In October of 1929 the economic bubble the United States and the majority of the world had reveled in burst. The stock market crashed and the United States found itself deep in the worst economic depression the country had ever known. The year before, Harvey Parnell, a farmer and the Lieutenant Governor, rose to the highest office in the State of Arkansas after John Martineau left his post to pursue a position as a federal judge. Parnell’s governorship will be tainted by the depression and will, for a short time, be viewed as the worst in the State’s history. Even though Harvey Parnell was viewed by many as the “Herbert Hoover of Arkansas,” he did attempt and accomplish some rather impressive reforms and improvements in the State, some of which include: road improvements, education reform, and his attempts to save the farming community from complete obliteration. Unfortunately, his success was often clouded by the Great Depression, which would eventually lead to his retirement from office.
Harvey Parnell once said that “[at] one time public roads in Arkansas were so bad that the wild geese, honking southward, would go around them.” In 1927, Parnell, as Lieutenant Governor, helped get the legislation for the Martineau Road Plan passed in the State Legislature. This legislation dealt with the improvement of the state highway system. Parnell also proposed the building of roads in the rural areas connecting outlying communities with the main state highway. Parnell, and Martineau before him, worked to make sure that the new highway system would not be paid for by personal property taxes but by the taxes on gasoline and vehicle licenses. This way the people paying for the new highway would be the people who actually use it. As ...
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Harvey Parnell speech on crop conditions, 1931. Harvey Parnell Speeches and Clippings (MS/P24), folder 3. Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville.
Inaugural address of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Washington, D.C., March 4, 1933. http://newdeal.feri.org/speeches/1933a.htm.
McElvaine, Robert S. The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941. Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Ltd., 1984.
Romasco, Albert U. The Poverty of Abundance: Hoover, the Nation, the Depression. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Smiley, Gene. Rethinking the Great Depression. American Ways Series. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher, 2004.
“Taxation and Rural School Development in Arkansas,” Lincoln County School News, 17 June 1930.
Williams, C. Fred, et al. A Documentary History of Arkansas. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1984.
A review of his methodology shows the time and energy that entering this book. He uses a variety of sources for his research and evidence of good sources such as newspapers; memoirs; diaries; census figures; real estate listings; private letters and documents; journals and memoirs; public records and statements; the federal and local
In Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939: Decades of Promise and Pain, author David E. Kyvig, creates historical account of the Great Depression, and the events leading up to it. Kyvig’s goal in writing this book was to show how Americans had to change their daily life in order to cope with the changing times. Kyvig utilizes historical evidence and inferences from these events and developments to strengthen his point. The book is organized chronologically, recounting events and their effects on American culture. Each chapter of the book tackles a various point in American history between 1920 and1939 and events are used to comment on American life at the time. While Kyvig does not exactly have a “thesis” per se, his main point is to examine American life under a microscope, seeing how people either reacted, or were forced to react due to a wide range of specific events or developments in history, be it Prohibition, the KKK, or women’s suffrage.
Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Vol. 4. Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1978. 4 vols.
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers."The Great Depression." Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt, ed. by Allida Black, June Hopkins, et. al. (Hyde Park, New York: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, 2003). http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/great-depression.htm [Accessed March 10, 2010].
The Roaring Twenties approached and the citizens in Colorado were facing rough times. In 1920, many people such as farm owners, manufacturers, and even miners were having a hard time making a living due to an economic downfall. The farmers especially, where facing the toughest of times. The price of various farm-grown goods like wheat, sugar beets, and even cattle was dropping because their goods were no longer needed by the public. Wheat had dropped in price from $2.02 in 1918 to $0.76 by the time 1921 came around. Sadly, the land that they were using to grow wheat became dry and many farmers had to learn to grow through “dryland farming” which became very popular in the eastern plains from 1910 to 1930 (Hard Times: 1920 - 1940). Apple trees began to die due to the lack of desire for apples, poor land, and decreased prices. Over the course of World War I, the prices of farm goods began to increase slowly. Farmers were not the only one facing this economic hardship while others in big cities were enjoying the Roaring Twenties.
The Great Depression often seems very distant to people of the 21st century. This article is a good reminder of potential problems that may reoccur. The article showed in a very literal way the idea that a depression can bring a growing country to its knees. The overall ramifications of the event were never discussed in detail, but the historical significance is that people's lives were put on hold while they tried to struggle through an extremely difficult time.
Nelson, Sheila. Crisis at Home and Abroad: the Great Depression, World War II, and Beyond,
McElvaine, Robert S, ed. Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1983.
The Great Depression America 1929-1941 by Robert S. McElvaine covers many topics of American history during the "Great Depression" through 1941. The topic that I have selected to compare to the text of American, Past and Present, written by Robert A. Divine, T.H. Breen, George M. Frederickson and R. Hal Williams, is Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first president of the United States and America's president during the horrible "Great Depression".
Watkins, T.H. The Great Depression: America in the 1930's. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1993.
zShmoop Editorial Team. "Politics in The Great Depression." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
The years berween 1929 and 1933 were trying years for people throughout the world. Inflation was often so high money became nearly worthless. America had lost the prosperity it had known during the 1920's. America was caught in a trap of a complete meltdown of economy, workers had no jobs simply because it cost too much to ship the abundance of goods being produced. This cycle was unbreakable, and produced what is nearly universally recognized as the greatest economic collapse of all times. These would be trying years for all, but not every American faced the same challenges and hardships. (Sliding 3)
"Great Depression in the United States." Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2001. CD-ROM. 2001 ed. Microsoft Corporation. 2001
When tragedy struck the United States in the form of an impossibly damaging economic collapse, better known as the Great Depression, Herbert Clark Hoover found himself simply in the wrong place at the wrong time; the oval office, guiding the United States of America as president. Despite the common misconception that Hoover should take the blame as the catalyst for this great state of emergency, a collection of lesser well-known facts prove that Hoover actually accomplished much as a humanitarian, and an economic innovator and savior, quite the opposite of his stereotype. The 31st president of the United States, Herbert Hoover affected humanity in both socially and fiscally advantageous ways, thus allowing him the title of a beneficial person
Review of Frederick Lewis Allen: Since Yesterday: the 1930’s America. (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., 1939), 362 pp.