How did President Hoover respond to the economic crash of 1929?

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Figure false: Hoover Campaign Poster
Figure false: This poster effectively illustrates Herbert Hoover’s 1928 campaign message: Republican administrations in the 1920s had produced middle-class prosperity, complete with a house in the suburbs and the latest automobile. To remind voters that Hoover as secretary of commerce had promoted industry that made the suburban dream possible, the poster portrays smoking chimneys at a discreet distance. Collection of Janice L. and David J. Frent.

AT HIS INAUGURATION IN 1929, Herbert Hoover told the American people, “Given a chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation.” Those words came back to haunt Hoover when eight months later the prosperity he touted collapsed in the stock market crash of 1929. The nation ended nearly three decades of barely interrupted economic growth. Like much of the world, the United States fell into the most serious economic depression of all time. Hoover’s limited response to economic catastrophe proved inadequate.

CHRONOLOGY

1929

  • – Stock market collapses.

1930

  • – Congress authorizes $420 million for public works projects.
  • – Hawley-Smoot tariff.

1932

  • – Reconstruction Finance Corporation is established.

CHAPTER LOCATOR

How did big business shape the “New Era” of the 1920s?

In what ways did the Roaring Twenties challenge traditional values?

Why did the relationship between urban and rural America deteriorate in the 1920s?

How did President Hoover respond to the economic crash of 1929?

What was life like in the early years of the depression?

Conclusion: Why did the hope of the 1920s turn to despair?

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