Add 24. The Sharecroppers Strike of 1939
25. The Great Depression Era Crime Wave
25. The Great Depression Era Crime Wave
The Great Depression lasted for over ten years and was the worst economic time period in American history. 500,000 Americans lost their homes or farms, a quarter of the population was out of work, over $3.6 billion was lost in banks. The Great Depression changed the role of the presidency and the government in general. By the end of the 1930s the power and size of the government's responsibility was the largest it had ever been. Laws expanded the powers of the national government and established new agencies that laid the foundation of social welfare system. Franklin Roosevelt and New Dealers believed that the government should provide at least minimal quality of life for Americans. The greatest failure of the New Deal was its inability to restore prosperity and end record levels of unemployment. By 1939, 17% of America's workforce was still unemployed. Only the industry created from WWII and service in the military would pull America out of the Great Depression.
|
President Herbert Hoover fully expected that the nation's economic downturn was temporary and that it would eventually correct itself (as it had in past national depressions). Thus he was slow to act to try and fix the problem. Eventually Hoover tried to intervene in the crisis by calling in experts to advise him on what he should do next. He also formed committees and commissions to study what needed to be done, but while this research was going on, the country continued to plunge downward economically.
All across the country as more Americans lost their homes, shantytowns sprouted in vacant lots. People erected shacks made of wood and cardboard, they called these makeshift villages Hoovervilles to mock the president.
|
Hooverville in Seattle, WA
|
The Bonus Expeditionary Force
|
In the spring of 1932, a revolt arose when thousands of unemployed military veterans converged on the nation's capital to press Congress to pay the cash bonuses owed to 4 million veterans that fought in WWI. The House passed a bill that would that would do just that, but it failed to pass in the Senate because it would have to raise taxes in order to pay it out. Most veterans became discouraged and returned home, but many with their families had no where else to go and camped within site of the White House. Hoover persuaded to have Congress pay their train tickets to return home, which many did, but a large number remained camped out near the capital. Hoover ordered the camps moved and the secretary of war dispatched 700 soldiers to remove the "Bonus Army." Commanded by General Douglas MacArthur, soldiers forcibly removed the veterans under threat of violence with tanks. After removing the veterans they burned their makeshift shanty town, two veterans were killed, several wounded, and 135 were arrested. This dashed any hope of a Republican victory in the next election. Eventually the veterans were paid in 1936 under Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Hoover failed to ease the problems of the great depression because he failed to see the seriousness of the nation's economic problems until it was too late.
|
|
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt won the 1932 election by a landslide. In 1928 Hoover won forty states, in 1932, he won only six. It was clear people were looking for a change. FDR promised to roll out what he called his "New Deal" which he began to do when he was elected. His new New Deal would be a series of programs that would expand the role and responsibility of the federal government. It ensure that the federal government would take charge of economic planning and restore prosperity and ensure the social security of what Roosevelt called the "forgotten man." To Roosevelt the forgotten man was the average American worker. No other president of the century of the 1900s and even the 2000s would do more to change and expand the role of the presidency more than FDR.
|
Roosevelt was born in 1882 to a life of comfort and luxury. His parents owned a large estate north of NYC and sent Roosevelt to the best schools. He attended Harvard and Columbia Law School and married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, the niece of former president, Teddy Roosevelt, and FDR's distant cousin. In 1921, FDR, who loved outdoor activities and sports contracted polio, an infectious neuromuscular disease that left him wearing leg braces. Polio crippled his legs, but it made FDR appreciate people that faced hard times. He developed a keen sense of public awareness and had a great talent for communicating with people. He could also be vain and manipulative when he needed to be, perfect qualities for a politician. What would separate FDR from others was his willingness to experiment with different ways of using the government and its resources to address problems.
|
FDR and First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt
|
The First Hundred Days
Upon election, Roosevelt was confronted with four urgent problems: reviving the industrial economy, relieving the widespread human misery, rescuing a ravaged farm sector, and fixing the capitalist system that created the Great Depression. His defining characteristic was quick action. First he began working to address the banking crisis, then he wanted relief for the jobless, he began having talks between unions and business owners, and lastly he began paying farmers to not farm so that crop prices would go up. From March 9 to June 16, Congress approved fifteen pieces of legislation proposed by Roosevelt, several of these programs became part of Roosevelt's First New Deal that last from 1933 to 1935. On March 9, his second day in office he created the Emergency Banking Relief Act which declared a four day bank holiday to allow the financial panic to subside. On March 12, he made his first of many, "fireside chats" which were radio broadcasts where he assured Americans that things would get better and he would talk about what he was doing to make it happen. He addressed the nation and said that it was safer to keep your money in banks than under your mattress, the next day, many took what money they had and put it back in the banks.
