Key Idea: Why the Great Depression began, how the USA, Canada and Latin America responded, and how it changed society and culture across the Americas in the 1930s.
Causes, Hoover and the New Deal
- Causes: overproduction, unequal wealth, buying on credit, weak banks, farm depression and high tariffs.
- Hoover trusted voluntary action; he used Smoot-Hawley and the RFC but gave no direct relief, and the Bonus Army wrecked his name.
- FDR's New Deal aimed at Relief, Recovery and Reform: CCC, AAA, NRA, WPA, the Social Security Act and Wagner Act.
- Critics on the left (Long, Coughlin) and the right (Supreme Court, Liberty League); full recovery came only with war.
Beyond the USA
| Region or group | Problem | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | Wheat exports collapsed; 27% unemployment | King did little; Bennett's tariffs, then a late New Deal |
| Latin American politics | Export collapse cut government income | Coups in Argentina and Brazil (Vargas), 1930 |
| Latin American economy | Imports too expensive | Import Substitution Industrialization |
| Culture | Artists out of work | Federal Art and Writers' Projects, muralism, Hollywood |
The crash hit every country that lived on exports; the USA answered with a bigger state, much of Latin America with strongmen.
Did the New Deal end the Depression? No. Full recovery came with the Second World War.
What lasting change did the New Deal make? A much bigger federal role in the economy.
Who did New Deal jobs leave out? Many women and minorities.
Why did Latin America start making its own goods? It could no longer afford imports.