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Hoovervilles
A "Hooverville" was a shanty town built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States. They were named after Herbert Hoover, who was President of the United States during the onset of the Depression and was widely blamed for it. -
Smoot-Hawley Tariff
A law that implemented protectionist trade policies in the United States. Sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley, it was signed by President Herbert Hoover. Raised import duties to protect American businesses and farmers, adding considerable strain to the international economic climate of the Great Depression. -
100, 000 Banks Have Failed
The failed banks were primarily small, rural banks, and people in metropolitan areas were generally unconcerned. Investors and other businessmen thought that the failing institutions were weak and badly managed and that those failures served to strengthen the banking system. A major wave of bank failures during the last few months of 1930 triggered widespread attempts to convert deposits to cash -
Agriculture Adjustment Administration (AAA)
Major New Deal program to restore agricultural prosperity by curtailing farm production, reducing export surpluses, and raising prices. -
Public Works Administration (PWA)
The Public Works Administration (PWA) budgeted several billion dollars to be spent on the construction of public works as a means of providing employment, stabilizing purchasing power, improving public welfare, and contributing to a revival of American industry. Simply put, it was designed to spend "big bucks on big projects." -
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) preserves and promotes public confidence in the U.S. financial system by insuring deposits in banks and thrift institutions for at least $250,000; by identifying, monitoring and addressing risks to the deposit insurance funds; and by limiting the effect on the economy and the financial system when a bank or thrift institution fails. was created in 1933 in response to the thousands of bank failures that occurred in the 1920s and early 1930s. -
Social Security Administration (SSA)
The United States Social Security Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivors' benefits. -
Dust Bowl
A period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the southern plains region in the 1930s. People and livestock were killed and crops failed across the entire region which caused a great impact on economy.
