What were the
effects on the market?
8. Explain the snowball effect of panic, bank failures, and business failures
following the stock market crash. Why is 1933 a horrific year for the
unemployment rate?
9. Explain why the Great Depression was a worldwide phenomenon. What
affect did the depression in America have on foreign markets?
10. The Hawley Smoot Tariff is the poster child for protectionist tariff policy.
Explain how this tariff made matters worse for everyone. What effect did this
tariff have on trade between the U.S. and Europe (provide statistics)?
11. So…sum up the causes of the Great Depression. Do you get it? If not, ASK
QUESTIONS IN CLASS TOMORROW!!!
12. What evidence of the Depression would you see in America’s cities?
13. Explain, in numbers, the affect of falling crop prices and debt on the nation’s
farmers.
14. How did poor farming practices and Mother Nature wreak havoc on the
western plains? How did many of these farmers react to their losses?
15. How did the Depression affect American families? Answer this question in
terms of fathers, mothers, and children.
16. How did the Depression affect African Americans and Latinos?
17. What were the psychological effects of the Depression?
18. Hoover was a humanitarian and a believer in laissez-faire. Explain why he
opposed welfare and what his favored approach was at the beginning of the
Depression. What enormous project did he sign-off on that illustrates his
philosophy?
19. Explain Hoover’s cautious approach following the stock market crash.
20. As the depression worsened, what evidence would point to the growing
disenchantment of Americans toward President Hoover?
21. Explain how Hoover finally begins to help the following groups: farmers,
banks, home owners.
22. What did Hoover hope to accomplish with the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation?
23. Explain what happened with the Bonus Army. Did Hoover intend for their
dispersal to go as it did? What affect did this fiasco have on Hoover’s public
image?