In June he created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which guaranteed customer accounts in banks up to $2,500, thus reducing the likelihood of future panics. He made banks separate from investment banks and commercial banks. He did this so that normal everyday banks (commercial banks) would not be investing peoples money risky stock market ventures.
The "welfare state."
FDR pushed through programs that created what became known as the "welfare state." FDR did not believe that people should just be given money, but that the federal government should help the unemployed and homeless by having the government provide jobs. This was the first time the federal government took primary responsibility for assisting the most desperate Americans. The most successful of the New Deal jobs programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which was managed by the War Department. It built 2,500 camps to house 500,000 unemployed, unmarried young men ages seventeen to twenty-seven. They worked in national forests, parks, and recreational areas, and on soil conservation projects. It recruited 150,000 veterans and 85,000 Native Americans as well. Roosevelt wanted to target those young men who have the hardest chance to find a job. They were paid $1 day for nine months. CCC workers cleared brush, built trails, roads, bridges, campgrounds, fire towers, fish hatcheries, and 800 parks. They planted 3 billion trees, taught farmers how to control erosion, and fought forest fires. Eventually 3 million young men would pass through the program.
|
By June of 1933, the first CCC camps were established in three Ozarks state parks: Sam A. Baker, Meramec, and Roaring River. Within a year, four thousand men would be employed on 40,000 acres of Missouri park lands. By 1936, ten state parks and three federal Recreational Demonstration Areas had camps active in a variety of tasks : ranging from quarrying to road, bridge and dam construction, to landscaping and trail development, to building a wide variety of service, administrative and recreational buildings and facilities. Of the twenty-six state parks that existed by 1938, twenty were developed to some extent by CCC manpower.
In Southeast Missouri, there were two CCC camps, one in Delta (Cape Girardeau County) and one in New Madrid. Each camp had about 200 workers and they worked on bridge projects and swamp drainage projects. |
Location where many CCC camps worked.
|
Delta, Missouri CCC camp.
National Recovery Administration (NRA)
The primary purpose of the NRA was to promote economic growth by ignoring anti-trust laws and allowing executives of competing businesses to negotiate among themselves and with labor unions to create a "codes of fair competition," that would set prices, production levels, minimum wages, and maximum hours within each industry. It set a national 40 hour week, banned employment of children under the age of 16, set a minimum wage, guaranteed the right of workers to organize unions.
Agricultural Assistance Act
Created in 1933, the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), sought to raise prices for crops and herds by paying farmers to cut back production. By the end of 1934, the AAA programs proved to be effective because farm prices began to go up. All of these programs became part of the First Hundred Days legislation and First New Deal. The president was quickly becoming the most popular president ever, but critics said that Roosevelt's programs were leading America to communism.
The Dust Bowl
 A black blizzard rolling through Texas.
During the same time as farmers were suffering, a terrible drought struck the western states of the U.S. Strong winds swept through the plains and took dirt and sand with it. Clouds of dust became like giant walls called black blizzards. By 1938 topsoil had disappeared from more than 25 million acres of prairie land. Farmers lost their farms and homes because they could no longer grow their crops in what became a prairie desert. Many farmers from the midwest and South packed everything they had and headed west to California to find work. Many of the 800,000 famers that migrated to California during the Dust Bowl were called Okies (because so many from Oklahoma packed up and left for California).
|
Okies headed to California.
|
Without any money to pay for food or rent, these homeless migrants set up "squatters" camps along the highway to enough work in order to continue west to California.
Tennessee Valley Authority
|
The Tennessee Valley Authority was one of the most innovative programs created by Roosevelt during the First New Deal. It was aimed to help those in the South who Roosevelt recognized as the ones that were one of the most impacted and worse off of Americans during the Great Depression. The TVA brought electrical power, jobs, and flood control efforts to Appalachia and the surrounding area. Twenty-one hydroelectric damns were created that created enough power to provide electricity to almost the entire South. The TVA promoted Southern schools, industry, and labor unions. Unfortunately people had to lose homes and property in order to provide areas to build dams that would create lakes.
|
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt had a large impact on the success of FDR's New Deal programs. She urged her husband to to expand social justice and to help as many Americans as possible. FDR was raised by a very domineering mother that made a huge impact on his life even in his adulthood. Eleanor learned very quickly that even she could not compete with his mother. Eleanor devoted her life to helping those who struggled to help themselves. Eleanor and FDR had a rough but mutual respect for one another in a marriage that was not very compatible. During his time in the White House, she and FDR never lived under the same roof.
