The United States in the 1930s

The United States in the 1930s is nearly synonymous with the Great Depression, a period of economic upheaval and social impacts that forever changed American history. The Great Depression, and the programs the government implemented the to counteract it, stand out as among the most important events of the twentieth century in the United States.

Overview

The Roaring Twenties, as many Americans refer to the 1920s, was a period of economic growth and, for many Americans, decadence. The 1920s saw social changes as women gained the right to vote and Prohibition changed people’s habits and social norms. As the 1920s ended, the Stock Market Crash of October 29, 1929, destroyed roughly $15 billion in American wealth. Some people lost their fortunes, and some businesses went bankrupt. The crash was an ominous sign of the events to come in the 1930s.

Economics and Politics

Millions of people were affected the by stock market crash in 1929. However, the stock market crash was more of a symptom of a flagging economy than it was the cause of the Great Depression, which started in 1930. Unemployment rates had already begun to rise in the second half of 1929, which caused people to have less disposable income. People began spending less, and the demand for goods and services decreased throughout the country, further contracting the economy.

Another factor that influenced the Great Depression was the Dust Bowl, which began in the American West in the 1930s and negatively impacted America’s agricultural sector. Americans had begun cultivating crops in the Midwest and West in the late 1800s. For decades, farmers removed native grasses from the areas they cultivated. Without the protection of the native grass’s roots, the topsoil was exposed, dried out, and blew away with the wind. The windblown soil created storms filled with loose black dirt. Historians estimate that hundreds of thousands of tons of topsoil were lost during the storms. Droughts in the early 1930s exacerbated the problem, causing more dirt to dry out and erode. Farmers could no longer cultivate crops and were forced to leave their homes in search of work elsewhere in the country.

As the Great Depression gripped the nation in the early 1930s, many Americans expected government leaders to use the government’s power to help them survive. The United States began the 1930s with Republican Herbert Hoover in the presidency. Hoover was one of three Republicans elected the presidency during the 1920s. He continued the conservative economic policies favored by his predecessors. Hoover was elected into office because of his focus on self-reliance and “rugged individualism.” However, his political and ideological beliefs caused him to delay in using the power of the government to respond to the start of the Great Depression. Hoover did take certain actions, such as creating a crop purchase program and developing a system that made emergency loans to banks and corporations. However, these policies did very little to address the problems the country faced.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the governor of New York. Roosevelt had run for vice president in the 1920 election along with James M. Cox, but Cox was defeated in that election by Warren G. Harding. Roosevelt, who had been paralyzed in adulthood after contracting polio, was a popular politician whose presidential aspirations were clear even before he officially announced his candidacy. Roosevelt was a frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race by the spring of 1932. He campaigned on a platform offering hope and what he called a “New Deal” for the American people. During the election in November 1932, Roosevelt soundly defeated Hoover with Roosevelt receiving about 57.4 percent of the vote and Hoover receiving about 39.7 percent.

After winning the presidential election, Roosevelt focused on transitioning out of the governorship and into the presidency. For his part, Hoover was eager to involve Roosevelt in government business right after he won the election. Roosevelt and Hoover engaged in numerous corresponded and three face-to-face meetings while Roosevelt prepared to take over the presidency and lead the country through its worst-ever economic crisis. When Roosevelt took office, he immediately set to work making changes that he believed would help the country. He began by summoning Congress for a special session so that he could begin to roll out his New Deal programs. Over the next one hundred days, Roosevelt and Congress implemented numerous new laws and greatly expanded the government’s powers.

On March 6, one day after calling on Congress to convene, Roosevelt ordered a shutdown of the nation’s banking system. Americans had been making a run on the banks for a month before the shutdown, and Roosevelt wanted to stop public panic before the entire banking system was irrevocably destroyed. Days later, the federal government passed the Emergency Banking Act of 1933. One of the biggest changes implemented by the law was the remove the country from the gold standard, which meant that the dollar bills were no longer redeemable for gold. Government officials did this because requiring all paper money to be backed up by gold severely limited the amount of paper that the government could circulate. The new law also gave the government the power to reorganize insolvent banks. The government then reviewed the finances of all the country’s banks and cleared roughly 70 percent of the nation’s banks to reopen on March 15. Roosevelt began his famous fireside chats—radio broadcasts in which he spoke directly to the American people—after the law’s passage to help explain the law and its goals. In June 1933, the government replaced the Emergency Banking Act with the Glass Steagall Banking Act. This act placed limitations on banking and created the established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The personal bank deposits up to $2,500. In 1934, Congress continued to regulate the financial industry by breaking the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which was created to oversee stock transactions.

