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138-648: Before the construction of the Shasta and Keswick Dams , Chinook Salmon and steelhead were free to migrate to the upper reaches of the Sacramento, Pit and McCloud Rivers to spawn. Chinook salmon and steelhead returning from the ocean, travel up the Sacramento River and Battle Creek where they are enticed by water flow into the hatchery. Eggs are collected, fertilized and incubated artificially until they hatch. The young fish are then raised in ponds at

276-634: A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook; declining crop prices and a Great Plains drought crippled their economic outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance. At first, the decline in the U.S. economy was the factor that triggered economic downturns in most other countries due to a decline in trade, capital movement, and global business confidence. Then, internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. For example,

414-418: A silver standard , almost avoided the depression entirely. The connection between leaving the gold standard as a strong predictor of that country's severity of its depression and the length of time of its recovery has been shown to be consistent for dozens of countries, including developing countries . This partly explains why the experience and length of the depression differed between regions and states around

552-588: A burial place for victims of the Kabyai Creek Massacre . The tribe conducted a war dance in September 2004 for the first time in 117 years in opposition of the dam and Reclamation's raising project; the event reputedly inspired many environmental groups to support the tribe's position. Reclamation holds guided tours of the Shasta Dam year round, each taking two to three hours. There also are

690-409: A capacity of 379 MW, was also under construction. Five steel penstocks, each 15 feet (4.6 m) in diameter, were installed to provide water to drive the turbines in the power station. The powerhouse was a reinforced concrete structure standing 153 feet (47 m) above the river; electricity was first generated there in 1944. The dam was completed at the dawn of 1945. When Shasta was completed, it

828-520: A conglomerate of twelve smaller companies. Construction started with the excavation of millions of tons of bedrock from the canyon walls adjacent to the construction site, forming keyways for the dam foundations. The Shasta Route of the Southern Pacific Railroad and U.S. Highway 99 (current Interstate 5 ) were rerouted to the east over the steel truss Pit River Bridge , which remains the tallest combined road and rail bridge in

966-425: A draft geologic technical report prepared pursuant to the planning for modifications of Shasta Dam, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation cites (p. 27) six types of geologic hazards that have the potential to occur within the project area: seismic hazards, volcanic eruptions and associated hazards, mudflows, snow avalanches, slope instability, and seiches . Seismic hazards stem from the proximity of several fault zones,

1104-604: A former privately run bank, bearing no relation to the U.S. government (not to be confused with the Federal Reserve ). Unable to pay out to all of its creditors, the bank failed. Among the 608 American banks that closed in November and December 1930, the Bank of United States accounted for a third of the total $ 550 million deposits lost and, with its closure, bank failures reached a critical mass. In an initial response to

1242-408: A gigantic facility called a TCD (Temperature Control Device) on the rear face of Shasta Dam. This structure enables dam operators to decide the depth of the reservoir from which the water feeding into the penstocks originates. As one progresses deeper into Shasta Lake, the water gets colder where it receives less sunlight. The TCD is equipped with fifteen openings called "shutters" arranged in rows along

1380-467: A greater reduction in credit. On 5 April 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates , coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to

1518-671: A major portion of the Depression era federal job-creation programs. Roosevelt first considered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for building the project, but ultimately transferred it to the Reclamation Service, the precursor to the Bureau of Reclamation , which had expertise in building large concrete dams as demonstrated in the Hoover Dam (Boulder Canyon) Project several years earlier. Reclamation chose Frank Crowe ,

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1656-600: A modern industrial city handled shortages of money and resources. Often they updated strategies their mothers used when they were growing up in poor families. Cheap foods were used, such as soups, beans and noodles. They purchased the cheapest cuts of meat—sometimes even horse meat—and recycled the Sunday roast into sandwiches and soups. They sewed and patched clothing, traded with their neighbors for outgrown items, and made do with colder homes. New furniture and appliances were postponed until better days. Many women also worked outside

1794-402: A monetary contraction first-hand were forced to join the deflationary policy since higher interest rates in countries that performed a deflationary policy led to a gold outflow in countries with lower interest rates. Under the gold standard's price–specie flow mechanism , countries that lost gold but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard had to permit their money supply to decrease and

1932-672: A public works project. Construction started in earnest in 1937 under the supervision of Chief Engineer Frank Crowe . During its building, the dam provided thousands of much-needed jobs; it was finished twenty-six months ahead of schedule in 1945. When completed, the dam was the second-tallest in the United States after Hoover , and was considered one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. Even before its dedication, Shasta Dam served an important role in World War II providing electricity to California factories, and still plays

2070-502: A railroad. Until this time, the Sacramento River had still been flowing through the middle of the dam site, between the two nearly completed abutments of the dam. An earth/rock filled cofferdam was constructed across the river, which now began to flow through the tunnel, drying out the dam site and enabling work to begin on the middle section of the dam, which contained the spillway bays. The spillways with their 18 high-pressure river outlet valves and massive triple drum gates were completed in

2208-567: A serious issue in the 1930s. Support for increasing welfare programs during the depression included a focus on women in the family. The Conseil Supérieur de la Natalité campaigned for provisions enacted in the Code de la Famille (1939) that increased state assistance to families with children and required employers to protect the jobs of fathers, even if they were immigrants. In rural and small-town areas, women expanded their operation of vegetable gardens to include as much food production as possible. In

2346-480: A small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard , and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as prime minister for a largely Conservative coalition. In most countries of

2484-768: A spotty record with environmental responsibility and has been criticized by environmentalists for high levels of pesticide and selenium in the toxic runoff waters from farms operating under the district. In November 2020, the Trump Administration released the Shasta Lake Water Resources Investigation Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to increase water storage capacity in Shasta Lake by 634,000 acre-feet, or more than 200 billion gallons. In

2622-713: A standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures were more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. The crisis continued to get worse in Germany, bringing political upheaval that finally led to

2760-480: A tiny fraction of that land remained theirs. Furthermore, the Winnemem are not recognized by the federal government, an omission that they have been seeking to rectify for over a century. Recently, native hostility to the dam has heightened because of the proposals to raise it – which would drown twenty of the remaining sacred sites, including Children's Rock and Puberty Rock, both used in coming-of-age ceremonies, and

2898-611: A vast estuary , the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta , and ultimately the Pacific Ocean . By the late 1800s, both the valley and Delta regions were intensely cultivated with various crops including wheat, cotton, rice, citrus, and melons. The low-lying topography of the Sacramento Valley makes it vulnerable to flooding in the winter; conversely, irrigation is necessary during the summer due to

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3036-496: A visitor center and auditorium. The tours comprise a 428-foot (130 m) elevator ride to the base of the dam, and visits to the dam's inner galleries and the powerhouse among other areas. Shasta Lake has a surface of 30,310 acres (12,270 ha) at full pool and is surrounded by the Shasta-Trinity National Forest . Many public and private marinas, campgrounds, RV parks, resorts and boat launches border

3174-540: A vital part in the management of state water resources today. However, it has greatly changed the environment and ecology of the Sacramento River, and flooded sacred Native American tribal lands. In recent years, there has been debate over whether or not to raise the dam in order to allow for increased water storage and power generation. This would produce more low carbon electricity, but is opposed by tribes and fish advocates because of negative impacts from water diversions from river flows and impacts on endangered species. In

3312-543: Is 1.2 miles (1.9 km) upstream from Coleman NFH and acts as the tertiary diversion for the hatchery. Water is diverted 4,600 feet (1,400 m) from Intake 3 to the hatchery through 48 in (1,200 mm) pipe. Water from all intakes may be diverted to the ozone facility or sent directly to hatchery rearing units at Coleman NFH 40°24′2″N 122°8′40″W  /  40.40056°N 122.14444°W  / 40.40056; -122.14444 Shasta Dam Shasta Dam (called Kennett Dam before its construction)

3450-690: Is a concrete arch-gravity dam across the Sacramento River in Northern California in the United States . At 602 feet (183 m) high, it is the eighth-tallest dam in the United States . Located at the north end of the Sacramento Valley , Shasta Dam creates Shasta Lake for long-term water storage, flood control, hydroelectricity and protection against the intrusion of saline water . The largest reservoir in

3588-658: Is a consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse, by expanding the money supply and acting as lender of last resort . If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been far less severe and much shorter. Modern mainstream economists see the reasons in Insufficient spending, the money supply reduction, and debt on margin led to falling prices and further bankruptcies ( Irving Fisher 's debt deflation). The monetarist explanation

3726-422: Is a massive concrete chute, 487 feet (148 m) long and 375 feet (114 m) wide, controlled by three 110-foot (34 m)-wide drum gates each weighing 500 US tons (454 t). When the reservoir is full, the gates cannot entirely prevent leakage but can raise the water level up to 28 feet (8.5 m) above the spillway crest. The spillway has a capacity of 186,000 cubic feet per second (5,300 m /s), bringing

3864-407: Is known to have declared, "Look at that Shasta Dam. That dam will stand there forever holding back the river. And that powerhouse will keep right on turning out juice until somebody discovers how to make power out of sunlight." Shasta Dam serves mainly to provide flood control and carryover water storage for the dry season, contributing greatly to irrigation in the Sacramento Valley and navigation on

4002-493: Is supported by the contrast in how the crisis progressed in, e.g., Britain, Argentina and Brazil, all of which devalued their currencies early and returned to normal patterns of growth relatively rapidly and countries which stuck to the gold standard , such as France or Belgium. Frantic attempts by individual countries to shore up their economies through protectionist policies – such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries – exacerbated

4140-535: Is transferred through a 46 in (1,200 mm) conveyance pipe and diverted into Coleman Canal. The secondary intake (2) is located on the south bank of Battle Creek (across from intake 1). Intake 2 shares the conveyance pipe with intake 1 and diverts water to Coleman Canal. Intake 2 serves as an emergency back-up water diversion structure for intake 1, supplying water to Coleman Canal 17 days annually (10-year average 1990–2000). Intake 1 and 2 are approximately 1.6 miles (2.6 km) upstream of Coleman NFH. Intake 3

4278-539: The 1932 election , Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt , who from 1933 pursued a series of " New Deal " policies and programs to provide relief and create jobs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps , Federal Emergency Relief Administration , Tennessee Valley Authority , and Works Progress Administration . Historians disagree on the effects of the New Deal, with some claiming that

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4416-522: The Grand Coulee Dam in northern Washington because of the enormous demand for electricity from that dam to power aluminum smelters in the Northwest. The strained supplies and labor forced Reclamation to cut the final height of the dam from 800 feet (240 m) to 602 feet (183 m). With the tunnel cleared, it was resurfaced and modified to accommodate the force of a river instead of

4554-701: The House of Representatives . However, the state of California continued to search for a solution. In 1931, State Engineer Edward Hyatt published a similar but less extensive proposal called the State Water Plan, with a projected cost of about $ 550 million. Including the dam at Kennett and aqueducts from the Delta southwards into the arid San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles Basin , Hyatt's scheme laid

4692-582: The New York Bank of United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. Friedman and Schwartz argued that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of

4830-544: The United States Geological Survey . It proposed a large dam across the Sacramento River just downstream of its confluence with the Pit River near the copper mining town of Kennett, several hundred miles to the north of the Delta. The dam would store water for release during the dry months when the Delta was most vulnerable to saltwater intrusion, with the added benefit of controlling floods in

4968-539: The coming to power of Hitler's Nazi regime in January 1933. The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse,

5106-447: The 1937 recession that interrupted it). The common view among most economists is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies either caused or accelerated the recovery, although his policies were never aggressive enough to bring the economy completely out of recession. Some economists have also called attention to the positive effects from expectations of reflation and rising nominal interest rates that Roosevelt's words and actions portended. It

5244-653: The 395, many fought in the U.S. armed forces during World War II. When they returned in 1945, they found their family members driven out of their traditional villages by the rising waters of Shasta Lake. More than 90 percent of their original land was lost, and the ten percent that remains now lies along the lower McCloud River. On May 1 of 1941, the United States Congress passed the Central Valley Project Indian Lands Acquisition Act, to take ownership of

5382-813: The British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending, and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition " National Government ". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with

5520-594: The Central Valley and some of California's largest agricultural coalitions including the Westlands Water District calling for a more dependable water supply, the Bureau of Reclamation suggested the expansion of Shasta Dam. The expansion is considered feasible because the dam's foundations were originally built to carry the weight of an 800-foot (240 m) structure, but resources shortages at

5658-562: The Delta. This caused water shortages for Delta farms, and led to a teredo (saltwater worm) infestation between 1919 and 1924 that destroyed piers and ships in Suisun Bay . In a bid to solve the salinity problem, local residents proposed constructing a tidal barrage across the mouth of Suisun Bay, a project which was never realized. In 1919 a different solution came in the form of the Marshall Plan, created by Robert Marshall of

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5796-471: The Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts. During World War I many countries suspended their gold standard in varying ways. There was high inflation from WWI, and in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic , Austria , and throughout Europe. In the late 1920s there

5934-521: The Dow returning to 294 (pre-depression levels) in April 1930, before steadily declining for years, to a low of 41 in 1932. At the beginning, governments and businesses spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in

6072-489: The Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was the gold standard . At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act , which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit

6210-442: The Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today there is also significant academic support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that – building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz – add non-monetary explanations. There

6348-642: The Great Depression. According to the U.S. Senate website, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act is among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history. Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists blame the Act for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade

6486-481: The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, as they argue that National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricted competition and established price fixing. John Maynard Keynes did not think that the New Deal under Roosevelt single-handedly ended the Great Depression: "It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on

6624-554: The Pit River, which is actually the largest river flowing into the lake. Shasta Lake also has arms of the McCloud River , Squaw Creek, Salt Creek, and scores of other smaller streams that feed it. Shasta Dam controls runoff from a drainage basin of 6,665 square miles (17,260 km ), or about a quarter of the 27,580-square-mile (71,400 km ) Sacramento River watershed. In the 1990s, with skyrocketing water shortages in

6762-571: The Sacramento River, as well as keeping freshwater levels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta high enough for diversion into the California Aqueduct and Delta-Mendota Canal . The dam's other major purpose is to generate hydroelectricity. With a hydraulic head of 330 feet (100 m), the dam is capable of generating 676 megawatts (MW) from five turbines – a pair of 125 MW units and three 142 MW units. Each of

6900-544: The U.K. economy, which experienced an economic downturn throughout most of the late 1920s, was less severely impacted by the shock of the depression than the U.S. By contrast, the German economy saw a similar decline in industrial output as that observed in the U.S. Some economic historians attribute the differences in the rates of recovery and relative severity of the economic decline to whether particular countries had been able to effectively devaluate their currencies or not. This

7038-490: The U.S. unemployment rate down below 10%. World War II had a dramatic effect on many parts of the American economy. Government-financed capital spending accounted for only 5% of the annual U.S. investment in industrial capital in 1940; by 1943, the government accounted for 67% of U.S. capital investment. The massive war spending doubled economic growth rates, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending

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7176-622: The United States, agricultural organizations sponsored programs to teach housewives how to optimize their gardens and to raise poultry for meat and eggs. Rural women made feed sack dresses and other items for themselves and their families and homes from feed sacks. In American cities, African American women quiltmakers enlarged their activities, promoted collaboration, and trained neophytes. Quilts were created for practical use from various inexpensive materials and increased social interaction for women and promoted camaraderie and personal fulfillment. Oral history provides evidence for how housewives in

7314-543: The United States, remained on the gold standard into 1932 or 1933, while a few countries in the so-called "gold bloc", led by France and including Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, stayed on the standard until 1935–36. According to later analysis, the earliness with which a country left the gold standard reliably predicted its economic recovery. For example, The UK and Scandinavia, which left the gold standard in 1931, recovered much earlier than France and Belgium, which remained on gold much longer. Countries such as China, which had

7452-638: The Wall Street crash, after which the slide continued for three years, which was accompanied by a loss of confidence in the financial system. By 1933, the U.S. unemployment rate had risen to 25 percent, about one-third of farmers had lost their land, and about half of the country's 25,000 banks had gone out of business. Many people, unable to pay mortgages or rent, became homeless and relied on begging or charities to feed themselves. The U.S. federal government initially did little to help. President Herbert Hoover , like many of his fellow Republicans , believed in

7590-441: The back face of the structure. The rows lie 1,022 feet (312 m), 922 feet (281 m), and 817 feet (249 m) above sea level. (The crest of Shasta Dam is at an elevation of 1,077 feet (328 m).) The system has shown significant success in reducing the temperature of the Sacramento River below the dam, although it does exhibit leakage. As for the health of the river overall, the dam has indirectly affected it by promoting

7728-460: The banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did. With significantly less money to go around, businesses could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch . One reason why

7866-781: The base of Shasta Dam . Coleman NFH was constructed in 1942 as a mitigation measure to preserve Chinook salmon populations following construction of Shasta Dam. Shasta Dam permanently blocked approximately 50% of key spawning and rearing habitat(s) for Chinook salmon and steelhead (Skinner 1958). The Shasta Salvage Plan authorized the construction and operation of a fish hatchery (Moffett 1949; Black 1999) to offset natural production losses. Fish production began at Coleman NFH in 1943. Production objectives for Coleman NFH include two runs of salmon and steelhead. The facility goal(s) are to ensure contribution from upper Sacramento River salmonid populations to commercial (ocean) and sport fisheries (ocean and river). Coleman NFH contributes substantially to

8004-465: The behavior of housewives. The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II . Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment. The rearmament policies leading up to World War II helped stimulate

8142-550: The capacity to store it. As a result, the reservoir will rarely be filled, as no matter how much Reclamation expands the dam, the river's flow will not increase. The cost of the dam raise is projected at $ 500 million-$ 1 billion. One of the expansion's most staunch opponents is the Winnemem Wintu tribe, almost all of whose land was inundated by the construction of Shasta Dam. Raising the dam would destroy much of their little remaining land. Some progress has been made towards

8280-462: The collapse in global trade, contributing to the depression. By 1933, the economic decline pushed world trade to one third of its level compared to four years earlier. While the precise causes for the occurrence of the Great depression are disputed and can be traced to both global and national phenomena, its immediate origins are most conveniently examined in the context of the U.S. economy, from which

8418-401: The concrete cured and rebuilt to handle the next block above it. The concrete was "vibrated" into place using specialized equipment, which filled in any accidental cavities and bubbles to ensure maximum density and strength. After the concrete cured, the surface was cleaned and smoothed by sandblasting. At the same time, the railroad that ran through the temporary 1,800-foot (550 m) tunnel on

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8556-475: The crash was a mere symptom of more general economic trends of the time, which had already been underway in the late 1920s. A contrasting set of views, which rose to prominence in the later part of the 20th century, ascribes a more prominent role to failures of monetary policy . According to those authors, while general economic trends can explain the emergence of the downturn, they fail to account for its severity and longevity; they argue that these were caused by

8694-481: The crest and replacing the elevator towers on the front of the dam, and the Pit River Bridge and small towns around the lake, if not modified or moved, would be inundated. Finally, the "high option" would raise the dam over 200 feet (61 m), tripling the volume and doubling the surface area of the reservoir. Both the intermediate and high options would require saddle dams constructed at key points along

8832-625: The crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act on 17 June 1930. The Act was ostensibly aimed at protecting the American economy from foreign competition by imposing high tariffs on foreign imports. The consensus view among economists and economic historians (including Keynesians , Monetarists and Austrian economists ) is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff had, in fact, achieved an opposite effect to what

8970-527: The dam expansion including for the completion of a costly EIR (Environment Impact Report) by the Bureau of Reclamation – and the purchase of over 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) of land along the McCloud River by Westlands Irrigation District to help the Bureau gain rights to expand the dam; Westlands believes that the added storage of the dam would greatly benefit its farmers. As of 2007, the irrigation district has spent $ 35 million. However, Westlands has had

9108-467: The dam stands 602 feet (183 m) above the foundations with a maximum height of 522.5 feet (159.3 m) above the river. It is 3,460 feet (1,050 m) long, with a maximum thickness of 543 feet (166 m); altogether the dam contains 6,270,000 cubic yards (4,790,000 m ) of material. The dam can release floodwaters through a system of eighteen outlet valves on the face of the spillway. These valves are arranged in three levels, each cutting through

