1930s Economic Effects

On October 24,1929, the stock market began to crash, sending the country into a depression that would last nearly a decade. Unemployment was rising and there were more housing foreclosures, which left people homeless. Food lines were common and bank closings were the norm. Out in the Plains, a drought started and the wind began to blow, kicking up dust, and causing catastrophic damage to the land and to the agricultural economy. The 1930s was a decade of strife and struggle that brought about major social reforms, new discoveries in science, and cultural developments, which have drastically altered the course of American history and life in the United States today. In early 1930, the stock market crash appeared to have slowed, but things …show more content…
After the war ended there was massive overproduction. During this time, many farmers bought more land on mortgages. Prices fell from overproduction and by the 1930s many farmers were in debt and struggling to make payments. The first Agricultural Adjustment Act was passed in 1933 and “was designed to restore parity prices for ‘basic agricultural commodities’—initially defined as wheat, cotton, corn, hogs, rice, tobacco, and milk—by reducing supplies. Benefit payments would compensate participating farmers who agreed to curb acreage or kill excess livestock” (“Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933)”). In 1936, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Butler that Congress did not have the authority to regulate production of goods because of the tenth amendment and struck down the act (“Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933)”). The next year, Congress passed another Agricultural Adjustment Act that taxed the sale of excess crops directly to make the act constitutional. When this act was challenged, it was upheld by the Supreme Court (“Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933)”). Since then, agricultural legislation has continued and is the norm today as the government supports commodity prices and farm income. The Agricultural Adjustment Act was one of many government programs aimed at helping the citizens of the United …show more content…
The fact that electric shocks affected the heart had been known for some time. Experiments in dogs had shown that a shock to the heart could trigger ventricular fibrillation, a condition where the heart twitches instead of beats. This was known to happen to powerline workers, killing them on the job (Eisenberg 4-5). William Kouwenhoven, an electrical engineer, became the lead researcher. In the 1930s, through experiments on dogs, he found that small shocks could cause fibrillations and that a larger shock would stop the fibrillations completely. Given the name countershock, the larger shock would defibrillate the heart and restore the normal rhythm (Eisenberg 5). Kouwenhoven’s breakthrough with the countershock was a giant step in figuring out how to resuscitate patients. In 1947, these discoveries led to a patient being revived after going into ventricular fibrillation (Eisenberg 5). Today defibrillators are frequently used to resuscitate people and have saved many lives. While Kouwenhoven’s innovation has transformed medical practices, another discovery of the 1930s has revolutionized the clothing and plastics