How Did Hoover Contribute To The Great Depression

Improved Essays
The Great Depression The Roaring 20’s was a time of great prosperity and economic growth in America. In 1929, the crash of the stock market left America in a decade of devastation known as The Great Depression. Although they both had different approaches, Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt were responsible for reformation of economic policy in order to help Americans through this tragedy. Many factors led to the Great Depression but the most widely-known was the stock market crash of 1929, also known as “Black Tuesday.” Poor choices in stock investment made the crash inevitable. “Black Tuesday” officially marked the beginning of the Great Depression. Prior to the crash, the stock market was at it’s peak. When investors began …show more content…
Many believe that Hoover held a great deal of responsibility for the causes, and the negative effects of the depression. Hoover first approached the issue when he lowered income tax, believing that with more money to spend citizens would invest in the stock market, and buy the products that were being overproduced. However, this made little significant impact because income tax was already low. Hoover also asked that big business owners not lower the employee wage. Many became homeless as a result of the Great Depression and, as a result, Hoovervilles were created. In these Hoovervilles, the homeless built shacks to live and named it after the president that they held responsible for their misfortune. Although Hoover did believe that charities should step in and help relieve suffering, he denied requests for direct federal relief once charitable funds were diminished (Divine 847). Hoover ultimately worsened the …show more content…
Roosevelt took office. Roosevelt’s approach to the depression was known as the “New Deal.” In his first 100 days as president, FDR already began to impact the economy. FDR communicated with the citizens in a series of “fireside chats.” (Divine 851) After three years of the Depression, FDR called for an end to prohibition to give the government tax revenue. The New Deal was a set of government programs put forth by congress to fix the Great Depression, and prevent future depressions. The three programs consisted of relief, recovery and reform. Relief gave help to the poor, recovery put people back to work, and reform helped to prevent future depressions.
FDR then closed the banks on a “bank holiday.” During this time the FDIC was created, which functioned in giving citizens a form of protection of their money. FDR implemented several programs to create jobs, open banks, create national parks, limited crop production with quotas and limit the stock market. Because FDR feared that people would become too dependent on relief, he sought to create temporary jobs. Although the New Deal did not end the depression, it helped decrease unemployment and put America on the right path to recovery. The Depression did not officially end until the beginning of World War

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    On the other hand, Roosevelt was doing a great effort by pulling the U.S. out of the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt used what he called Hoover's failure to deal with these problems as a platform for his own election, promising reform in his policy called the New Deal. The New Deal established the foundation of the modern welfare state while preserving the capitalist system. Legislation passed as part of the New Deal experimented with a new level of governmental activism in an attempt to relieve social and economic suffering of Americans. Federal New Deal programs addressed areas such as business, agriculture, labor, the arts, and even people's daily lives.…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 up until 1941, defines the time period when there was a financial and industrial collapse in America, causing unemployment rates to skyrocket, as well as the amount of homeless people. Caused by the constant speculation and buying on margin that took place so frequently in the stock market, the Great Depression left America in just that state of mind: depressed. Republican Herbert Hoover was elected president of the United States in 1928 after a race against democrat Al Smith. Hoover believed in three concepts that would contribute to the initiation of the Great Depression: rugged individualism, the belief that citizens should not rely on the government but themselves in order to create a well-lived…

