Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Was the U.S. affected by the Long Depression?
Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, author of "A Monetary History of the United States", on the other hand, blamed this prolonged economic crisis on the imposition of a new gold standard, part of which he referred to by its traditional name, The Crime of 1873. This forced shift into a currency whose supply was limited by nature, unable to expand with demand, caused a series of economic and monetary contractions that plagued the entire period of the Long Depression. Murray Rothbard, in his book "History of Money and Banking of the United States", argues that the long depression was only a misunderstood recession since real wages and production were actually increasing throughout the period. Like Friedman, he attributes falling prices to the resumption of a deflationary gold standard in the U.S. after the Civil War.
In their 1963 book "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960", Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz laid out their case for a different explanation of the Great Depression. Essentially, the Great Depression, in their view, was caused by the fall of the money supply. Friedman and Schwartz write: "From the cyclical peak in August 1929 to a cyclical trough in March 1933, the stock of money fell by over a third." The result was what Friedman and Schwartz called "The Great Contraction" — a period of falling income, prices, and employment caused by the choking effects of a restricted money supply. Friedman and Schwartz argue that people wanted to hold more money than the Federal Reserve was supplying. As a result, people hoarded money by consuming less. This caused a contraction in employment and production since prices were not flexible enough to immediately fall. The Fed's failure was in not realizing what was happening and not taking corrective action. In a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz, Ben Bernanke stated:
As the Great Depression ended in the United States, world affairs worsened and spun the globe toward World War II. After almost 26 years at the helm of the San Antonio Brewing Association, Emma Koehler decided it was time to relinquish the official title. Her “retirement” closed an amazing chapter in the brewery's history. While it may not seem much these days, Emma's successful management role at Pearl was a breakthrough for its day. At a time when women's suffrage was still in its infancy and women did not yet have the right to vote, Emma Koehler led Texas’ largest brewery and one of the larger breweries in the nation.
The first U.S. Numbered Highways were established in Wisconsin in 1926, in many cases taking the place of highways the state had already established. As a result, the goals of the state highway system were expanded, aiming to reach every town with a population over 2,500 and relaxing its previous upper bound on network length. During the Great Depression, the state of Wisconsin launched a large number of public works projects in accordance with the New Deal, which led to massive expansions of the state system. By the end of the Depression, the system had approximately reached its current length.
Acceptance of the Austrian explanation of what primarily caused the Great Depression is compatible with either acceptance or denial of the Monetarist explanation. Austrian economist Murray Rothbard, who wrote "America's Great Depression" (1963), rejected the Monetarist explanation. He criticized Milton Friedman's assertion that the central bank failed to sufficiently increase the supply of money, claiming instead that the Federal Reserve did pursue an inflationary policy when, in 1932, it purchased $1.1 billion of government securities, which raised its total holding to $1.8 billion. Rothbard says that despite the central bank's policies, "total bank reserves only rose by $212 million, while the total money supply fell by $3 billion". The reason for this, he argues, is that the American populace lost faith in the banking system and began hoarding more cash, a factor very much beyond the control of the Central Bank. The potential for a run on the banks caused local bankers to be more conservative in lending out their reserves, which, according to Rothbard's argument, was the cause of the Federal Reserve's inability to inflate.
The market revolution further exacerbated sectional tensions in the United States. As King Cotton became the primary crop in the South, the need for increase in labor arose; thus, the South increased its use of slaves in producing crops. The North and European countries banned slavery in their countries/regions, and attempted to push the South to abolish slavery as well. The slave trade ended, but slavery did not end. As the textile industry in the North drastically increased, changing women and children's roles and further revolutionizing family structure, the demand for raw products such as cotton increased, meaning an increase in the South's demand for more labor. Ironically, this Northern demand for more cotton for the textile industry increased the Southern demand for slavery, making it harder for the North to end slavery in the South. This increase of labor and industry brought the United States into the world picture for economy and commerce, planting the seed for the United States to increase in wealth and power majority of the time.
With the end of Prohibition, so too came the end of the Alamo Foods Company. The company went back to their prior name: San Antonio Brewing Association (1933–1952). Most believed beer production would quickly return to the levels before the 1920 ban. However, Pearl's hard times were not over yet. In 1933, the nation was still deep in the grips of the Great Depression. Although most of the public would have loved to enjoy a Pearl, the financial situation of most made buying beer an unaffordable luxury. Through her skillful management, Emma Koehler kept the brewery afloat through the Depression, selling beer to those who could afford it and continuing many of the business ventures that had carried the brewery through Prohibition.
The deterioration of the climate that brought about the end of the medieval warm period (or medieval weather anomaly) caused an economic decline at the beginning of the 14th century (see Great Famine). However, demographic expansion continued until the arrival of the Black Death epidemic in 1347, when ca. 50% of the European population was killed by the plague. The economic effects of a labor shortage actually caused wages to rise, while agricultural yields were once again able to support a diminished population. By the beginning of the 15th century, the economic expansion associated with the Commercial Revolution in earlier centuries returned in full force, aided by improvements in navigation and cartography.
