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The Depression causes - weak agricultural sector
The Great Depression: Causes--Weak Agricultural Sector
Figure 1.--American farm families experienced Depression condition for much of the 1920s. As a result, after the Stock Market crash (1929), many families lost their farms as the weakened banks were forced to call in mortgages in arrears. The displaced families packed whatever belongings they could in their cars and trucks and headed west, many to California. Humorist Will Rogers quipped that America was the first country in history to go to the poor house in the automobile. This migrant boy was photographed in Weslaco, Texas. The family had piled everything but the kitchen sink in the truck and some families threw in the sink as well. The truck has a New Mexico license. Not everyone headed west.
The Depression in rural America actually began a decade before the Great Depression. The United States
experienced after World War I experienced recession (1918-19) folloed by a severe depression (1920-21).
Urban America quickly recovered and enjoyed a decade of economic expansion and growth. Rural America never
recovered. And a depressed ruel sector meant that the American economy was vulnerble. Thus when the Stock Market crashed and the economy began to restrict. rural America
was epecially vulnerable. And the subsequent drop in farm prices devetated rurl America. Mny farmers were
already behind on their mortgages and with price declines they had no hope of keeping up payments or borrowing more money. And this only accentuated the economic spiral. Farmers unable to pay their mortgages put increasing pressure on banks, which were also troubled by defaults on loans to city residents. And this was made even worse when the farmers on the Great Plains had to contend with a severe drought. Unappreciated by the pioneers that settled on the Great Planes after the Civil War, they were settling down on a fragile environmental system. The term eco-system had not yet entered the vocabulary. This was suddenly brought home by the dust storms and the new term Dust Bowl. While the drought and resulting dust storms were the most visible problem, farmers experienced other problems, including insects, summer heat and winter cold. The econony spiraled down. A deprression in rural America meant that farmer could not aford to buy the products made by urban wokers like tractors, ther farm equioment, pumps, tools, and much more including range of consumer good. An unemployed workers could not aford to buy farm products. Farmers losing their land were forced into the cities, competing forjobs with unemployed city workers. Many farm families were forced to pack what they could fit into their Model-T or other car or truck and leve the land, in some cases farmed for generations by their families.
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