Farmers suffered a great deal, because they were unable to grow crops.”In the 1920s, many farmers found themselves in a continual cycle of debt.” (UShistory.org) They lost everything, with no crops to sell, they weren’t able to make ends meet. Their families went without eating for days at a time. The dirt was so awful that some people got pneumonia. Their lungs were pretty much filled with dirt.The parents became ominous of their children’s well being. The livestock were also very much affected. When the cattle would breath, the surrounding dirt would be inhaled, and it would be hard for the animals to breath. “As the demand for wheat products grew, cattle grazing was reduced, and millions more acres were plowed and planted.” (UShistory.org)
When the stock market crashed many were unable to pay their debts not only to their stock purchases but also to their banks. Without payments to the loans given out, banks began to fail. Additionally, the gap between upper and lower classes greatly widened, which only increased the economic issues. On top of everything occurring, a drought developed in the Great Plains that created the “Dust Bowl” and destroyed the agriculture business. The sources of downfall in the Great Depression can be traced to the stock market failure, bank failure, farm failure, and job market failure.
The Federal homestead policy encouraged farmers to do this by keeping land allotments low and requiring land to be plowed (268). During the time the wheat prices dropped dramatically, wages fell, but productivity of wheat continued to surge. Farmers fell into debt, unable to pay taxes, foreclosure occurred
The critical problems in the late 1920’s, threatening american economy was the older industries such as textiles, steel, and railroads, which were basic to the fundamental well-being of the economy, were barely profitable. Crop prices dropped, americans thought the nation would continue to prosper under Republican leadership. The bottom fell out of the market and the nation's confidence, and half of the banks failed. The causes of the stock market crashed and the Great Depression made the collapse of the economy occur more quickly and the depression worse than it could have been. Many were out of a job, and others experienced pay cuts and reduced hours.
half of its value in a month (Oakes 719). During the 1920s, the shift from an agricultural economy to a consumer goods based economy was taking place (Oakes 719). The shift caused crops to be valued very low, causing many people being to be unemployed, spending of what little savings they had, and then relying on “rickety credit and financial systems” (Oakes 719-720). Something very similar can be observed between the cause of the great depression and the most recent economic disaster. In both disasters, banks made risky investments or gave out risky loans, which lead to a much more disastrous financial meltdown (Oakes 720).
In 1930’s, America encountered the worst depression. The stock market crash of 1929 was caused by the high prices leading many people to invest in stocks and take excessive loans from the banks. Many banking systems failed and people were left unemployed. Farmers lost their farms due to the Dust Bowl in the early 1930’s. In the time Herbert Hoover, the president at that time felt that the government shouldn’t interfere with such events.
In the article The Balance, “The farmers could not profit of the little crops that they had due to deflation.” Since they could not profit off their crops they had a very hard time living there lives. There kids sometimes had to drop out of school because their parents could not afford to hire help. This made children lose out on learning time, causing them to have lost a lot of valuable knowledge. On the web page US History, the article about Farmers Lives In The 1930’s, says, “More than one out of five farmers was on financial aid, because they could not make any money by selling their crops.”
The farmers felt that they were paying more and more to take loans and borrow money, to buy farming necessities and to sell their crops. The prices that had for the crops was degrading dramatically.
It turned the air of the Great Plains to solid dirt. As time went on more and more severe dust storms began. They caused many epidemics within the United States. A primary epidemic was pneumonia. The dust that filled the air caused many people’s lungs to fill up with dirt.
The three main causes of the Dust Bowl was Drought, amount of land being harvested on, and death of the shortgrass prairie. All of these reasons have to tie in with soil and water. The Dust Bowl was truly the Worst Hard Time in American history. It affected the great plains of america forever and would go down in
Most farmers struggled to make a living due to key issues. There was often a high tax on railroads which had cut a large profit from the farmers. The farmers had no other option other than the railroad since the farmers were often very far off westward in the Great Plains, while the market with a large population was still in eastern cities like New York. Likewise farmers had to pay a middle man in the East to sell their commodities in the East, because the poor farmers were unable to travel all the way to the East to sell their products then come back to start farming for the next year. Surprisingly, farmers were often detrimental to themselves due to
What other events combined with the economic crash to make the Depression so harsh? Urban centers had turned into uninhabited areas. Grim shantytowns, bitterly dubbed "Hoovervilles," were made from crates and cartons. Meanwhile, a drought withered crops and made the Great Plains into badlands.
Farm technology made a lot of progress from 1890-1920. Before this time, all the farming was done by hand. There were many inventions from wire to tractors to help make farming easier. Three inventions that really changed farming were gas tractors, cream separator and horse drawn combine. Gas tractors were created so that you didn’t have to use your horses so much and so you could pull more.
In a very bad way. The dust bowl was very hard for the people living in it. They could do nothing because it was very hard to go outside and have something to do. It was even harder to get away from the dust because it could get through the cracks in your
The Roaring Twenties led to social, political, and economic changes in the United States. The Twenties were one of the most influential time periods of the 1900’s. In the 1920’s America was battling a cultural war between traditional fundamentalists and liberal-minded urbanites. America was faced with a choice: stick with what they have always known or create a new era of change. There are several significant events that highlighted the split between the “two Americas” including Prohibition, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, evolution and the Scopes “Monkey” trial, mass consumerism, and changing attitudes about gender roles, sex, and Women’s rights.
Nature’s delicate balance of wind, rain, and grass had been disturbed by human settlement. Fifty years earlier, a strong protective carpet of grass had covered the Great Plains. The grass held moisture in the soil and kept the soil from blowing away (Holley).” Before the Great Plains were settled, its geography was covered in lush grasses that made it perfect for farming and raising livestock. As the population grew and more and more people settled there, the grass was removed so that they could farm the land.