Great Depression Key Terms and Definitions
Great Depression Terms and Definitions
Installment buying
Installment buying: Purchasing a commodity over a period of time. The buyer gains use of the commodity immediately and then pays for it in periodic payments called installments.
Bull market
Bull market: A market in which share prices are rising, encouraging buying.
Speculation
Speculation: With only loose stock market regulations in place before the Great Depression, investors were able to speculate wildly, buying stocks on margin and needing only 10% of the stock price to complete the purchase.
Black Tuesday
Black Tuesday: October 29, 1929. On this date, share prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed, becoming a pivotal factor in the emergence of the Great Depression.
FDR
FDR: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.
Fireside chat
Fireside chat: The term used to describe a series of 30 evening radio conversations given by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944.
First inaugural address
First inaugural address: Was delivered on Monday, March 4, 1861, as part of his taking the oath of office for his first term as the sixteenth President of the United States.
First 100 days
First 100 days: The term was coined in a July 24, 1933 radio address by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, although he was referring to the 100-day session of the 73rd United States Congress between March 9 and June 17, rather than the first 100 days of his administration.
New Deal
New Deal: A series of programs, including, most notably, Social Security, that were enacted in the United States between 1933 and 1938, and a few that came later.
Second New Deal
Second New Deal: Included the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Created in 1935, the WPA was an effort to appease the ‘Longites’ who clamored for more direct assistance from the federal government.
Keynesian economics
Keynesian economics: Theories about how, in the short run and especially during recessions, economic output is strongly influenced by aggregate demand.
Trickle-down economics
Trickle-down economics: Argues for income and capital gains tax breaks or other financial benefits to large businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs in order to stimulate economic growth.
Hooverville
Hooverville: A shanty town built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States of America.
Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl: Also known as the ‘Dirty Thirties,’ it was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s.
Business cycle
Business cycle: Active economic growth for two consecutive quarters (six months) following a recession or depression.
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Hoover: An American politician who served as the 31st President of the United States from 1929 to 1933 during the Great Depression.
RFC
RFC: A formal document from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) that is the result of committee drafting and subsequent review by interested parties.
Hawley-Smoot Tariff
Hawley-Smoot Tariff: An act sponsored by Senator Reed Smoot and Representative Willis C. Hawley and signed into law on June 17, 1930. The act raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods.
Recovery
Recovery: An economic upturn.
Relief
Relief: To give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane.
Reform
Reform: Means the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The use of the word in this way emerges in the late 18th century and is believed to originate from Christopher Wyvill’s Association movement which identified ‘Parliamentary Reform’ as its primary aim.