Research Paper: The Hoover Dam

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s plan helped make the economy get stable through programs that he started, helping create more jobs for the unemployed. He passed bills that helped both the American people and its environment. For example, new roads and bridges were built. Another one of FDR’S efforts to get out of the depression was to enter WWII. Document 6 shows a cartoon of how much was produced for the war and shows Uncle Sam working, too. Overall, FDR’s decision to enter the war was the greatest impact on the Great Depression because they got out of it. Herbert Hoover was a terrible leader in many Americans’ views because they believed he did not do enough for the people and was more supportive toward big businesses. He gave money to the rich so that they would pass it down to the poor but instead the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Another downfall of Hoover was Hoovervilles. These were a collection of poor people without homes. The name was given as a disgrace to Hoover. In result, FDR was a more favored president during the Great Depression than Hoover.

Life during the great depression was very harsh for many people especially when they lost their job. They lost all of their savings so people had to wait in bread lines to get food. People could not afford to stay in their homes so they had to literally make houses of what every they could find. These houses were called hoovervilles

The Great Depression was a very influential era in American history, affecting many future generations. One of the most prevalent impacts it had on society was the extreme poverty that swept across the nation, affecting both people in cities and in the country. The main cause for this poverty was the mass loss of jobs among the middle class. Millions lost their jobs and consequently their homes. Families lived out of tents and cars in shanty towns or Hoovervilles. In these camps, many people didn’t have their basic human needs met, children and adults alike starved. They lived in clothes that were caked in dirt and tattered, too small for growing children and too cold for the frail elderly. Government relief programs attempted to help but offered little support to the now impoverished families of the millions that lost everything.

The thousands of people trying to get their money back at the same time caused the banks to malfunction resulting in the closing of many banks. The result of closing banks causing a chain of reactions from people losing their money to factories overproducing. In addition, it also cause an huge increase in unemployment percentage shown in the bar graph in document 1, a primary source, Historical Statistics of the United States. As the years progressed after 1929, the percent of unemployment increased from 3 to high as 24 percent. The problems got worse as more problems began to built such as the election of the Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover did very little to help Americans because he thought they would get better just like his childhood. Another problem during the Great Depression is personally explained in document 3, a secondary source, an excerpt about Vera’s life during the Great Depression. Vera faced the problems of the typical American during the Great Depression, which were getting kicked out of her apartment to the inability to afford food. This excerpt describes the life of the average American during the Great Depression. Many

In the year of 1929 the stock market crashed and hurt many of the people in America as it continued through the rest of the 1930s and into the early 1940s. This left America in a whirlpool of poverty and despair. When the stock market crashed it led to The Great Depression. It led to being where one out of every four workers became unemployed no matter if they were skilled or not. People became homeless and were struggling to survive. They had to make new homes out of cardboard or whatever they could find, these were called “hoovervilles.” Most people didn’t have enough money to buy food to feed themselves or even their families. President Herbert Hoover did not seem to be going out of his way to help the country in any way. He was against most forms of government relief and he believed that the depression would come to an end on its own. Americans were very tired and frustrated with Hoover’s ways and so they elected a new president. They elected Franklin D. Roosevelt who

During The Great Depression, the New Deal Instituted many programs where some had many accomplishments some many failures and some had both accomplishments and failures. The programs that had the greatest impact of the Great Depression were the creation of the securities and exchange commission, The works Progress Administration, the Fireside Chats, and the Wagner Act. The programs that had some accomplishments and failures were the civilian conservation corps, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the institution of the Social Security. Lastly, the program that had nothing but failures was the Court Packing Plan.

President Warren G. Harding then asked Hoover to be his secretary of commerce, as did President Calvin Coolidge after him. In this role he was the driving force behind such projects as the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Hoover Dam(Hamilton). When President Coolidge decided not to run for another term, Herbert Hoover was nominated as the Republican candidate in 1928. He ran against New York governor Alfred E. Smith and won the position of president. During Hoover’s campaign, he famously said, “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land,” but a year later the stock market crash of 1929, also known as the Great Depression struck, and the worst economic depression in American history was Hoover’s administration next problem(Hamilton). Most historians say this was the worst time for a new president to be elected because the Great Depression was too big on an obstacle for Hoover’s administration to get through(Hamilton).