Eleanor Roosevelt redefined the role of First Lady. She did more than host social events, but became an outspoken critic and advocate of social justice. She worked tirelessly and devoted her time to what she believed was work that should be done.
Eleanor Roosevelt redefined the role of First Lady. She did more than host social events, but became an outspoken critic and advocate of social justice. She worked tirelessly and devoted her time to what she believed was work that should be done.
Literature and the Depression
Writers began to be inspired to write about the pain and suffering they witnessed at the hands of the Great Depression, but no author captured the time period than John Steinbeck who wrote The Grapes of Wrath in 1939. Steinbeck had himself traveled west to California with Okies in order to gain experience for his next novel. This allowed him to write a story that detailed the tale of the Joad family's struggle to travel to California from Oklahoma.
Pop Culture
|
During the Great Depression, the entertainment industry and culture went through several changes. One important aspect of the radio shows and movies that were released was the subject matter that was used to make them. Entertainment programs of this time tended to focus on subjects that cheered people up and did not focus on hard times. Movie theaters became particularly popular at the end of the 1920s because sound was added to motion pictures which made them more entertaining. Called talkies, they became the most popular form of entertainment in the 1930s. Theaters also added the double feature which movie goers got to watch two shows for the price of one. In 1933 the first drive in theater was created and the movie industry became one of the only industries that maintained a steady line of work. The most important films transported viewers from the negative aspects of living during the Great Depression to other times and places not so bad. One example of such a movie that provided an escape was The Wizard of Oz shown in 1939, and the first film to be widely shown in color.
|
|
The Second New Deal
|
In January 1935, Roosevelt launched the second and more radical phase of this New Deal, called the Second New Deal. It included federal construction programs for jobless, unemployment insurance under the name of social security to protect the old age and ill, and a tax program to make the wealthy pay more taxes. The new legislation that would be passed by Congress during the Second New Deal would change American life. The Works Progress Administration was created and became the nation's largest employer which hired over 2 million people each year for four years. WPA workers built New York's LaGuardia Airport, restored the St. Louis riverfront, and managed the bankrupt city of Key West, Florida. The National Youth Administration that was created by the WPA added part time work for students and jobless youths. The WPA hired artists to paint murals in post officers across the country, and paid researchers and historians to interview the last remaining slaves still alive in the U.S.
Another major element of the Second New Deal was the Wagner Act. The Wagner Act was one of the most important pieces of legislation ever written. It allowed workers the right to organize unions and bargain directly with management about wages and other issues. |
WPA workers building a bridge.
|
Social Security Act of 1935
Frances Perkins
The Social Security Act addressed the problems faced by the elderly and disabled. Designed by the first female cabinet member in history, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, it was a self financed federal retirement fund for people over the age of sixty-five. Beginning in 1937, workers and employers contributed payroll taxes to establish the fund. Most of those taxes were spent as a pension to retirees and the rest put in a trust fund for the future. It was not intended to guarantee everyone a comfortable retirement but was meant to supplement other sources of income and protect the elderly. It wasn't until later in the 1950s that Social Security became viewed as primary source of retirement income for working-class Americans.
New Direction for Unions
|
After the passage of the Wagner Act in 1935, industrial unionists formed a Committee for Industrial Organizations (CIO). It later changed its name to the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The CIO focused on organizing unions in the automobile and steel industries. Until the Supreme Court upheld the Wagner Act in 1937, many places of employment, especially the auto industry tried to control the unions that formed there. In 1937, thousands of employees of General Motors in Flint, Michigan went on strike by refusing to leave the factory and simply sitting down. The strike lasted more than a month and only ended on February 11, 1937 when General Motors gave in to the unions demands and signed a contract recognizing the United Automobile Workers as a union.
|
|
After FDR was elected to a 2nd term as president by a landslide, he began to believe that he could propose anything he wanted to and get it passed. The Congress was made up of Democrats by a margin of 3 to 1, which reinforced the fact that Roosevelt could get about anything he wanted passed into law, the problem was the primarily conservative U.S. Supreme Court which could and did strike down many of Roosevelts programs as unconstitutional. For that reason FDR came up with a plan to "reform" the Supreme Court by adding more justices. Historically, Congress determined the number of Supreme Court justices because it is not specified specifically by the Constitution. In 1937 there were nine justices on the Supreme Court, Roosevelt proposed to Congress adding six more justices because six already on the bench were over seventy and falling behind on their work. Known as the "Court-packing" scheme, it became the most controversial proposal of FDR's administration. Republicans and Democrats alike were against the scheme. Against the advise of his advisors he pushed it through Congress for a vote where it was easily voted down which humiliated the President and angered members of his own party for forcing an issue they knew would not pass.
