Advanced Search

Current Criteria

    ›› Eras and Sub-Eras : The Great Depression

Refine your search

Refine your search by adding another term. Type 'all' to view all options for the category.

Filter by Content Type.

Did not find what you were looking for?
return to the basic search, search for multimedia, or search the collection

Showing results 31 – 40 of 153

Glossary Term – Event

Bonus Army marched on Washington

World War I veterans, who in 1924 had been promised a bonus for their military service to be paid in 1945, marched on Washington, DC, to demand immediate payment of their bonuses. The Great Depression had taken a huge economic toll on the veterans, and many were unemployed and unable to find work. Though the House approved their request, the Senate defeated the Bonus Army bill, sparking a weeks-long protest in the capital. Eventually, troops were sent to disperse the “Bonus Army.”

Glossary Term – Event

Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

Pilot Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during their attempted circumnavigation of the globe.

Glossary Term – Event

Fair Labor Standards Act

The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibited child labor and established a minimum wage.

Glossary Term – Event

First woman appointed to president’s Cabinet

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced the appointment of Frances Perkins as the secretary of labor, the first woman appointed to a president’s Cabinet.

Glossary Term – Event

Ford Hunger March

Thousands of unemployed workers marched at the Ford Motor Company’s Dearborn, Michigan, plant to demand hunger and job relief. Police fired on the crowd, killing three demonstrators.

Glossary Term – Event

Glass-Steagall Act

The Glass-Steagall Act encouraged credit expansion by increasing bank reserves.

Glossary Term – Event

Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath was published. The book told the story of an Oklahoma sharecropper family forced to migrate to California in search of work. The book instantly became a literary emblem of the Great Depression and soon earned the Pulitzer Prize and was instrumental in his selection for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Glossary Term – Event

Hindenburg disaster

The German passenger airship Hindenburg was destroyed in a disastrous fire as it tried to land near Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-seven aboard were killed. A radio broadcaster assigned to cover the ship’s arrival described the disaster as it happened, declaring, “Oh, the humanity!”

Glossary Term – Event

Hoover Dam constructed

The Hoover Dam (originally called the Boulder Dam) was constructed on the Colorado River downstream from the Grand Canyon.

Glossary Term – Event

Indian Reorganization Act

John Collier persuaded Congress to pass the Indian Reorganization Act, which terminated the allotment program of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887; provided funds for tribes to purchase new land; offered government recognition of tribal constitutions; and repealed prohibitions on Native American languages and customs. Later the same year, federal grants were provided to local school districts, hospitals, and social welfare agencies to assist American Indians.