Discussion Questions: “Breadline” Great Depression Movie

1. Why did the stock market crash, even though the American economy appeared to be strong?

• Stocks kept dropping
• Production exceeded demand
• Plunging into debt

2. In what ways did the crash have worldwide effects?

• Factories closed in many countries
• Unemployment spread

3. In what ways did the events in America impact copper and nitrate workers in Chile? On shipping?

In future wars, everybody would need copper. Everyone would mine nonstop; the same went for nitrate.

4. How did the US government respond in the early 1930s?

The crises just has to “run its course.” The economy was thought to be uncontrollable. People felt they needed to follow these orders of President Hoover.

5. How did farmers and industrial workers in the US react to the downward spiral of the Depression?

Farmers dumped their produce; they tried to reduce the rate of falling prices and miners broke into their own mines to steal coal to heat their homes.

6. How did other governments deal with the Depression?

• Tried to use government intervention to prevent unemployment
• Paid laborers, fishermen, factory workers (in Sweden for example)
• Pushing forwards

7. What impact did people’s frustrations have on the US government?

The government did not react in a positive way to protests, etc. Hoover believed the Depression would work itself out.

8. What effort did the election of FDR have on the national mood?

• Said the depression could be beaten.
• Fireside chats gave people thrills of confidence
• Paid farmers for their cattle

9. What effect did the WPA have in changing the economic situation?

• Made jobs on roads and public buildings; conservation work
• Gave people self-confidence; gave a feeling of self-success and that everything would work out
• Paid enough to build houses for families
• 6-hour shifts to give more people opportunities

10. How was the British response to the Depression different from the New Deal? What were the results?

• Royal sympathy
• Brought hope to replace despair, but nothing happened
• Government turned a deaf ear toward pleas