IB History Regional Study 7: the Great Depression in the Americas Key Definitions

A system in which permanent public agencies use delegated authority and specialist knowledge to implement and enforce government policy.

Legislation passed in 1952 that limited land ownership to 200 feddans per person and redistributed excess land to landless peasants. It broke the power of the old landowning class and was central to Nasser's social reforms.

A record of money entering and leaving a country through trade, investment, borrowing, and debt payments.

A rapid withdrawal of deposits caused by fear that a bank will fail, which can make an otherwise solvent bank unable to meet immediate demands.

Canada's constitutional framework (1867) that divided powers between federal and provincial governments, assigning social welfare, property, and civil rights to the provinces.

King's governing philosophy that held relief and social policy to be the constitutional responsibility of the provinces under the British North America Act, not the federal government. This position limited federal action during the Depression but was constitutionally defensible.

The deliberate, non-violent refusal to obey unjust laws or government demands, as a form of political protest. Gandhi's civil disobedience campaigns (1930-1934) involved mass law-breaking, including the Salt March, refusal to pay taxes, and boycotts of British goods and institutions.

A Canadian democratic socialist political party founded in 1932, drawing support from prairie farmers and urban labour unions. It advocated public ownership, social security, and federal intervention in the economy. Its growing influence pushed King's Liberals to adopt more progressive policies.

A process where employees, typically represented by a trade union, negotiate with employers over wages, benefits, and working conditions. The Wagner Act (1935) gave collective bargaining federal legal protection in the United States, establishing the National Labor Relations Board to oversee union recognition and representation elections.

Brazil's state-owned steel company established by Vargas in 1941, whose Volta Redonda plant became the first integrated steel mill in Latin America and a flagship symbol of state-led industrialisation.

The informal alliance of Republicans and mainly southern Democrats that blocked or limited further New Deal reform from the late 1930s.

A system in which federal, state, and local governments share funding and administration rather than operating in separate policy spheres.

Roosevelt's unsuccessful 1937 proposal to appoint additional federal judges when older judges declined to retire, potentially adding six Supreme Court seats.

A sustained fall in the general price level that can increase the real burden of debt and discourage spending.

A severe drought and ecological disaster that struck the Great Plains of the USA and Canada during the 1930s. Years of overfarming had removed native grasses that anchored topsoil. When drought arrived, massive dust storms stripped away the soil, destroying crops and forcing hundreds of thousands of farming families to abandon their land. The worst years were 1934 and 1936. Many displaced families, known as 'Okies', migrated west to California seeking work.

A period of prolonged high unemployment and low investment in economic activity, more severe and longer-lasting than a recession.

Federal legislation signed by President Hoover requiring that, when government staff cuts were made, married persons whose spouses also worked for the federal government be dismissed first. In practice, Section 213 almost exclusively targeted women, as married female federal employees were dismissed before their husbands. Over 1,600 women lost their federal jobs under this provision by 1937. Many states adopted similar rules for their own public sector employees.

The granting of the right to vote. In the context of the suffrage movement, it refers to extending voting rights to women. In the Canadian Indigenous context, it had a different meaning: the process by which an Indigenous person gave up their legal status and rights as an Indigenous person in exchange for Canadian citizenship.

Large plantation owners in Brazil who dominated the coffee economy and rural politics; their political influence ensured that agrarian reforms under Vargas left land ownership structures largely unchanged.

A New Deal programme operating under the WPA from 1935 to 1943 that employed approximately 5,000 visual artists to create murals, paintings, and sculptures for public buildings. It produced around 2,500 murals, 108,000 paintings, and 18,000 sculptures. The FAP was influenced by the Mexican muralist tradition of Diego Rivera and sought to bring art to ordinary Americans during the Depression crisis.

A monetary system in which the value of money is tied to the value of gold. A country must hold the same value of gold as it has money in circulation. This limits how much money can be printed and helps prevent inflation, but also restricts economic flexibility.

Makeshift shanty towns that appeared on the outskirts of American cities during the Great Depression, built from scrap wood, cardboard, and metal by people who had lost their homes to unemployment and eviction. Named mockingly after President Herbert Hoover, whose policies were widely blamed for failing to prevent the Depression, they became powerful symbols of governmental neglect. The largest Hooverville in New York City's Central Park housed hundreds of residents at its peak.

A system of preferential tariff rates negotiated at the British Commonwealth Imperial Economic Conference in Ottawa in 1932, giving Commonwealth countries preferential access to each other's markets. Canada gained preferred access to British markets for wheat and lumber in exchange for British manufactured goods entering Canada at lower rates.

A policy of developing domestic industries to replace manufactured goods previously imported from abroad.