During World War I farmers increased production to meet the demands for food for the fighting troops. Many farmers invested their wartime profits in more land and more machinery with the thought of growing even more crops, but such plans did more harm then good. After the war, farmers were producing more than the American people could use and the price of farm goods dropped so low that many farmers couldn’t make enough money to pay off their huge debts. Corn, which had sold for 70 cents a bushel in the early ‘20s, dropped to 10 cents a bushel. Hogs, which used to bring in nine cents, only brought in three cents per pound. Some farmers found it was cheaper to burn their corn for fuel than to haul it to market. If they couldn’t sell enough to make mortgage payments, some farmers began to sell off their belongings. New machinery, that had hardly been used, had to be auctioned off before it was even paid for. On and on it went, until many farmers had to give up the entire farm. The banks and tax collectors wanted their money, but farmers didn’t have any to give. In 1924 alone more than 2,500 farms were lost in mortgage foreclosure actions.
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(4) rising income taxes22 During the 1930s, poor land management and severe drought conditions across parts of theMidwest resulted in the
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23 The New Deal reform that helped labor unions win the right to represent workers was the
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Base your answer to question 24 on the chart below and on your knowledge of social studies.24 Which conclusion is most clearly supported by the information in the chart?(1) President Herbert Hoover’s economic policies expanded job opportunities.(2) The United States unemployment rate reached its highest level in 1938.(3) President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs failed to address theunemployment crisis.(4) World War II ended the high unemployment rates of the Great Depression.
25 As part of the New Deal, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the FederalDeposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) were created to
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26 Senator Huey Long, Dr. Francis Townsend, and Father Charles Coughlin are best known as
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Abstract
Agricultural distress in the 1920s is routinely quoted among the causes of the Great Depression. This article challenges the conventional wisdom. World agriculture was not plagued by overproduction and falling terms of trade. The indebtedness of American farmers, a legacy of the boom years 1918-1921, did jeopardize the rural banks, but the relation between their crises, the banking panic of 1930, and the Great Depression is tenuous at best.
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