    • 1536 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why didn’t President Hoover do anything to try and stop the Great Depression? President Hoover was widely criticized for not helping the citizens and just the farmers. People were struggling and needed help from someone with competency. People would go to the streets and would build small huts out of scrap wood, and call them “Hoovervilles”. Throughout the Great Depression, people were becoming homeless and unemployed because President Hoover didn’t do anything to try and help them.…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced the New Deal in response to the beginning of the Great Depression, the Great Depression started on October 29, 1929. The Stock Market crashed and millions of Americans lost their jobs and had to live on the streets desperately searching for jobs with little hope of being accepted into a new job. Nearly 15 million Americans were unemployed and almost half of the country’s banks have failed. Franklin D. Roosevelt helped ease the matter of the Great Depression in the 1930’s by his administration passing legislation that aimed to stabilize industrial and agricultural production. It helped create jobs and stimulate recovery of the nation so the people would not have to live in poverty.…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the end Hoover did not acknowledge and understand how serious the depression really was and in turn never did enough to stop it from getting worse. (1086) “In June of 1930, Hoover told a delegation of bankers that the “depression is over”.” (1086) But that was far from true seeing as by the fall of that year there were five million people unemployed. In 1932 the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was set up with 500 million for emergency loans for banks, life-insurance companies,…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the mind of Herbert Hoover, the government should not intervene in economic activities. When the Great Depression hit, this ideology was still active. Hoover tried to soothe the souls of the American people by putting up pictures of a man in a tux eating five full course meals a day in order to create a facade to encourage people to live like before. That man indeed was Herbert Hoover. That totally failed, and seeing Hoover’s luxury, the people living in poverty almost turned communist.…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The trading goods fell quickly leading factories to slow production and the United States entered into the Great Depression. Hoover wasn’t successful in his prudency but he had good intentions to do so. There were people that lost every things homes and their money not enough money to save for a brighter future. Hoover was a hard worker and he believed that people should help themselves and…

    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    FDR wanted to restore America’s trust in banks again. He created the Bank Holiday, this outlined rules made by Congress for banks to reopen. He knew the importance of banks. If people didn’t put there money in banks, there wouldn’t be any money for the banks to give as loans or help the economy grow in general.…

    • 1120 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    The New Deal encompassed innovative programs designed to address the economic crisis of the Great Depression and its devastating impacts on millions of Americans. It started with President Franklin Roosevelt’s first one hundred days in office. The…

    • 2153 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Great Depression, spanning from 1929-1939, was a period of great turmoil in the United States. A depression is a sustained, long term period in which the economy is failing. The Great Depression was caused by the collapse of the Stock Market and the failure of the Banks. The reason why the crash of the Stock Market was so impactful to our economy was because of the speculative nature of the Market. Many people bought stocks on margin, which meant that they only paid 10% for the stock while loaning the rest from the bank.…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Starting in late 1929, the cruelest and longest depression of the 20th century arose. Caused by the collision of the stock market. This was what is now known as the Great Depression. During this time, the economy was severely poor in the United States and also all around the world. During this time of profound crisis, two different presidents got the opportunity to serve the country, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Herbert Hoover.…

    • 816 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Flanklin D. Roosevelt offer The New Deal to intended to alleviate economic depression, joblessness and to provide better or greater opportunities and restore prosperity. The New Deal is the economic and political policies of the Roosevelt administration in the 1930’s. It was significant because it helped create jobs to help diminish the ever-rising unemployment rate. This program also helped the agricultural community. In addition, The New Deal program attempted to revive the United State industry and to help stabilize the banking community.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The plan did not alleviate the suffering. Furthermore, it prevented employees from being hired and limited the amount of money they spent due to companies’ methods to maintain wages and lay off more workers. After this failure, Roosevelt was elected for presidency and came up with the New Deal. The New Deal involved a three step approach: reform (fixing bank systems and stock market), relief (providing soup kitchens, homeless shelters, etc.), and recovery (making people spend money again by offering jobs) which were forms of the different solutions Roosevelt had to solve the nation’s crisis. As a result, the New Deal was actually a success.…

    • 1135 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    During Herbert Hoover's presidency, the Depression was fueled by the administration's hesitance to increase government spending. However, by financing many individual groups and agencies, the Roosevelt administration was able to get more money out for public use. The administration used strategies like giving out the social security checks mentioned in Document E to help redistribute much of the wealth in America to the working class. This was an important step in changing the government from a passive bystander to an active assistant that was working to help eliminate the problems of the Great Depression. This change, brought about by Roosevelt's New Deal, was vital in asserting Roosevelt's abilities to disable the Depression and is a good example of the effectiveness of Roosevelt's…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In 1932 Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president by a large margin over Herbert Hoover. FDR brought his plan of the New Deal to try and reverse the effects of the crash on the United States. In Roosevelt’s run for the presidency, he pledged that he would help “the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” In his Inaugural Address, he said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” which brought hope to the beaten down American. As president, he championed the series of federal legislative initiatives known as the New Deal.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays