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Dust Bowl
The name given to the southern Great Plains region (Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, and Oklahoma) during the 1930s, when a severe drought and fierce winds led to violent dust storms that destroyed farmland, machinery, and houses, and led to countless injuries. Roughly 800,000 residents migrated west from the Dust Bowl toward California during the 1930s and 1940s. -
Hawley-Smoot Tariff
The Hawely-Smoot Tariff turned out ot be the highest protective tariff in the nation's peace time history. To foreigners the tariff seemed to be a declaration of economic warfare on the outside world. The tariff reversed the promising world wide trend toward reasonable tariffs and it widened the once closing trade seperations. It also sent Americans and other nations deeper in to the approaching depression that was actually starting to increase international financial chaos. -
Hoovervilles
Communities of destitute Americans living in shanties and makeshift shacks. Hoovervilles sprung uparound most major U.S. cities in the early 1930s, providing a stark reminder of Herbert Hoover’s failure to alleviate the poverty of the Great Depression. -
Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC)
Created by President Hoover in 1932 to make loans to large economic institutions such as railroads and banks. The RFC loaned over $2 billion in 1932, but that amount was too little, too late in the fightagainst the Great Depression. The RFC continued operating under FDR. -
Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
Created in 1933 as part of FDR’s New Deal, the CCC pumped money into the economy by employing the destitute in conservation and other projects. -
Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA)
Created in 1933 as part of FDR’s New Deal. The AAA controlled the production and prices of crops by offering subsidies to farmers who stayed under set quotas. The Supreme Court declared the AAA unconstitutional in 1936. -
Civil Works Administration (CWA)
Created by FDR to cope with the added economic difficulties brought on by the cold winter months of 1933. The CWA spent approximately $1 billion on short-term projects for the unemployed but was abolished in the spring of that year. -
Wagner Act
The Wagner Act of 1935 provided a framework for collective bargaining. It granted workers the right to join unions and bargain, and forbade employers from discriminating against unions. The act demonstrated FDR’s support for labor needs andunionization. -
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Much of the $5 billion allocated to FDR by the Emergency Relief Allocation Act of 1935 went to the creation of the WPA. Over eight years, the WPA provided work for the unemployed of all backgrounds, from industrial engineers to authors and artists. Partially owing to WPA efforts, unemployment fell by over 5 percent between 1935 and 1937. -
Social Security Act
Established by the Social Security Act of August 1935. Social Security provides benefits to the elderly and disabled. These benefits are subsidized by income tax withholdings.