The legacy that Prajadhipok received from his elder brother were problems of the sort that had become chronic in the Sixth Reign. The most urgent of these was the economy: the finances of the state were in chaos, the budget heavily in deficit, and the royal accounts a nightmare of debts and questionable transactions. That the rest of the world was deep in the Great Depression following World War I did not help the situation either.
Under the reign of Queen Victoria federation of the six colonies occurred on 1 January 1901. Sydney, with a population of 481,000, then became the state capital of New South Wales. The Great Depression of the 1930s had a severe effect on Sydney's economy, as it did with most cities throughout the industrial world. For much of the 1930s up to one in three breadwinners was unemployed. Construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge served to alleviate some of the effects of the economic downturn by employing 1,400 men between 1924 and 1932. The population continued to boom despite the Depression, having reached 1 million in 1925.
The Confederacy was also faced with the issue of slavery, very much contested despite its victory in what came to be known as "The War of the Southern Revolution." With the rest of the world abolishing slavery, Confederates started feeling that they were out of step. Virginia abolished slavery in its territory, followed by Kentucky and North Carolina, and later Maryland and Tennessee. A new political force named the Jeffersonian Party called for abolition of slavery and gained the support of such prominent persons as Stephen Dodson Ramseur, Robert E. Rodes, John Pegram and, later, Leonidas Polk. Finally, Confederate slavery was fully abolished in 1885, the Liberation Bill being adopted with little opposition under the presidency of James Longstreet. Southerners having resolved this by themselves, rather than having the decision forced upon them by a victorious hostile army, helped avoid any lingering bitterness, and no organization resembling the Ku Klux Klan arose.
Due in large part to the dramatic reduction in the risk of unwanted pregnancy engendered by the introduction of the Pill in 1960, not to mention the legalization of contraception nationwide by the Supreme Court decision in "Griswold v. Connecticut" in 1965, along with the steadily increasing acceptance of abortion and delayed marriages for career-minded young women influenced by second-wave feminism, or the chic rejection of the responsibilities of marriage altogether in favor of living together without raising a family, U.S. birthrates fell below replacement level starting in 1965 and remained depressed for almost 20 years; thus, children born during this period became known, at least in the popular press, as "baby busters" (as opposed to the "baby boomers" of the postwar years). Birthrates hit an all-time low during the post-OPEC recession in the mid-1970s.
Regional civil wars broke out in 1910 and lasted until 1920, known generally as the Mexican Revolution. Following the military phase of the Revolution, Mexican regimes attempted to "transform a largely rural and backward country … into a middle-sized industrial power." The Mexican Constitution of 1917 gave the Mexican government the power to expropriate property, which allowed for the distribution of land to peasants, but also the Mexican oil expropriation in 1938. Mexico benefited economically from its participation in World War II and the post-war years experienced what has been called the Mexican Miracle (ca. 1946–1970). This growth was fueled by import substitution industrialization. The Mexican economy experienced the limits of ISI and economic nationalism and Mexico sought a new model for economic growth. Huge oil reserves were discovered in the Gulf of Mexico in the late 1970s and Mexico borrowed heavily from foreign banks with loans denominated in U.S. dollars. When the price of oil dropped in the 1980s, Mexico experienced a severe financial crisis.
President Lyndon B. Johnson declared his administration's War on Poverty in 1964 as the poverty rate increased by 19%. He funded welfare programs like Social Security, Food Stamps, Job Corps, and Head Start. The War on Poverty included programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. It provided the first direct federal assistance for school districts, milestone environmental law, urban renewal, civil rights, subsidy for bilingual education, and national donations for arts and humanities.
Events in the 1850s culminated with the election of the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln as President on November 6, 1860. This provoked the first round of state secession as leaders of the Deep South cotton states were unwilling to remain in a second class political status with their way of life threatened by the President himself. Initially, the seven Deep South states seceded, with economies based on cotton (then in heavy European demand with rising prices). They were Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas. After the Confederates attacked and captured Fort Sumter, President Lincoln called for volunteers to march south and suppress the rebellion. This pushed the four other Upper South States (Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas) also to secede. These states completed the formation of the Confederate States of America. Their addition to the Confederacy ensured a war would be prolonged and bloody because they contributed territory and soldiers.Several small skirmishes and battles as well as bloody riots in St. Louis and Baltimore took place in the early months of the war. The Battle of First Bull Run or Battle of First Manassas, the first major battle of the war, occurred on July 21, 1861. After that, it became clear that there could be no compromise between the Union and the seceding states and that a long and bloody war could not be avoided. All hope of a settlement short of a catastrophic war was lost.
