American History: A Long Conservative Period Ends With Election of 1932

09 March 2011

Members of a poor family of nine on a New Mexico highway during the early 1930s.

BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.

I'm Bob Doughty with Steve Ember. This week in our series, we continue the story of the administration of Herbert Hoover. And we talk about the election of nineteen thirty-two.

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STEVE EMBER: President Herbert Hoover worked hard to rescue the American economy following the crash of the stock market. It happened in October of nineteen twenty-nine. Within a month, Hoover called the nation's business leaders to the White House. "Don't lower wages," the president told them.

Hoover called on the bankers at the Federal Reserve to make it easier for businesses to borrow money. He tried to provide funds to help farmers get fair prices for their crops. He pushed Congress to lower personal taxes. And above all, the president urged Americans not to lose hope in their economy or in themselves.

BOB DOUGHTY: But the economy was in ruins, falling faster with each passing day of the crisis that grew into the Great Depression. The value of stocks had collapsed. Millions of workers lost their jobs. The level of industrial production in the country was less than half of what it had been before the stock market crash.

Hoover's efforts were not enough to stop the growing crisis. In ever greater numbers, people called on the president to increase federal spending and provide jobs for people out of work.