The Great Depression

  • Hoovervilles

    a shantytown built by unemployed and destitute people during the Depression
  • Smoot-Hawley Tariff

    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

    As the economic depression deepened in the early 30s, and as farmers had less and less money to spend in town, banks began to fail at alarming rates.
  • Dust bowl

    an area of land where vegetation has been lost and soil reduced to dust and eroded, especially as a consequence of drought or unsuitable farming practice