The Great Depression History 111 – World History since 1500

Spring 2022

Jorge Minella ([email protected])

Post-World War One

 Total war had become a reality.

 Mass mobilization.

 Postwar.

 Democratic potential.

 Economic recovery.

 Expectation of enduring peace.

Optimist 1920s, but…

 Fascism in Italy.

 Totalitarianism on the horizon.

 Continued unrest in the colonies.

 Great Depression coming up.

 Would lead millions into unemployment and poverty.

This Class

 Great Depression, 1929 to late 1930s.

 Causes.

 Social Effects.

 Political outcomes.

 Road to war.

The Great Depression

Economic Crises

 Interconnected economies.

 Global supply and consumer chains.

 Collateral effects.

 1870s Long Recession.

 Known as The Great Depression until the 1930s crisis came by.

 What caused the 1930s Great Depression?

 Started with the November 1929 stock market collapse in the United States.

The U.S. Stock Market Crash  1920s stock market party.

 Investors took loans to buy stock.

 Excessive credit restricted in 1929.

 Banks collecting outstanding loans.

 Investors selling stock to pay back loans.

 Stock prices plumet.

 Investor lose money; many can’t pay back loans.

A solemn crowd gathers outside the NY Stock Exchange after the crash. 1929.

Global Effects

 U.S. banks had financed postwar economic growth abroad.

 Sought to collect debt abroad following the crash.

 Businesses unable to pay back.

 Bankruptcy and workers laid off.

 Massive unemployment.

 Particularly in Europe.

Overproduction

 Agricultural overproduction.

 Prices collapse.

 Rural areas across the globe severely affected.

 Which decreased demand for manufactured goods.

 Many industries affected.

 Bankruptcies and unemployment.

Soup kitchen to feed the unemployed in Chile, 1932.

Ineffective or Costly Early Responses

 Currency depreciation, protectionism, budget cuts.

 No results, or worsened the situation.

 Increased taxation of the colonies.

 Efforts of industrialization in Latin America and Eastern Europe.

 Government purchase of excess production.

Burning of excess coffee grains in Brazil, 1931.

Social Effects

 Not all negative: people with jobs could benefit from lower prices.

 Hardship, poverty, hunger.

 Disruption of family ties.

 Rising protests.  Communist parties grew.

 Unions took to the streets.

 Government and private repression.

In the Colonies…

 More taxation and repression.

 More protest.

 E.g. Mohandas Gandhi Salt March, India, 1930.

 Non-Violent Civil Disobedience.

 General strikes in Palestine and India.

 Peasant Uprising in Indochina.

 Harsh repression against demands of colonial subjects.

Gandhi during the Salt March, March 1930

Political Outcomes of the The Great Depression

General Political Changes

 Fall of representative governments.

 Countries in Europe, Latin America, and Asia.

 New authoritarian regimes.

 New totalitarian regimes.

 Fascist, Nazi, Communist regimes in the 1930s.

 Sought to establish total state control of society.

Fascist Italy

 Established before the Great Depression (1922)

 Fascism.

 Primacy of the state over the individual.

 Violence and warfare to make nations strong.

 Mussolini.

 Blamed the parliament.

 “Blackshirt” army.

Blackshirts with Benito Mussolini during the March on Rome, 28 October 1922.

The Nazi Party in Germany

 Facilitated by the defeat in WW1 and the Great Depression.

 Resentment.

 Unemployment and poverty.

 Youth, white-collar workers, and lower middle class as early supporters.

 Jews blamed for Germany’s problems.

 All the opposition to totalitarianism labeled “Bolshevik”.

The Nazi Rise to Power

 Support of military, industrial, and sectors of the political elite.

 Saw the Nazis as a defense against communism.

 Shared Nazi anti-Semitism.

 Adolf Hitler chancellor by 1933.

 Totalitarian escalation.

 Targeted Jews, Communists, homosexuals, labor activists, political opposition.

Nazi Racism

 Major component of Nazi Ideology.

 Superiority of “Aryans”.

 Everyone else seen as an obstacle to “pure” German growth.

 Particularly Jews and Slavs.

 1935 Nuremberg Laws (Anti-Jewish legislation).

 1938 Night of Broken Glass.

Passersby and a damaged Jewish-owned shop following the Night of Broken Glass. Magdeburg, Germany, 1938.

Support for the Nazi Totalitarian Regime

 Economic recovery.

 Jobs and property taken from Jewish families.

 Heavy public investment in infrastructure and military industry.

 Decreased unemployment.

 Widespread propaganda.

 Demonized Jews, Communists, labor activists, and others.

 Many Germans convinced Nazism was saving Germany from evil-doers.

Nazi Propaganda Poster, “He is to blame for the war!" by Hans Schweitzer.

Japan

 Earthquake + Effects of the Great Depression.

 Military leaders and Emperor Hirohito.

 Militarization.

 Expansionism.

 Built support by claiming Japanese superiority over neighboring nations.

 Particularly China.

 Manchuria taken in 1931; League of Nations did not help China.

Democracies’ Alternatives

 Bold social and economic experiments in response to the Great Depression.

 United States.

 Public economic relief, price support, and investment in infrastructure.

 Social Security.

 Sweden.

 Universal Social Welfare State.

 Policies that sought to rescue people from desperation, therefore strengthening democracy.

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