I Don't Remember This, Do You? Quiz

Answer: The United States

The Great Depression came about as a result of the sudden "crash" of the stock market in the United States. October 29, 1929 became known as "Black Tuesday", since it was the date that the crash began to take its devastating toll on the industrialized world's economies.

Eventually, most nations on earth felt its effects as production of goods ground to a halt; banks failed due to generalized panic; farming began to cost more than profits were able to offset. In general, there was no "quick fix" to the problems, with the economies of many countries suffering horrific losses.

Let's not forget; people were suffering in all sorts of ways, up to and including loss of jobs, with its resultant loss of quality of life and in a myriad of different ways, not the least of which was deprivation or even starvation of some of the most poverty-stricken.

While economists still disagree on the major causes of the Great Depression, one thing is certain - the effects of it were felt worldwide for most of the decade of the 1930s and even beyond.

Answer: that people rushed to the bank to withdraw savings and funds

A bank run generally occurred when people rushed to withdraw their savings and deposits for fear that the banks would run out of money. This was a self-fulfilling prophecy, since the more people demanded their money, the less banks had to give out, thus causing the eventual collapse of the banking institution itself.

Bank runs were not unique to the Great Depression, however. Previous events had caused other panic runs, such as the Dutch tulip mania of the 1630s, during which ridiculous pricing of tulip bulbs as a commodity caused the economic downturn of that nation.
The 1720s British "South Sea Bubble" was another instance of overpricing that eventually led to economic woes. In this case, speculative trading practices were to blame.

Answer: "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thornton Wilder

Thornton Wilder's novel, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" was published in 1927 prior to the Great Depression. The fictional story concerned five people who died when a rope bridge collapsed in Lima, Peru. A Franciscan monk, Brother Juniper, who witnessed the collapse attempted to find an explanation for the collapse from a spiritual perspective, interviewing a number of people who knew the five victims.

Each of the other choices were either written during the Depression or else were written about some aspect of it, and they each attempted to show how it affected the mindsets of those who endured its harshness and sometimes capricious cruelties. All of these books are fictional works.

Answer: Hoover ovens

"Hoovervilles" (shanty towns made of whatever materials were readily available), "Hoover flags", (empty pockets turned inside out) and "Hoover blankets", (newspapers used to cover up with) were terms coined by U.S. Democrats to deride the unpopular president.
(To my knowledge the term "Hoover ovens" was never used by anyone other than me.)

Also in vogue at the time were the terms "Hoover leather", denoting pieces of cardboard that were sometimes used to line a shoe after the sole wore off, and "Hoover wagons", which were merely automobiles with the engines removed and pulled by horses or mules because fuel was unaffordable.

In Canada, these former automobiles were known as "Bennett Buggies", since the Canadians blamed THEIR prime minister, Richard Bennett for the Depression!

Answer: True

While the unemployment rate in the U.S. peaked at around 25% in 1934, Australia's economy sputtered and dropped even more alarmingly, with a 1932 level of unemployed workers peaking at nearly 30%.

Since Australia was a dominion of Britain at the time of the Great Depression, British policies and the ill effects and shortages caused by the Depression that affected Britain were almost always felt to even greater degree in faraway Australia, due to its dependence on trade with Britain.

In northern industrialized areas of Britain, for example, some unemployment figures at the time put the rate in some localities at an astonishing 70%!

Answer: Germany

Heinrich Bruning, the Chancellor of Germany from 1930-32 believed that he had to combat the effects of the Great Depression by implementing draconian cuts. (He was not alone in this way of thinking: Britain had also initially responded to the crisis in a similar manner, but it was a long-standing democracy and the political system didn't fail).

Adolf Hitler simply loved the situation in Germany and is quoted as expressing his pleasure at Bruning's disastrous policies: "Never in my life have I been so well disposed and inwardly contented as in these days, for hard reality has opened the eyes of millions of Germans."

Sweden started launching public works programmes on a large scale in 1932. The Soviet Union did not trade much with the rest of the world and was largely unaffected by the Great Depression but had problems of its own. Italy was hit hard but had become accustomed to government intervention in the economy already in the 1920s.

Answer: coffee

Since 1889 coffee had proven to be the most profitable commodity in the Brazilian economy. With the onset of the Great Depression, demand decreased at an alarming rate, thereby directly affecting export rates. In fact, coffee prices rapidly fell from around 22 cents per pound to about 8 cents per pound.

Had Brazil been more economically diverse, perhaps the economic devastation felt by its people would not have been quite so dire.

At one point, the Brazilian government, in what can only be termed acts of sheer desperation, used loans to buy up excess coffee and either put it into storage, used it to pave roads, or sometimes even burned it in an effort to reduce worldwide supply, largely to no avail.

Luxury items were hit particularly hard during the Great Depression, and coffee was simply a commodity that most people learned that they could live without; opting to feed and clothe their families as best they could, instead of enjoying things that were unnecessary for their survival.

Other examples of Latin American countries having grown too dependent on a single economic engine prior to the onset of the Great Depression include nations like Chile (exports of copper) Ecuador, (exports of cocoa) and Cuba (exports of sugar).

Answer: CCC

The CCC or Civilian Conservation Corps, was put into place in 1933 as a part of America's efforts at relieving some of the pain of the Great Depression, with only single males who were between the ages of 18 and 25 accepted into the Corps.

Despite these limitations the program proved to be immensely popular and many unskilled laborers planted over 3 billion trees throughout the U.S., while other workers constructed and upgraded state and federal parks, built public roads in remote parts of the country, with the program operating as a nature conservancy on a grand scale.

Over 3 million young men were involved in the program during its 9 years of operation, and while they earned a small income of $30.00 per month, they were required to send $25.00 of it back home to help their families.

Answer: Mississippi

While it could be argued that every state was at least indirectly affected by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s because of reduced crop output, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas bore the brunt of the cruelties dished out by both nature and poor economic performance.

Mississippi was not a part of the drought stricken region, but many other states also faced the wrath of weather gone wrong. South Dakota, for example, experienced devastating dust storms on November 11, 1933. This was followed in 1934 with dust storms blowing off the Great Plains all the way into Chicago, Illinois. Two days later, the same winds and dirt plowed into New York, Washington D.C. and other East Coast cities.

In the winter of 1934-35 red snow (possibly colored by the dust of the plains) even fell on the New England states!

There were three major dust storms in the early 1930s, and many more minor storms that all took their toll on the soil, on the ability to produce crops, and sometimes even led to deaths by starvation of both man and beast alike.

It is no great wonder that the era became known as the "Dirty Thirties".

Answer: sympathy with Allied and Axis powers' economic situations

While many credit U.S. entry into WW2 as the defining factor that signaled the beginning of the end of the Great Depression, other economists argue that the nation was already in recovery mode without having to crank up its war machinery. Of the options given, sympathy with the plights of other nation's economies had little or no bearing on the recovery of the U.S. economy.

Most of the world's other countries were also intently focused on their own problems and had their hands full with caring for their own populations as best they could.