The Coinage Act of 1873 ended production of the standard silver dollar and authorized creation of the Trade dollar, thus concluding the Seated Liberty dollar series. The Trade dollar was slightly heavier than the standard dollar and was intended for use in payments in silver to merchants in China. Although not meant for use in the United States, a last-minute rider gave it legal tender status there up to $5. When silver prices plummeted in the mid-1870s, millions appeared in circulation, at first in the West and then throughout the United States, causing problems in commerce when banks insisted on the $5 legal tender limit. Other abuses followed, such as purchase by companies for bullion value (by then about $0.80) for use in pay packets. Workers had little option but to accept them as dollars. In response to complaints, Congress ended any status as legal tender in 1876, halted production of the Trade dollar (except for collectors) in 1878, and agreed to redeem any which had not been chopmarked in 1887.
It was widely assumed during the year 1875 that incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant would run for a third term as president in spite of the poor economic conditions, the numerous political scandals that had developed since he assumed office in 1869, and a long-standing tradition set by the first president, George Washington, not to stay in office longer than two terms. Grant's inner circle advised him to go for a third term and he almost did, but the House, by a sweeping 233 to 18 vote, passed a resolution declaring that the two-term tradition was to prevent a dictatorship. Late in the year, the president withdrew from the running for 1876.
Roy De Forest was born in North Platte, Nebraska to migrant farm workers during the Great Depression. De Forest's family lost their farm in Nebraska due to the harsh economic conditions during the Great Depression and were forced to move to Yakima, Washington. In Yakima, the De Forests bought a new farm, where they harvested pears and plums. De Forest described the socioeconomic status of his family as "not well off." Farm life had an important impact on De Forest's art. In his early art, De Forest experimented with landscape, which was inspired by the open land of his farm. Later in his career, De Forest began painting animals and other fantasy creatures in his art, which was inspired by growing up around farm animals.
Travel diminished after 1860, as the Civil War caused considerable disruptions on the trail. Many of the people on the trail in 1861–1863 were fleeing the war and its attendant drafts in both the south and the north. Trail historian Merrill J. Mattes has estimated the number of emigrants for 1861–1867 given in the total column of the above table. But these estimates may well be low since they only amount to an extra 125,000 people, and the 1870 census shows that over 200,000 additional people (ignoring most of the population increase in California, which had excellent sea and rail connections across Panama by then) showed up in all the states served by the Bozeman, California, Mormon, and Oregon Trail(s) and their offshoots.
The most serious attempt at secession was advanced in the years 1860 and 1861 as eleven southern states each declared secession from the United States, and joined together to form the Confederate States of America. This movement collapsed in 1865 with the defeat of Confederate forces by Union armies in the American Civil War.
U.S. household and non-profit net worth exceeded $100 trillion for the first time in Q1 2018; it has been setting records since Q4 2012. The U.S. federal government or "national debt" was $21.1 trillion in May 2018, just over 100% GDP. Using a subset of the national debt called "debt held by the public", U.S. debt was approximately 77% GDP in 2017. By this measure, the U.S. ranked 43rd highest among 2017 nations. Debt held by the public rose considerably as a result of the Great Recession and its aftermath. It is expected to continue rising as the country ages towards 100% GDP by 2028.
Furthermore, real per capita income either stayed approximately constant (1873–1880; 1883–1885) or rose (1881–1882; 1886–1896), so the average consumer appears to have been considerably better off at the end of the "depression" than before. Studies of other countries where prices also tumbled, including the US, Germany, France, and Italy, reported more markedly positive trends in both nominal and real per capita income figures. Profits generally were also not adversely affected by deflation, although they declined (particularly in Britain) in industries struggling against superior, foreign competition. Furthermore, some economists argue a falling general price level is not inherently harmful to an economy and cite the economic growth of the period as evidence. As economist Murray Rothbard has stated:
Because of high levels of U.S. investment in Latin American economies, they were severely damaged by the Depression. Within the region, Chile, Bolivia and Peru were particularly badly affected.
The United Kingdom, which had previously experienced crises every decade since the 1820s, was initially less affected by this financial crisis, even though the Bank of England kept interest rates as high as 9 percent in the 1870s.
Some have argued the depression was rooted in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War that hurt the French economy and, under the Treaty of Frankfurt, forced that country to make large war reparations payments to Germany. The primary cause of the price depression in the United States was the tight monetary policy that the United States followed to get back to the gold standard after the Civil War. The U.S. government was taking money out of circulation to achieve this goal, therefore there was less available money to facilitate trade. Because of this monetary policy the price of silver started to fall causing considerable losses of asset values; by most accounts, after 1879 production was growing, thus further putting downward pressure on prices due to increased industrial productivity, trade and competition.