Chapter 4 The Hour of the Vallar

September 1931

Unemployment: 17.4%

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 140

Summary

As the reality of the Great Depression began to set in, many Americans, to escape the reality began to improvise and avoid the problem. Pretending as if nothing had happened, they improvised and went on with their daily lives before realizing that they could no longer continue that. Since deflation, one of the major contributors to the Great Depression, caused the american currency to become more valuable, it caused the currency to become more scarce, making paying for bill, rent and, and mortgage to become harder.This especially affected the wage workers and the businessmen who made up majority of the population as well as blacks in the north, and veterans of world war one who were promised grants as reward for their service. This in turn caused people to abandon the currency and turn to a new form of economy, bartering. Still unhappy with the deflated currency and the slow response of the federal government and the banks, a new organization called the NDA formed and created a new form of currency, the vallar. States in turn  began to generate and adopt new forms of currency such as scripts and etc in an attempt to replace a value on the deflated currency, giving it the value that they desired. The government, in an attempt to bring about order to the mayhem began looking for scapegoats such as Mellon and Insull to blame for the failure of the economy. The president along with his advisors, introduced the New Deal in hopes that it would ameliorate the situation of the depression and used the power of mass media, during this time the radio, to organize his action to the citizens and bring about supporters, relieving the anxieties of the people.

Key Terms
Eccles
Deflation
Smoot-Hawley
Tugwell
Father Divine
Sayville v Divine
New York Times
Moley

Questions:
Why were Mellon and Insull being accused for the failure of the economy during the Great Depression?

How was the Vallar system able to function? Did it simply just replace the currency?

Pictures:



Great Depression: African American workers at a canning plant during the Great Depression, Florida, March 16 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/243118/Great-Depression