Every card in The twentieth-century world, Year 10: the Depression and the New Deal (America 1920–1973 option)
The whole deck, in order — so you can read it through before your child ever sees it.
- On what date in 1929 was 'Black Tuesday', the climax of the Wall Street Crash? (day and month)
29 October
HintIt came the day after Black Monday.
WhyBy mid-November the Dow had lost almost half its value, and it did not regain its 1929 peak until 1954.
- Why did the Wall Street Crash hurt Americans who had never owned a share?
Many banks failed, and ordinary savers lost the money they had deposited
HintThink about where families kept their cash.
WhyHundreds of banks failed in 1929, and many more in the early 1930s.
- Shanty towns built by homeless and jobless Americans in the early 1930s, named as a bitter jibe at the leader blamed for the slump
Hoovervilles
HintMany sprang up on the edges of cities, built from scrap.
WhyThey were named after President Herbert Hoover, whom many Americans blamed for the Depression.
- What was 'rugged individualism', the belief behind President Hoover's early response to the Depression?
People should help themselves, without government handouts
HintHe feared relief would sap self-reliance.
WhyHoover preferred voluntary effort and local charity, but as the crisis deepened he set up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932 to lend to banks and businesses.
- Why did Franklin D. Roosevelt win the 1932 presidential election?
Voters blamed Hoover for the Depression and wanted Roosevelt's promised 'New Deal'
HintThink about who held the White House when the slump struck.
WhyRoosevelt won 472 electoral votes to Hoover's 59.
- What were the 'three Rs' of Roosevelt's New Deal?
Relief, recovery and reform
HintHelp for the poor, restarting the economy, and changing the system.
WhyRelief meant immediate help for the jobless and poor; recovery meant reviving the economy; reform meant changing things such as banking to prevent another slump.
- Programme that paid unemployed young men to do conservation work such as planting trees
Civilian Conservation Corps
HintIts camps were run on semi-military lines.
WhySet up in spring 1933 as part of the New Deal, it eventually put around three million young men to work.
- Which 1935 Act set up old-age pensions and unemployment insurance? (name of the Act)
Social Security Act
HintSigned by Roosevelt in the summer.
WhySome jobs, including farm labour and domestic service, were not covered at first, which left out many African Americans and women.
- How did the Supreme Court limit the New Deal in the mid-1930s?
It struck down some New Deal laws as unconstitutional
HintNine judges decided that Congress had gone beyond its powers.
WhyIn May 1935 the Court unanimously struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act. In 1937 Roosevelt proposed adding extra judges to the Court, but the plan failed.
- Why did Senator Huey Long attack the New Deal?
He said it did too little; his 'Share Our Wealth' plan would have redistributed wealth from the rich
HintHe represented Louisiana in the Senate.
WhyCritics came from the right as well: the American Liberty League, whose leading members were business owners, said the New Deal threatened free enterprise.
1★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0186
2★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0187
3★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0188
4★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0189
5★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0190
6★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0191
7★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0192
8★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0193
9★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0194
10★ GCSE-HIST-TWE-0195
Keep what you learn
Here, nothing is saved. In your child’s own sky every card is scheduled — it comes back just before they’d forget it — and the professor who wrote it is one tap away.