Great Depression

By Lissy Melendez

  • Hoovervilles

    Hoovervilles was the name by which the irregular settlements built by the homeless during the Great Depression in the United States were known. They have this name because the President of the United States at the time was Herbert Hoover and, supposedly, dropped the country into recession . The term was coined by Charles Michelson, head of advertising for the National Democratic Committee.The name Hoovervilles has also been used to describe the camps commonly found in America today.

  • Smoot-Hawley Tariff

    Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, formally United States Tariff Act of 1930, also called Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, U.S. legislation (June 17, 1930) that raised import duties to protect American businesses and farmers, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression. The act takes its name from its chief sponsors, Senator Reed Smoot of Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representative Willis Hawley of Oregon,

  • 100, 000 Banks Have Failed

    Since it was established in 1933, the FDIC has provided insurance on your money in case your bank goes belly up. The insurance covers checking, savings and money market accounts, and certificates of deposit, or CDs. It also covers other types of accounts, such as individual retirement accounts, or IRAs, and trust accounts. All state and nationally chartered banks must carry the insurance, says FDIC spokeswoman LaJuan Williams-Young.

  • Dust Bowl

    The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon.