Hello AC Flyer,
Here's some additional "evidence" to support your theory.
From 1914 until 1918, the USA was involved with WWI. During that time frame there were 116.5K American casualties. 53.5K (mostly) young men died of battle wounds, and another 57K died of influenza. The remaining (approximately 6K) casualties were missing and presumed dead.
In the USA itself, the Spanish Flu struck during the years of 1918 and 1919. Worldwide, there were over 22M deaths. In the USA, there were over 20M people stricken, of which about 500K died. Again, it was mostly young men that died, though the percentage of dead that were women were much higher than in the war itself.
So, from the years 1914 until 1919, the USA lost over 600K young men and women from its future work force. Add to this the untold number of young men that were severely wounded in WWI and one can begin to see the future price that will be extracted from the American economy some years down the road.
As you have pointed out, the USA suffered through a migration drought during the WWI years, and throughout the Spanish Flu epidemic, which further limited the future work force.
One item that you may be somewhat wrong on is whether or not Europe suffered its own great depression somewhat in tandem with the Great Depression of the USA. Much evidence exists that Europe did indeed have its own depression (more severe in Germany than elsewhere because of the terms of surrender after WWI). (In fact, the German depression and intolerable German living conditions was what eventually led to the rise of Hitler prior to WWII.) But to be sure, England, France, Austria, Italy, Spain and the rest of Europe also suffered from the effects of a depression, though none of those countries officially classified their economic conditions as a depression. Compensated work was hard to come by, and productivity sank to never before seen lows.
Back into America now, circa 1929. The stock market collapsed in October of 1929 wiping out the collective fortunes of many families. If it were only the wealthy that lost money in the markets, then perhaps the outcome might not have been so bad. However, the common man lost his/her money as well. Small fortunes of a few hundred dollars were permanently lost, never to be replaced.
To get a bit personal now, I remember my grandmother telling me about her depression stories. She was married when the Great Depression hit the country. She had 7(?) living children, and one deceased. While most definitely not wealthy by anyone's standards, as a family they were making ends meet, providing food and clothing for the children, and keeping a roof over everyone's head. My grandmother had found work as a nurse back then, and with what my grandfather earned, it was sufficient to provide for a large family. For some unknown reason, my grandfather deserted his family in the early 1930s. This was not an uncommon event for that time frame. My grandmother had told me that since my uncle was born (about 1927), many men had deserted their families, seeking fame and fortune elsewhere. After the depression started, many more men abandoned their families, but this was largely an effort to seek work in far-away places, such as on American farmlands. The Great Drought, which was the forerunner of the Dust Bowl years, eventually put the kibosh on farm employment. And many of these men, thinking of themselves as failures, never returned to the families they had abandoned earlier.
So, from approximately 1927 (or maybe even earlier), the American family had a new phenomenon, which was a single-parent household headed by a woman with children. I remember my grandmother telling me how tight money was, that quite literally, they didn't have a penny to spare anywhere. They took to gardening to grow food, and raised chickens, ducks and small farm animals for the eggs and food value. The better vegetables were sold to customers to raise money. The eggs were sold as well. Her children got to eat eggs only when there was an excess supply of eggs and no one was buying. It was either eat them or destroy them as they spoiled. Aside from paying for the home they lived in (I don't know if it was rent or a mortgage, but I suspect it was rent), my grandmother quite literally shut her purse to discretionary purchases. First of all, she really didn't have any money to spend, and secondly, she needed what little she had for emergencies. And she had told me stories of other women, friends and neighbors, in the exact same situation that she was in.
So, in summing up, I think that there may be something to the argument you propose. However, I see a parallel to the old saw about which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did reduced spending lead directly to the Great Depression, or was reduced spending one of the direct effects of the Great Depression? I really don't know...
KJC |
