The Stock Market Crash

October 29, 1929 is known as Black Tuesday. The stock market

crashed, prices began to drop and the Great Depression began.
Banks were forced to close and people lost all their savings. Many
businesses started cutting back pay, laying off their employees,
and closing. Though the previous decade saw successes in meat
packing and the oil industries, the largest industry was agriculture
cotton in the north, and livestock in the west. Across the state,
all industries suffered from the economic depression.

Squatters During The Great Depression

March 1939. Photographer: Russell Lee.

Description: Squatters (homeless people) in San Antonio, Texas. This house was built of scrap
material in vacant (empty) lot in San Antonio, Texas.

Migrant Mother

Lange, Dorothea, photographer Date Created/Published: 1936 Feb. or Mar.

Description: Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother," shows a mother who just sold her tent in order to
buy food. Most of the 2,500 people in this camp were homeless. By the end of the decade there
were still 4 million migrants on the road.

Oil and Gas Prices Drop

Thousands of oil wells were drilled in Texas
resulting in millions of barrels of oil flooding the
market. Soon all the new oil drove market prices
down from $1.10 a barrel in 1930 to 10 cents in
1931. Many wells were shut down as they could
not produce oil profitably at the low prices.

Kilgore, Texas Oil Wells

Vachon, John, 1914-1975, photographer

Description: Oil wells like this one in Kilgore, Texas tended to overproduce oil causing a steep
drop in oil prices.

Agriculture: Farm Prices Drop

During the 1920s, Texas grew 35 to 42 percent of the cotton in
the United States. This was due to improvements in irrigation
and mechanization (using machines to grow crops). By the
1930s, overproduction of cotton had dropped prices from 18

cents a pound to 6 cents a pound and the growth of the cattle

industry caused the land to be even more over used.

Abandoned Farm House in Carey, Texas.

May 1837. Photographer: Dorothea Lange.

Description: Abandoned house in Carey, Texas. Mechanized cotton farming (crops grown using
machinery) and displacement of tenant families is fast making Carey a ghost town.

Farming Machinery

Photo By Library of Congress

Description: 1938, In Childress County, Texas during The Depression plows,

tractors and other machinery continued to replace traditional farming that had
relied on man and animal power.

Climate: The Dust Bowl

The Texas economy was hurt by the devastating effects of the Dust
Bowl. In the second half of the 1930s, as the Depression wore on, a

major drought and high winds devastated the southern plains. At

times, the dust storms were so severe they blocked the sun for
hours. Before this period of time was over, thousands of people
headed west to California to try to find work. During 1936, the
number of dirt storms increased and the temperature broke the 1934
record high by soaring above 120 degrees.

Dustbowls in Texas

Photo By Three Lions/Getty Images

April 1938: A dust bowl farmstead in Dallam County, Texas, showing the desolation produced
by the dust and wind on the countryside.

Farmer and Sons During a Dust Storm

Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936. Photographer: Arthur Rothstein.

Description: The drought that helped cripple agriculture in the Great Depression was the
worst in the history of the country. By 1934 it had decimated the Great Plains, from
North Dakota to Texas, from the Mississippi River Valley to the Rockies.

Migratory Workers Look for Work

Photo By Universal History Archive/Getty Images

Description: 1936, Drought and dustbowl refugees from Abilene, Texas, following the crops of
California as migratory (traveling) workers.

Agriculture: Improvements
During the depression the federal government decided
to help restore Americas farmland by introducing new
farming methods that would help the environment. The
government began to use irrigation methods and plant
trees throughout the devastated areas to reduce wind
erosion. By 1940, the farmland in Texas was producing

once again.

New Farming Techniques

Government: New Deal Programs

President Roosevelt and Texas political leaders in
Washington passed a variety of laws called the
New Deal to help the fight the Depression.
These programs employed over 100,000 Texans.
They built and repaired bridges, dams, and
roads; planted trees to prevent soil erosion--to
provide jobs and to help the economy.

Young Men of the CCC Hauling Stone, Bastrop State Park

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) kept unemployed young men busy with work projects,
classes and recreation. During the Great Depression, many boys left their homes to lessen the
burden on their families.

"Work Pays America! Prosperity" by Vera Bock

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs

Division, WPA Poster Collection, POS-WPA-NY.B635, no. 12

Description: Programs like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided jobs for laborers and
professionals alike. Architects designed post offices and schools, artists painted murals in public buildings
and labors built bridges and roads.

WWII and Economic Recovery

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked the United States at
Pearl Harbor the United States was now at war. This war was called
World War II (1939-1945). People in Texas began moving from the
rural areas to the cities to work in factories that were making war
supplies. Because so many supplies were needed for the war,
businesses began making money once again. Texas was also
involved by providing oil and gas and building over 15 military bases
and 40 airfields to help train soldiers.

Airplane Factory Fort Worth, Texas

Source: https://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/b-24-liberator-consolidated-vultee-plant-forth-worthtexas.jpeg

Description: B-24s being built during World War II in a Fort Worth, Texas factory.