Explore more about the policies that influenced a decade of hardship—and the valuable lessons they offer for today.
Commentary
In 1940, Victor Records released the Dust Bowl Ballads, an album of songs written and performed by American folk singer Woody Guthrie. In two volumes and a dozen songs, the folk legend sang about the droughts that plagued North America in waves beginning in 1934 and ending in 1940.
“On the 14th day of April of 1935, There struck the worst of dust storms that ever filled the sky. You could see that dust storm comin’, the cloud looked deathlike black, And through our mighty nation, it left a dreadful track. From Oklahoma City to the Arizona line, Dakota and Nebraska to the lazy Rio Grande, It fell across our city like a curtain of black rolled down. We thought it was our judgment, we thought it was our doom.”
The lyrics of these tunes—those above come from “The Great Dust Storm Disaster”—reveal the psychological impact the Dust Bowl had on Americans, in no small part because it corresponded with another historical event: the Great Depression.
In her new explainer “The Economic Consequences of Populism,” historian Amity Shlaes points out that as the Great Depression dragged on, more and more Americans began to feel as if God had abandoned America. At the pulpit, pastors compared Americans to Job and to the Hebrews in the Book of Exodus confronted by locusts and plagues.
Shlaes touches on why so Americans felt as they did, noting that throughout the 1930s joblessness remained above 10 percent, while the stock market saw a 90 percent drop from its 1929 high, a peak it would not reach again until the 1950s.
As Americans endured extended economic plight, many came to believe they were experiencing the wrath of God.
“What about the years that followed? Why did recovery not return after five years, or after seven? It is not, after all, a deflation shock, however sharp, that converted the initial depression, lower case, into a Great Depression, with capital letters. It was the duration that made the Depression great. Whether monetarist or Keynesian, economists respond to commonsense queries about the later years with a single line: ‘That is complicated.’ It is as if a sign has been placed over the period to intimidate the curious: ‘Here Be Dragons.’”
A decade of misery Americans experienced did not stem from an angry God. A careful reading of the facts of the period suggests they stemmed from bad economic policies, ones initially passed by President Hoover that grew worse under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Discover more about the policies that shaped a decade of hardship—and the lessons they hold for today.
In her explainer “The Economic Consequences of Populism,” historian Amity Shlaes delves into the Great Depression’s blundering economic policies, illuminating how misguided decisions led to prolonged suffering.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Can you please rewrite this for me?
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