The Great Depression was a difficult time for all the American people. It was a time of unemployment, falling wages, and hope for recovery (“Chapter 27”). Some of the causes of the Great Depression were government policies, economic factors, and the gold standard (“Chapter 27”). Other reasons included the fall of the stock market, overseas investments, and the investments in Florida real estate (Farless). The president at the time of this difficult time was President Herbert Hoover. When the Great Depression started, Herbert Hoover took matters into his own hands. President Herbert Hoover came up with multiple recovery attempts.

The 1930s were not for a moment easy since the Great Depression, which was the utmost absolutely horrible stock-market crash the U.S. has ever dealt with. But when the government planned to start building glorious architectures, people had jobs that paid exceptionally well and could afford to own a home in “depressed” America. When President Hoover was nominated president, he tried to change the ways of the depression, by increasing tariffs so imported goods would stay away, which never helped at all (Owen). Sadly, President Hoover should have just focused on helping the people, like increasing taxes that would cause the wealthy to more, and he would give the people some money back.

The Three Gorges Dam is an unfinished project which will be the largest dam ever constructed on the planet Earth. It is situated in China on the third largest river in the world – the Yangtze. The dam has been debated over since the 1919 and is still a hot topic of debate because of its many pros and cons. In 1994 construction began on the dam, and it is expected to be finished by the year 2009. The massive dimensions of the dam are mind boggling and its functions – if the dam actually works – are truly remarkable; however, with such a large structure also comes difficulties, sacrifices, and cynics. The goal of this essay is to lend an understanding of the dam itself, the prospective benefits of

Hoover attempted many plans to end the Great Depression. Hoover rested on his belief of “volunteerism” which was a key concept of progressivism. Hoover believed private organized charities were sufficient to meet social welfare needs and was the “American Way”. Progressivism was when you displayed the wrong actions businesses were taking to the public in hopes that the public would make businesses reform their ways. This was a keen reason to why Hoover failed to solve the problems of the Great Depression. The first solution to the Great Depression attempted by Hoover came after the great crash. Hoover received a petition from the president of General Electric, Gerard Swoop, in 1929. It called for series of voluntary wage and price freezes of leading industries in the U.S. in exchange for freezing wages and prices. They asked in return for the government to cover the cost of welfare capitalism; which was an attempt to break the union, by providing benefits to make companies obsolete. They would pay workers 80% when laid off, but when the stock market crashed, they would only give them 20% salary. This was due partially to welfare capitalism. They

After a series of stock market crashes, the United States’ economy descended into a period of contraction. For more than ten years, the United States suffered through this state of economic despair also referred to as the Great Depression. President Herbert Hoover was in office at the time and found himself amongst the greatest era of economic declination. His response was to devise countermeasures to the depression that he felt would be most beneficial to the country. He began by requesting of large corporation heads to resist cutting employees’ wages and positions and instead reduce the margins of profit they accrued. He also pumped money into public works projects such as the construction of highways and government institutions. In addition

Herbert Hoover was one of the greatest humanitarians of the 20th Century. Throughout WWI he was hailed as an uncommon man liked by many. Hoover became the Secretary of Commerce 1921-1928 and the 31st President of the US. However, he was hated for not having a big enough role in the Great Depression and he was blamed for the increasing the poverty of Americans even though the pieces had already been set. While Hoover did do some things wrong in his time he always had the right meaning and his good intentions weren’t understood. Hoover did the best he could and did more than any other president before him to end the Depression.

One major project he started was the construction of the Hoover Dam. This was part of a public work project designed to build things that needed to be build but also put people to work. Hoover started a project to build an very large dam and the project did employ thousands but since the project took years to complete, most were hired after he left office. The Hoover dam is considered one of the great engineering projects of all time .

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.