Hoover's Response To The Great Depression

Herbert Hoover was elected president of the United States on November 19, 1928; unfortunately, less than eight months later, the stock market crashed. Hoover mistakenly considered this crash as only a passing point for America. But it was only three years later when economic slowdown and over speculation brought America into an upcoming Great Depression. This was a devastating blow for Hoover, his administration, and the American people. President Hoover attempted many ways to fix the economy. He founded new government agencies and encouraged cooperation between government and business to try to stabilize prices as well as attempt to balance the budget. These relief attempts might have shown positive outcome in the early years of the depression, but as the economy worsened, calls for more government involvement increased.

President Herbert Hoover was the president in office during the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover did not recognize the stock market crash as severe as it was. During the tragedy President Herbert Hoover made many unsuccessful attempts to fix the economy. President Hoover’s response to the Great Depression was insufficient in the ways that he took little to no government action. President Hoover loaned money to corporations and state businesses, at the same he advised corporations to not cut wages or lower the production rate, considering that it was highly necessary. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a plan set that would throw Hoover out of office and to fix the economy, which Hoover had limited

Herbert Hoover, the president in office when the Great Depression hit the country, did very little to ameliorate the devastating situation. Hoover underestimated the seriousness of the crisis, misdiagnosed the causes of the problems, and clung to his beliefs in individual achievement and self-help. His corrective measures, aimed at inflation and the federal budget, were thus damaging themselves. Furthermore, he hesitated to mobilize government resources to aid Americans and instead appealed to private groups to lend a hand (Encarta). Thus Hoover’s administration did little to mitigate the impact of the Depression.

Compare and contrast Hoover and Roosevelt’s actions in the aftermath of the Crash of 1929. How did both administrations attempt to deal with the economic stagnation, social hardship and psychological impact of the depression? What needed to be fixed and which approach proved more successful? In your essay you should address not only the underlying economic and social problems that both administrations had to deal with and the various corrective measures they adopted, but also the underlying philosophical approaches of Hoover and Roosevelt and their supporters.

The Great Depression transformed American society and the way people thought about themselves and their relationship to the country. During this horrendous time period, many people lost many important pieces in their lives like money and jobs. Millions of families lost their savings as many banks collapsed in the early 1930s. They were unable to make rent payments or mortgage and many were removed from their apartments. The Great Depression challenged American families in vital ways, placing great economic demands upon families and their members.

Hoover was the type of conservative that believed the economy would repair itself and the dead parts would fall. He refused to give direct federal relief to the people. in business affairs, Hoover kept America as a rugged individualist, capitalist society with little regulation. In fact, when the depression hit he bailed out the businesses rather than the American people. He established the Reconstructive Finance Corporation, which supplied corporate relief for corporations identified to be too big to fail. He was the first president that used his money made for being the president, for donations to charity. He was living the American Dream. Publicity of being a self-made man torched him when his strategies failed to relinquish the burden of the Great Depression (Hughes 1).

After the roaring twenties, in 1929, the U.S. economy took a downwards turn. The uneven distribution of income, stock market speculation, overproduction of goods, a weak farm economy, and extreme laissez faire government policies caused the Great Depression to occur. President Herbert Hoover initially thought of the stock market crash as a passing recession, but his laissez faire approach only heightened the negative effects of the Great Depression. He believed that it was the job of state and local governments, not the federal government, to aid in public relief. However, Hoover’s “lame duck” approach proved his powerless efforts to stem the depression.

The Great Depression changed the lives of people who lived and farmed on the Great Plains and in turn, changed America. During this time period, many farmers ran out of business because no one could buy their products since many people were out of money.

Hoover and the RFC stopped short of meeting one demand of the American masses — federal aid to individuals. Hoover believed that government aid would stifle initiative and create dependency where individual effort was needed. Past governments never resorted to such schemes and the economy managed to rebound. Clearly Hoover and his advisors failed to grasp the scope of the Great

In general society, there is a consensus on Hoover more so than nearly any other politician, and that consensus is that he was a “heartless ogre, inept and callous and reactionary, who ‘caused’ a depression then ‘did nothing’ to fix it.” Yet historians tend to take several very different views, describing him as being “like a mariner, starting off on a journey of discovery to bring home rare treasures, who is forced by sudden storms to pour all his energies into just keeping the ship afloat.” Some of their ideas are not contentious, such as that Hoover did not cause the depression. But as to what kind of president he was, and how he handled the depression, there is little agreement. Kennedy, one historian that talks of the era, states that Hoover believed “Government might indeed step in where voluntarism had manifestly failed, but only after a fair trial.” (Kennedy

erbert Hoover, America’s 31st president, was unlucky enough to be president during the beginning and early years of the Great Depression. He was a brilliant man, but his ideas and beliefs would hurt his reputation and make him an inevitable one-term president. Firstly, Hoover passed many controversial bills during his time in office. An examples of this is the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. This law greatly increased a number of tariffs on a variety of imported goods. President Hoover signed the law because he thought it would reduce competition from foreign products. But other nations soon reacted by raising tariffs on imported goods, which increased the hurt put on the U.S. economy. Hoover believed that business, if left alone without government interference, would correct the economic conditions. He vetoed several bills aimed at relieving the Depression because he felt they gave the federal government too much power. This caused many people in the nation to dislike him a lot. People that lost their jobs and could not afford a home moved to a shabby section of town and built shacks from flattened tin cans and old crates. Groups of these shacks were called “Hoovervilles”, a name that reflected the people 's anger and disappointment at President Herbert Hoover 's failure to end the Depression (Mitchener). From here, things never got better for his presidency. One event that occurred happened because Germany, and other countries, could not pay the 1931 installment on its

The Great Depression, which began in America in October 1929, was a time of great poverty all across the world. Starting with the stock market crash and then spreading to banks and eventually into other countries, the Great Depression left more than 16 million people jobless in America, and led to the closing of more than 800 banks. Herbert Hoover was president when this tragedy struck, and because he did not take action to help the American people, was not re-elected. Instead, the people chose to elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt who initiated the government’s increased involvement in our everyday life. Roosevelt began this process by reforming the banks, and went on to use the government to become involved in many different organizations, including the stock market.

The Great Depression had brought mass suffering to the country. Income dropped by fifty percent and unemployment

With the public work programs, Hoover provided unemployed Americans with many different jobs in order to create some sort of income. The most famous of these programs was the Boulder Dam, which will be talked about later. Throughout the entire depression, Hoover stood on his belief of a hands-off government until late in his presidency. Under pressure from Americans and his fellow politicians, President Hoover eventually gave in and signed an act granting money and/or food to areas in dire need. That was the extent of his direct relief.

While the people were suffering from Job loss president Hoover was unwilling to spend federal money for instant relief this made people very upset and it was not great for him, Because he made things worse and he made it seem that everything was going to be fine even though his strategy was not very great at