Relief For Tenant Farmers
The Farm Security Administration was formed in 1937, it offered loans to farmers in order to keep their farms out of bankruptcy. It also made loans to tenant farmers to enable them to purchase farms. The FSA was only a temporary relief program that helped some farmers prolong bankruptcy but without any real reform that would raise crop prices, farmers would not be able to make the payments.
The 1939 Sharecroppers Strike in Southeast Missouri
In late 1938, farmers were given money through FDR's Agricultural Adjustment Act to plant crops, they were instructed that a portion of the money was to be paid to the tenant farmers that farmed for the landowners, but instead the landowning farmers kept the payments and booted the sharecroppers off their land. Mechanization of farming with the wide spread use of the tractor had made the tenant farmer outdated and un-needed in many cases. With no where to go they camped along the roadside from Sikeston to just east of Charleston at Wyatt and from Sikeston south along Hwy 61 toward New Madrid.
Shortly after the beginning of the new year, 1,500 newly uprooted men, women and children set out their chairs, bed frames and stoves next to crude shelters along Highways 60 and 61. Reporters and photographers, who had been tipped off by local activist and president of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU), Owen Whitfield, were there to cover it. Among them was Farm Security Administration photographer Arthur Rothstein, who captured close-up portraits of the demonstrators, recognizing them not simply as victims waylaid by economic forces but as individuals making a conscious gambit to have themselves heard.
Shortly after the beginning of the new year, 1,500 newly uprooted men, women and children set out their chairs, bed frames and stoves next to crude shelters along Highways 60 and 61. Reporters and photographers, who had been tipped off by local activist and president of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union (STFU), Owen Whitfield, were there to cover it. Among them was Farm Security Administration photographer Arthur Rothstein, who captured close-up portraits of the demonstrators, recognizing them not simply as victims waylaid by economic forces but as individuals making a conscious gambit to have themselves heard.
The Southern Tenant Farmers’ Union continued to lobby the FSA for loans and assistance for the displaced sharecroppers.
In January 1941, two years after the roadside demonstration, the FSA completed the construction of ten settlements around the Bootheel, with almost 600 homes, plus community buildings, wells, utilities and most importantly, land. Called DELMO communities after the name of the program that provided the housing, they included nearby Circle City, DELMO (just south of Morehouse), Libourn, and several others.
In January 1941, two years after the roadside demonstration, the FSA completed the construction of ten settlements around the Bootheel, with almost 600 homes, plus community buildings, wells, utilities and most importantly, land. Called DELMO communities after the name of the program that provided the housing, they included nearby Circle City, DELMO (just south of Morehouse), Libourn, and several others.
The Great Depression Era Crime Wave
As with any era of prolonged economic depression, the Great Depression created a large concentration of organized criminals. Many of them were products of losing jobs and homes due to the economic downturn gripping the country. While most Americans did the best they could to get by through legal actions and abiding by the law, others looked outside the law to make money. Some of these gangsters were even somewhat viewed by the public as not that bad because they were robbing banks, which to many poor Americans were nothing more than thieves themselves since it had been banks that took their land and homes.
To combat this rise in high profile crime, the newly created Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), led by J. Edgar Hoover, made advancements in law enforcement that led to the eventual capture or death of the major gangsters of the Great Depression. The FBI began keeping a "most wanted" list of what it labeled "public enemies." It began researching and studying crime statistics, and it used science on a large scale for the first time by creating crime labs to analyze such things as finger prints and counter fitting money. Also, prior to the 1930s, the FBI was primarily an investigative arm of the federal government, but it would transform into a law enforcement arm after several agents had been killed investigating crimes and were outgunned. The crime wave would usher in the county's first gun control legislation as well to attempt to keep high powered guns from the hands of criminals.
Criminals made famous during this time were John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Ma and Pa Barker gang. Most of their crimes were committed in the midwest and all of them were killed by law enforcement officials. Many states developed state police forces as a way to deploy more resources in capturing or killing the gangsters.