The debate about the safety net for unemployed citizens still continues today. Though I'm pretty sure most Americans believe there should be some sort of safety net, there is still a range of opinions on how powerful a safety net should be available to Americans. Since we've been talking about the stock market crash and the inauguration of the Great Depression, I decided to take a look at how prepared America was for the possibility of an economic depression.
What's interesting is that America was way behind it Europe in the development of social welfare programs. Many of the European countries started creating their social welfare programs toward the end of the 19th century. By the time World War I rolled around they had welfare programs in place. However, this period was the time when America really started to experience growth and economic expansion, and there weren't many problems with unemployment, since jobs, though not necessarily good ones, were for the most part available. Americans weren't prepared for the possibility of the corporations crashing.
At the time the federal government was not expected to do anything to help those who were unemployed. Welfare programs were often funded by charity, though local governments did have varying degrees of a safety net.
However, when the Great Depression struck the local governments did not have the money they needed. Large parts of communities lost their jobs, and local governments simply didn't have the resources to help. They didn't have any way of obtaining money either, since so many of their former taxpayers no longer had incomes.
Up to this point the federal government had upheld a policy of letting individuals help themselves. After all, the American ideal was the rugged individual and the self-made man. President Hoover thought that providing too much help to needy Americans would be violating one of the deepest-held beliefs of Americans.
Hoover didn't believe in an actual safety net, but he did create programs to help people get back on their feet. He wanted people to do actual work to earn money but he wasn't opposed to creating more jobs so that people could do so. He created the Division of Public Construction to create jobs for people in public works. He worked on improving infrastructure, but really he was just giving people jobs. The Hoover Dam was the most well-known project from Hoover's presidency. Though it may seem a bit of an extravagant project while the country was in Depression, in reality it provided jobs when none were available elsewhere. Despite his opposition to safety nets, Hoover ended up spending over a billion dollars on public works from 1929 to 1932, much of which went toward the salaries of the laborers.
This was as far as Hoover could go without violating his principles, and the principles of most Americans until the Depression hit. Though the government didn't provide a safety net, it did allow quite a few loopholes in the laissez-faire system which Hoover could work with. Hoover's mix of capitalism and government intervention paved the way for Roosevelt's New Deal.
Sources:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=14&smtID=1
http://usinfo.org/enus/government/social/ch9.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover#Great_Depression
The American Pageant
Mr. Stewart
What's interesting is that America was way behind it Europe in the development of social welfare programs. Many of the European countries started creating their social welfare programs toward the end of the 19th century. By the time World War I rolled around they had welfare programs in place. However, this period was the time when America really started to experience growth and economic expansion, and there weren't many problems with unemployment, since jobs, though not necessarily good ones, were for the most part available. Americans weren't prepared for the possibility of the corporations crashing.
At the time the federal government was not expected to do anything to help those who were unemployed. Welfare programs were often funded by charity, though local governments did have varying degrees of a safety net.
However, when the Great Depression struck the local governments did not have the money they needed. Large parts of communities lost their jobs, and local governments simply didn't have the resources to help. They didn't have any way of obtaining money either, since so many of their former taxpayers no longer had incomes.
Up to this point the federal government had upheld a policy of letting individuals help themselves. After all, the American ideal was the rugged individual and the self-made man. President Hoover thought that providing too much help to needy Americans would be violating one of the deepest-held beliefs of Americans.
Hoover didn't believe in an actual safety net, but he did create programs to help people get back on their feet. He wanted people to do actual work to earn money but he wasn't opposed to creating more jobs so that people could do so. He created the Division of Public Construction to create jobs for people in public works. He worked on improving infrastructure, but really he was just giving people jobs. The Hoover Dam was the most well-known project from Hoover's presidency. Though it may seem a bit of an extravagant project while the country was in Depression, in reality it provided jobs when none were available elsewhere. Despite his opposition to safety nets, Hoover ended up spending over a billion dollars on public works from 1929 to 1932, much of which went toward the salaries of the laborers.
This was as far as Hoover could go without violating his principles, and the principles of most Americans until the Depression hit. Though the government didn't provide a safety net, it did allow quite a few loopholes in the laissez-faire system which Hoover could work with. Hoover's mix of capitalism and government intervention paved the way for Roosevelt's New Deal.
Sources:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=14&smtID=1
http://usinfo.org/enus/government/social/ch9.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover#Great_Depression
The American Pageant
Mr. Stewart
Great post...I remember doing a report on Hoover in 5th grade....it seemed that he was an okay president (not amazing, but not horrible), but because the Great Depression hit right when he was in office, a lot of people blamed the Depression itself on Hoover, and so he became one of the most disliked presidents in history...I always felt kind of bad for him, as it seems to me that he tried to fix things, but was in over his head. It seems like that happened to a lot of the people in this time period.
ReplyDeleteSomething to ponder.
Thank for the Hoover post Maya!
ReplyDeleteJust like Ashley mentioned, Hoover was indeed blamed for the Great Depression and still is considered as one of the most disliked presidents. The textbook mentions that if his presidency was during President Coolidge's presidency(Roaring 20's), people would have liked him much better since he was a successful businessmen and was liked for his principle of "rugged individualism" in the beginning of his presidency before the Great Depression struck the nation. President Hoover also tried to help the economy by building the well-known Hoover Dam and while people were opposed against this idea, it gave jobs to the jobless. So it really is up to people if Hoover was an okay(I wouldn't push it to great) president or not depending on the benefits they received from him. But considering how much people hates him, we can safely assume that people didn't look up to him and thought him as incapable to handle the depression.
Source: American Pageant Textbook
DeleteIf Roosevelt with his New Deal had handled the early Depression years and not Hoover, would the economy have rebounded faster or was it wartime manufacturing that rescued America from the GD?
ReplyDeleteBrandon,
ReplyDeleteYes, I think that if Roosevelt had been President during the early Depression years and implemented his New Deal policy at that point then yes, the economy would have rebounded faster. Roosevelt was elected in 1932 because the American People did not believe Hoover was doing an adequate job handling the Great Depression. Like Maya said in her post, Hoover was a rugged individualist. It took until things got extremely bad for him to change his beliefs. In Chapter 35 of the American Pageant it even says, "Hoover was finally forced to turn reluctantly from his doctrine of log-cabin individualism and accept the proposition that the welfare of the people in a nationwide catastrophe is a direct concern of the national government." President Hoover was not a horrible president, he did what he could, it's just that his fundamental personality/beliefs were not suited for him to be President during this time period. If we had someone like Roosevelt in Presidency, America's economy would have improved more quickly, as Hoover's beliefs delayed the economy's recovery.
Sources:
The American Pageant
http://millercenter.org/president/fdroosevelt/essays/biography/9