![]() From 1930 to 1940, the number of employed women in the United States rose 24 percent from 10.5 million to 13 million Though they’d been steadily entering the workforce for decades, the financial pressures of the Great Depression drove women to seek employment in ever greater numbers as male breadwinners lost their jobs. There was one group of Americans who actually gained jobs during the Great Depression: Women. The number of African Americans working in government tripled. And those relief programs for which blacks were eligible on paper were rife with discrimination in practice since all relief programs were administered locally.ĭespite these obstacles, Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet,” led by Mary McLeod Bethune, ensured nearly every New Deal agency had a black advisor. Rather than fire domestic help, private employers could simply pay them less without legal repercussions. But farm and domestic work, two major sectors in which Black workers were employed, were not included in the 1935 Social Security Act, meaning there was no safety net in times of uncertainty. One-fifth of all Americans receiving federal relief during the Great Depression were Black, most in the rural South. The New Deal: A Road to RecoveryĪfrican Americans in the Great Depression In addition, Roosevelt sought to reform the financial system, creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ( FDIC) to protect depositors’ accounts and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to regulate the stock market and prevent abuses of the kind that led to the 1929 crash. He also began addressing the public directly over the radio in a series of talks, and these so-called “ fireside chats” went a long way toward restoring public confidence.ĭuring Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office, his administration passed legislation that aimed to stabilize industrial and agricultural production, create jobs and stimulate recovery. Roosevelt took immediate action to address the country’s economic woes, first announcing a four-day “bank holiday” during which all banks would close so that Congress could pass reform legislation and reopen those banks determined to be sound. Nonetheless, FDR (as he was known) projected a calm energy and optimism, famously declaring "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Treasury didn’t have enough cash to pay all government workers. state had ordered all remaining banks to close at the end of the fourth wave of banking panics, and the U.S. economy expanded rapidly, and the nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 19, a period dubbed “ the Roaring Twenties.”īy Inauguration Day (March 4, 1933), every U.S. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939. Great Depression Ends and World War II Begins.African Americans in the Great Depression.Bank Runs and the Hoover Administration.
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