Recovering from the Great Depression

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Dust Storms ◽  
World War ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
Middle America ◽  
Middle West ◽  
Smith County

This chapter examines how the Middle West recovered from the ill effects of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was something Americans hoped they would never experience again. In the rural Midwest, foreclosures and sheriff's auctions were common. The worst drought years devastated the land. Dust storms blew with such intensity that crops failed and machinery broke down. World War II sparked the economy, revived agriculture, and coincided with better weather. However, the war took millions of men and women away from their families, necessitated mandatory rationing, and drove up prices. When it was over, rural communities faced continuing challenges. The chapter considers the case of Smith Center, Kansas, to illustrate the challenges rural communities faced as they overcame the setbacks of the Great Depression and prepared for the era ahead. Recovery from the Great Depression varied across middle America, but many of the dynamics evident in Smith County occurred elsewhere.

Afterword

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
World War ◽  
Telephone Service ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Middle West

This afterword summarizes the book's main findings about the social transformations that the Middle West has experienced since the 1950s. It explains how the decade after World War II presented a multitude of problems for nearly everyone. Roads, electricity, telephone service, and machinery had all been put on hold by the Great Depression and the war. Marginal farmers were unable to make the transition. They did not have the capital to purchase additional land, to mechanize, or to invest in livestock. Ultimately, their failure nevertheless served the region and the nation. Farming became better capitalized and more efficient as a result. The heartland was redefining itself, and the author believes that the Middle West's emphasis on friendliness, hospitality, and native ingenuity owes much to the reinvention of its heritage that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.

War and the Next Lesson

Money ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith ◽  
James K. Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Monetary Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
World War I ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
John Maynard Keynes ◽  
The Great Depression

This chapter examines the lessons of World War II with respect to money and monetary policy. World War I exposed the fragility of the monetary structure that had gold as its foundation, the great boom of the 1920s showed how futile monetary policy was as an instrument of restraint, and the Great Depression highlighted the ineffectuality of monetary policy for rescuing the country from a slump—for breaking out of the underemployment equilibrium once this had been fully and firmly established. On the part of John Maynard Keynes, the lesson was that only fiscal policy ensured not just that money was available to be borrowed but that it would be borrowed and would be spent. The chapter considers the experiences of Britain, Germany, and the United States with a lesson of World War II: that general measures for restraining demand do not prevent inflation in an economy that is operating at or near capacity.

The Great Depression and World War II, 1930–1945

Texas ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 367-395
Author(s):  
Rupert N. Richardson ◽  
Cary D. Wintz ◽  
Angela Boswell ◽  
Adrian Anderson ◽  
Ernest Wallace
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
World War ◽  
The Great Depression

Food-Crop Marketing Boards in Tropical Africa

1987 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O. Jones
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Food Crop ◽  
World War ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Agricultural Marketing ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
African Populations ◽  
Made In

Agricultural marketing boards in tropical Africa are heirlooms of the Great Depression and World War II, when colonial governments found their principal sources of revenue severely reduced and both European and African populations financially distressed. Marketing boards are of British origin, but similar efforts were made in French and Belgian Africa. The rationale for intervention is clouded; some of the principal reasons have faded into the past or were never openly expressed.1

World War II Fiscal Policies and the End of the Great Depression

1994 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 850-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Vernon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Depression ◽  
Full Employment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fiscal Policies ◽  
World War ◽  
The Great Depression ◽  
United States Economy

The United States economy completed its recovery from the Great Depression in 1942, restoring full-employment output in that year after 12 years of below-full-employment performance. Fiscal policies were not the most important factor in the 1933 through 1940 phase of the recovery, but they became the most important factor after 1940, when the recovery was less than half-complete. World War II fiscal policies were, then, instrumental in the overall restoration of full-employment performance.

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