One of the more interesting aspects of the Great Depression is the "Dust Bowl" phenomenon that occured in the Midwest and the Southern Plains. Farmers in this area were one of the communities who felt the Depression the most because it was not only the economy ruining their livelihood but nature as well.
The area known as the Dust Bowl was struck with severe droughts which ruined a terrain that had once been fertile. The damage the "sod-busters" and the droughts had made were so disastrous that in some areas there wasn't any moisture to a depth of three feet.
The troubles of the farmer's had started earlier on, however, with the "sod-busters." For a long time the agricultural economy had been focused on creating as many crops as possible and this not only hurt the land but the competition to sell drove down prices. In order for the farmers to make up for the lost profit, they had to have even more crops next time which just deepened the problem. It was a vicious cycle that the farmers were desperate to fix. It was probably the main reason why farmers were pushing for the monetization of silver.
Though farmers wanted to create inflation through silver, experts knew that it wouldn't be a good idea. Some people like AAA administrator George Peek wanted to dump American surpluses abroad but others like Henry A. Wallace thought that the best way to deal with the surpluses was to close America off from the global market. His believe was that isolationism would force Americans to finally deal with the surpluses which had been impoverishing farmers for so long.
Here's a timeline of the Dust Bowl for those interested.
I am confused by how isolationism would force Americans to deal with the surpluses. If there is a need for inflation, then there is no way for the people to buy their own surpluses. Wouldn't selling the products with export taxes have helped the US more in terms of dealing with the surpluses?
ReplyDeleteThe competition (because of surpluses) that made the prices go down was the source of their problems. Economic isolationism would help, at least in theory, because they would have to get to the root of the problem and not find an easy solution that would just bring about more issues. Europe was trying to become self-sufficient, and they have their own protective tariffs, so just dumping the surpluses on them wouldn't be good in the long run. You may want to read this http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw04.htm it's Wallace's speech on the farm crisis
ReplyDeleteGreat post! The Dust Bowl is definitely interesting and effected so many people. The panhandles of both Texas and Oklahoma were hit the hardest by the Dust Bowl but even east coast states like New York and Washington D.C. were sometimes effected by the different dust storms.
ReplyDeleteI visited the website you posted and it was very interesting. #3 especially caught my eye stating that "During the few years just preceding 1929, we were selling in foreign markets the product of roughly sixty million acres of land. The value of those exports this past fiscal year was sixty percent below that of 1929." I checked the line graph of the Real GDP from The Great Depression Wiki Project page, made by Mr. Stewart, and noticed that it had indeed dropped from $1000 billion to approximately $700 billion from the late 20s to the 30s. Now I understand why "We must reopen those markets, restore domestic markets, and bring about rising prices generally; or we must provide an orderly retreat for the surplus acreage, or both." and that European nations had wanted to become economically self-sufficient. Thanks! I have a good understanding about the Dust Bowl and the economic relations between the US and Europe.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that both the agricultural society and the industrialization society of America both "overproduced" in their own way. You say that the farmers had long been growing as many crops as possible, but I don't see how that could be profitable. A product is only as good as the demand for it is. Now if the farmers needed more money, then I see why they would raise more crops, but wouldn't it also lower the overall prices of the crops if the market was flooded? Anyways, it makes sense that the farmers faced a similar situation to industrial businesses who had overproduced their own products prior to the depression. However, I supposed what's more interesting is that many of the farmers in the Northwest were so poor and so isolated that some starved, along with their livestock. It's a very eerie feeling to know that farmers had it just as bad if not worse than those in the cities and other urban environments as they were often physically isolated.
ReplyDeleteNice article Perla. It would help if you elaborated on the issue of monetization of silver. This would help your article relate to other social classes other than the poor. Another problem that the poor faced was the exploitation of sharecroppers by landowners. This arguably impacted the farmers just as hard as the dust storms.
ReplyDeleteThe dust storms were some of the worst thing that farmers had to endure. It was killing their crops and their production, and this of course, killed their profit. Once they were not selling, process went down, and the farmers sunk deeper economically. This is why they wanted the monetization of silver, so now they could gain money for all of the profit they lost. This would cause inflation, so their prices and value of crops would go up, and they could then continue to produce crops and not overproduce. The farmers would then not be in a bad predicament, even with the constant dust bowls and droughts. But along with the dust storms, they were being exploited, and therefore were in constant debt.
ReplyDeleteI think that it's valid to compare Roosevelt to Lincoln, but it's also important to note that Lincoln's presidency was during a major war. This meant that, even though he may have implemented a disproportional amount of power, it was during martial law, and therefore is considered acceptable. During the Hundred Days, Roosevelt spewed a bunch of acts that slipped easily through Congress, giving Roosevelt a huge amount of power. Do you guys think that a dire economic situation warrants martial law?
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear, the Dust Bowl exacerbated the problem because the farmers would just fall further and further into debt, correct? Only wondering because the first time I thought you meant that every time the farmers planted crops, the fertility of the land would only get worse.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, in regards to your actual post, I think you should expand on the last paragraph. While you provide good info, the curt way you phrase it makes the economics rather confusing. For example, you mention that Americans have to deal with their surplus, while the Dust Bowl that you mentioned in the previous paragraph seems only to detract from the gross product.
Looking more at the agricultural aspect of things, I wonder if the farmers that continuously grew increasingly more crops realized how much they were hurting themselves. Not only were they hurting the land (too much crop growth eventually depletes soil of nutrients) (and also setting themselves up for an even more disastrous Dust Bowl), but as Perla said, they were also hurting themselves by driving down prices.
ReplyDeleteGreat article Perla! I think you could provided more information about the farmers economic situation and some of the struggles they went through. During this time, more than half of the farmers were making less than $1000 a year. Not only that, but prices in the market increased far too rapidly and was not affordable by their income. Farmers often would bring more product to the markets that could be bought. Ultimately, this created the problem of overproduction and under consumption that the government had to deal with during the Great Depression.
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