Roosevelt then focused his New Deal on creating jobs for the millions of people who were unemployed because of the Great Depression. Most researchers agree that true number of Americans who were unemployed during the Great Depression can never truly be known, but most historians estimate that—at the its peak—unemployment reached between 10 and 12 million Americans. Roosevelt and the other government officials realized that reducing the staggering unemployment level was necessary for the country’s economy to recover. Roosevelt created numerous programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Civil Works Administration (CWA) to give Americans’ jobs and incomes.

Most of Roosevelt’s New Deal policies were enacted during the first one hundred days of his presidency. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs alienated some economically conservative Americans, especially business owners. However, most Americans supported the policies. Despite the widespread support for the New Deal, it offered only modest economic improvements. In 1935 the focus of New Deal programs shifted to focus on improving labor conditions and creating a social safety net. The New Deal programs implemented from 1935 to 1939 are often called the Second New Deal. The Social Security Act is one of the most famous programs of the Second New Deal. It created a pension-type system for older Americans. It also created disability insurance and employment insurance. Other Second New Deal programs include the National Labor Relations Act and Works Progress Administration, which made the federal government the largest employer in the country.

Most historians believe that Roosevelt and his team underestimated the economic crisis. Furthermore, historians agree that the United States’ economic fortunes were significantly improved when World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, and the United States began manufacturing goods for the war effort. Although the United States did not officially enter the war until 1941, the country manufactured goods that were used by other allied countries.

However, Roosevelt and his team continued to craft policy that they believed would help the country and individual Americans overcome the effects the Great Depression. Roosevelt easily won reelection in the 1936 presidential campaign. Nevertheless, Republicans gained seats in Congress in 1938 in part because the country failed to fully overcome the effects of the Great Depression. While Roosevelt remained focused on America’s economic crisis, he also realized that the foreign policy matter would most likely become even more important in the late 1930s.

Society

Although the American history of the 1930s is overshadowed by the era’s economic turmoil, the country also experienced other important social changes during the period. Like most other aspects of American life at the time, social norms and social movements were influenced by the Great Depression.

Race and Demographics

African Americans and other racial minorities living in the United States did not have the same rights as white Americans in the 1930s. Racial violence had seen a resurgence in the 1920s, with the revival of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and the continuation of the racially motivated violence, such as lynchings. The KKK’s influenced remained strong throughout much of the 1930s in the South, though the organization’s impact faltered by early in the next decade. The United States’ demographics shifted in the 1930s, with African Americans continue to move away from South and into urban centers in the north and west. Although African Americans continued to move, the Great Migration had already seen its peak in the 1920s.

The Great Depression significantly impacted Americans of all backgrounds, but African Americans experienced some of the most serious effects. Roughly half of all African Americans were unemployed in early 1933, though the national unemployment average was closer to 25 percent. African Americans faced discrimination in hiring and during layoffs, when they were often laid off before any other white workers. Starting in the 1930s some African Americans—a majority of whom had supported Republicans since the Civil War—began to support Democrats.

Demographic changes that happened in the 1930s occurred mostly because of people moving to different parts of the country. For example, the Dust Bowl caused international migration, with many Americans moving from the Great Plains to states further west or to the east. The country also saw the continuation of African Americans moving to northern cities, as part of the Great Migration. Despite this continued relocation to urban centers, the populations of many American cities stagnated or even declined in the 1930s. This development happened because of the Great Depression, and it was significantly different from the previous decade when American cities grew larger.

The demographics of the country as a whole changed little in the 1930s in part because anti-immigration laws of the 1920s significantly limited the number of immigrants who came to the country during the 1930s. Although fewer immigrants were entering the country, immigrants already in the country continued to face discrimination. For example, in 1938 some immigrants were barred from getting jobs through the WPA.

Popular Culture

Even though the Great Depression was a time of hardship in the United States, Americans continued to produce and consume art, literature, music, theater, and film. The WPA had specific programs that employed people who worked in the visual arts, theater, and writing. American artists created numerous sculptures, murals, posters, and paintings during the Great Depression because of the WPA program. Many Americans who had never before had funding for their art were able to create; however, they also faced creative limits (e.g., no political art) because their work was funded by the government.

Prohibition continued to be the law in the United States in the 1930s, but the frivolity associated with speakeasies and jazz of 1920s Prohibition dissipated by the end of that decade. In the early 1930s, Prohibition became synonymous with organized crime and violence. Americans purchased alcohol from whatever sources they could, which allowed criminal gangs to flourish. Throughout the 1920s, local and federal law enforcement had little success combatting the gangs. One of the biggest prosecutions of Prohibition-related crime happened in the early 1930s. The so-called Untouchables—a group of ten Justice Department officers who fought against organized crime in the 1920s and 30s—disrupted gang leader Al Capone’s alcohol business and obtained enough evidence to have him convicted of tax evasion in 1931. Prohibition failed to reduce alcohol consumption, and the policy was reversed in 1933 when the Twenty-First Amended, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, was ratified.

