Willie J.

Harrington
C121
Task 4

Part A

The Great Depression was a worldwide economic depression that start October 24,1929 as

known as “Black Thursday”. !2.9 million shares of stock were traded that day which was very

unusual, and over the next several days the prices of stocks were falling drastically. Traders

were panicking and trying to find buyers. Also, the Federal Reserve was another key factor to

the Depression. In 1928, the reserve started raise the federal interest rate due to a recession,

and this triggered the Stock market crash. Once the stock market crashed the Federal reserve

again raised the Interest rate to persevere the American dollar, this made it hard for companies

and investor to borrow money from banks, and this lead to a lot of bankruptcies. The value of

American dollar began to deflate because the reserve didn’t put enough money in to

circulation, and most investors and customers withdrew money from their banks because they

didn’t trust the banks. These monetary policies should have never happened, the federal

reserve should have done the opposite to stop the market from crashing and from raising the

federal interest rate. (The Balance, 2017)

Part B

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, He promised America “a New

Deal. The New Deal was a set of laws that suppose help America out of the great Depression.

One of the many changes FDR did was correcting the Banking crisis. As previously stated a lot of

banks closed due to people and investors taking their money out of the banks because they
didn’t trust the banks. So, the day after FDR was inaugurated he closed the Banks for a four-day

holiday and summon congress for an emergency meeting to deal with this crisis. He presented

the Emergency Banking relief Bill, which was passed unanimously. The bill provided the federal

reserve to reopen solvent banks and reorganize others. The president asked all Americans to

trust in the system of the new banking policy. The next morning thousands of people lined up

to deposit money at the reopened banks with the new banking policy. (Norton 2015)

The next agenda that FDR wanted to fix with the new deal was unemployment. During the

great depression, a lot of people were out of work due to the market crash. President FDR

developed a program called the Works Progress Administration (WPA) one of the largest and

best known program. The WPA employed 8.5 million people that built highways and roads, they

also built public building throughout the U.S. with the help with the federal writer’s project the

WPA employed artists and musicians to decorate post office walls with murals of ordinary life in

America and the writers wrote guidebooks about every state ordinary life’s (Norton 2015)

Before the depression and during the depression workers were struggling with their

employers with fair labor rights. Management of these factories would not recognize labor

unions. The employers would hire arm thugs to intimidate workers not to organize, but still

workers would walk off the job and join picket lines. Police and national guard were called to

break up violence between the workers and the employers. These fights and picking began to

slow down product in the steel, automobile and textile industries. FDR’s stepped in an

introduce the National Labor Relations Act. This act gave workers the right to organize unions

and to bargain collectively. The act outlawed unfair labor practices like firing a worker who
joined a union. The act also had an enforcement to oversee if the employers were doing things

the right way called the National Labor relations board. Union membership from 3.6 million in

1929 to 7 million in 1938. (Norton 2015)

Part C1

In !947 the Soviet Union developed and detonated the atomic bomb, and this scared the

U.S and western Europe. In 1950, the Truman gave the go ahead for American scientist to

develop the H bomb. When Eisenhower took office, who told the Military to stockpile their

nuclear arms because feared The Soviets would attack the U.S with Nuclear bombs. Leaders in

Moscow heard about the stockpile, and increase production to get their first H bomb going. In

1957, they fired their first ballistic missile, and sent up the first satellite called “Sputnik”.

American felt they were falling behind and fear the Soviets would sent missiles, so in 1960 they

added Polaris missile submarines to the Navy. (Norton 2015)

Part C2

There were two different ideologies that dominated during the cold war and they were

communism in the Soviet Union, and Capitalism in America. Communism was founded by Karl

Marx and they believe that the government should own everything and be divided up equally

amongst the people who must work for it. Whereas America are capitalist, meaning people

could own land and businesses without the permission of the government. And the tension

between this two Ideologies goes back to the end of WWII and the Berlin Blockade and the
Berlin airlift may have contributed the most. The Soviet Union thought the U.S and Great Britain

were trying to Influence Eastern Europe out of communism. (Norton 2015)

Part C3

The effects of the cold war tension made the U.S scared of communism. They developed

Anticommunism groups to combat against communism. People feared they was going to be a

nuclear war so President Truman an atomic civil defense program. The program showed

student how to duck and cover. People bought fallout shelters for their homes. Anticommunist

groups tried to claim that certain Hollywood stars were communist and tried to blacklist them

because they thought they were communist affiliates. This ruin many people’s careers. Senator

Joseph R. McCarthy also thought they were communist affiliates in congress, but they were no

communist in congress and several people claimed he had a problem drinking. (Norton 2015)

Part D

African American has been racially discriminated for a very long time. We were not good

enough to go to the same schools as whites or we were not allowed to drink from a white only

water fountain, and we were not good enough to ride anywhere on the bus except the back of

the bus. A couple of supreme court decisions changed the way African Americans were allow to

go to the same school as whites. First Plessy v. Ferguson, the supreme court said blacks could

get an education but it will be in separate facilities than whites and they shall get the same

equal education as whites. Later the supreme court ruled for Brown v. Board of Education,

saying blacks having separate educational facilities was unequal. Black and white children shall
learn at the same building, this overturn the Plessy v Ferguson case, and several other cases

followed suit to help desegregate other things like sitting anywhere on the bus instead of the

back and the right to sit at a countertop instead of being served in the kitchen. (Norton 2015)

A lot of organizations and groups came and helped with civil rights movements. The

NAACP, SCLC, and CORE were groups of nonviolent people would help pave the way to give a

better life for African Americans. They organized Marches, sit ins, and peaceful Protests. The

most famous march was the March on Washington. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous I

have a dream speech to a quarter-million Americans. Another group of African Americans lived

by the “By any Means Necessary” creed. The founder of this group of African American was

Malcom X. He and the Nation of Islam preached Black Pride and told their members that the

Whites were the devil. Malcom X believed “If someone puts a hand on you, send him to the

cemetery.” The Black Panthers organization was another radical group founded in Oakland

California. They were very Militant towards the police and anybody who wasn’t Black or didn’t

help the cause of equality. They helped their community with free breakfast and healthcare

programs. (Norton 2015)

Citations

Amadeo, K. (2017). What Happened During the Great Depression of 1929?. [online] The
Balance. Available at: [Link]
[Accessed 15 Jul. 2017].

Norton, M.B. (2015).  A people & a nation