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As the Depression of the 1930s gripped the nation, the farmers' plight worsened. In 1920 wheat sold for $2.94 a bushel in Chicago. In 1929 it commanded only $1.00, and by 1932 it sold for a scant $.30. The price of cotton, a staple crop across much of the South, fell from $.37 a pound in 1920 to an unprofitable $.065 by 1932. During the same period prime beef fell from $14.95 per hundredweight to $5.78. In 1920 U.S. farming had generated $16 billion in sales, but by 1932 this figure had fallen by $10 billion. During the 1920s Congress passed the McNary-Haugen Bill, designed to dump surplus crops in foreign countries and raise prices in the domestic market. President Calvin Coolidge twice vetoed the bill. In 1929 President Hoover allowed the creation of the Federal Farm Board (FFB). The FFB bought up cotton and wheat surpluses in that year, but because it did nothing to halt...
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This section contains 173 words (approx. 1 page at 300 words per page) |
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