Nationalism was common during the 1930s in the United States. Part of the nationalistic sentiment was formed by the individualism that was popular in the 1920s. It was also influenced by white American men rejecting the Progressive Era ideals of that were common from the 1890s to the 1910s. Many white American men turned to nationalism as they felt the country gave in too much to the demands of women and racial minorities. Nationalistic sentiments increased as the decade ended, and the United States drew closer to entering World War II.

Science and Technology

Although the 1920s had been a decade of advancement in science and technology in the United States, the 1930s had fewer developments. The anxiety and hardships of the Great Depression led to a reduced focus on scientific discoveries or rapid technology developments. One field that was particularly hard-hit by the effects of the Great Depression was physics. Before the Great Depression occurred, the US federal government created the National Research Fellowships program, which allowed young scientists to study at universities, such as Cambridge and Göttingen, that had excellent physics programs. Before the Great Depression, American scientists also enjoyed financial support from the private individuals and foundations (Day, 2015). However, the government and the private organizations drastically reduced funding for physics programs, preferring to fund projects that would have more immediate effects on the United States’ economy. Funding reductions happened mainly because of the Great Depression, but an anti-science attitude had also developed in the United States starting in the 1920s. This attitude influenced the programs that private organizations and the government prioritized.

Although government funding reduced in research fields, it increased for infrastructure and engineering projects—most of which the government deemed would improve local economies and communities. New Deal programs also helped create important pieces of infrastructure that changed Americans’ lives. One of the most iconic pieces of infrastructure created thanks to the New Deal was the Hoover Dam. Although planning and construction on the dam began in the 1920s, New Deal funds helped to finish the project. The dam was an engineering marvel when it was created, rising approximately 726 feet. It damned the Colorado River to create Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir. Another infrastructure project completed because of the New Deal was the Lincoln Tunnel in New York City. The tunnel allowed automobiles to travel between New York City and New Jersey by traveling under the Hudson River. The tunnel opened to traffic in 1937. The Bay Bridge in San Francisco was another iconic piece of infrastructure developed during the New Deal. Construction began on the bridge in 1933 and completed in 1936.

Many pieces of New-Deal-funded infrastructure were built in urban areas. However, the New Deal also funded infrastructure projects that helped transform rural areas. For example, the federal government created the Rural Electrification Administration (REA) in 1935. The REA helped bring electricity service to rural areas of the country that had never had it. The REA focused specifically on providing lighting and electricity to farms. The Tennessee Valley Authority program also helped rural areas by providing low-cost electivity and by engineering flood-control measuring.

Aviation technology also advanced in the 1930s. Before the 1930s, many Americans viewed airplanes as novelties even though the first scheduled passenger flights in the United States began in the 1920s. Aviation technology developed in the 1930s, allowing airplanes to reliably fly farther distances. Advances in design and technology also helped planes reach faster speeds. By the end of the decade the first transatlantic passenger flights originating from the United States had begun. However, flying remained a costly form of transportation, and many Americans could not afford to travel that way.

Food production also changed in the 1930s because of advances in transportation, refrigeration, and food preservation technologies. American companies produced more types of processed foods, such as peanut butter, that Americans could purchase in stores. Furthermore, supermarkets became more common in the 1930s, giving more Americans the opportunity to purchase prepackaged foods. Because the Dust Bowl greatly reduced America’s agricultural production, more Americans relied on prepackaged foods to survive. Packaged foods also helped families to avoid wasting fresh food at a time when families could not afford to waste. Americans used every consumable part of the prepackaged foods they purchased. For example, they used the liquid the in canned beans to cook other foods. Despite the financial hardship that most Americans faced during the 1930s, home refrigerators became much more common by the end of the decade. Despite the utility of the appliance, some families purchased refrigerators as a symbol of belonging to the middle class.

Although some types of scientific research slowed because of the Great Depression, private companies—specifically companies focused on creating new consumer products—continued their research. One of the most important inventions made via such research in the 1930s was the synthesis of nylon. The company DuPont employed scientists and researchers who studied chemistry and invented new materials through chemistry. A scientist named Wallace Hume Carothers and his team studied polymers at DuPont. The team made several important discoveries, such as neoprene synthetic rubber. The team synthesized various forms of nylon throughout the mid-1930s, and the company finally announced the discovery of the strong, reliable fiber in 1938.

About the Author

Elizabeth Mohn earned a BS in communications in 2006. She has developed social sciences content for more than a decade.

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