9246-528: The dam's main concrete structure started in July 1940 after the cable systems had been completed and the mixing plant came on line. Steel buckets capable of carrying 8 cubic yards (6.1 m ) of concrete, weighing 16 tons when full, traveled back and forth along the lines. For three years, thousands of men labored building the dam's massive abutments, pouring concrete into large modular "blocks" 50 feet (15 m) square and 5 feet (1.5 m) deep. These blocks were shaped using wooden forms, which were removed when

9384-526: The dam's maximum overflow rate to 267,800 cubic feet per second (7,580 m /s). The dam forms a reservoir called Shasta Lake , which is the largest man-made lake and third largest body of water in California with its capacity of 4,552,000 acre-feet (5,615  GL ) and surface area of 29,740 acres (12,040 ha) at maximum pool. The lake extends for 15.3 miles (24.6 km) up the Sacramento River and branches for more than 21 miles (34 km) up

9522-472: The dam. Reclamation originally planned to set up the construction headquarters in Redding, but ultimately decided to move it closer to the dam site. The new company town , Toyon, was laid out on a farm purchased from Porter Seaman in 1938. Toyon served purely to provide housing for Reclamation personnel, government offices, and storage; no stores or restaurants were permitted within its boundaries. Instead of

9660-633: The decade. The Depression had devastating economic effects on both wealthy and poor countries: all experienced drops in personal income , prices ( deflation ), tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, and unemployment in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world , especially those dependent on heavy industry , were heavily affected. Construction virtually halted in many countries, and farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by up to 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered

9798-408: The depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced "trade and exchange restrictions only marginally": The gold standard was the primary transmission mechanism of the Great Depression. Even countries that did not face bank failures and

9936-435: The domestic price level to decline ( deflation ). There is also consensus that protectionist policies, and primarily the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , helped to exacerbate, or even cause the Great Depression. Some economic studies have indicated that the rigidities of the gold standard not only spread the downturn worldwide, but also suspended gold convertibility (devaluing the currency in gold terms) that did

10074-402: The drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression. Economists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of

10212-427: The economies of Europe in 1937–1939. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 ended unemployment. The American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941 moved approximately ten million people out of the civilian labor force and into the war. This finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought

10350-576: The end of the month. A large sell-off of stocks began in mid-October. Finally, on 24 October, Black Thursday , the American stock market crashed 11% at the opening bell. Actions to stabilize the market failed, and on 28 October, Black Monday, the market crashed another 12%. The panic peaked the next day on Black Tuesday, when the market saw another 11% drop. Thousands of investors were ruined, and billions of dollars had been lost; many stocks could not be sold at any price. The market recovered 12% on Wednesday but by then significant damage had been done. Though

10488-500: The explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. The consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating

10626-503: The few women in the labor force, layoffs were less common in the white-collar jobs and they were typically found in light manufacturing work. However, there was a widespread demand to limit families to one paid job, so that wives might lose employment if their husband was employed. Across Britain, there was a tendency for married women to join the labor force, competing for part-time jobs especially. In France, very slow population growth, especially in comparison to Germany continued to be

10764-505: The first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, 19–20 June. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on payment of war reparations . This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An International conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on 19 August

10902-557: The foundations for both the present day Central Valley Project (CVP) and the California State Water Project (SWP). Initially, the state of California intended to finance the project entirely on its own through the sale of revenue bonds . However, the 1930s were a time of economic crisis with the onset of the Great Depression and a severe drought that devastated the agricultural sector, pushing

11040-606: The government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The Nazi women's organizations, other propaganda agencies and the authorities all attempted to shape such consumption as economic self-sufficiency was needed to prepare for and to sustain the coming war. The organizations, propaganda agencies and authorities employed slogans that called up traditional values of thrift and healthy living. However, these efforts were only partly successful in changing

11178-674: The greater peaking releases from Shasta. The proposed dam raise has met with significant backlash from area inhabitants, fishermen, Native Americans, recreationalists and environmentalists. First of all, with any increase to the dam's height, significant reaches of the Pit, Sacramento, and McCloud Rivers would be inundated. The McCloud is an area of special interest because it is one of California's best trout fisheries and because many sacred Native American sites lie along its banks. Opponents of dam raise contend that it would cost more (starting with replacing over 600 structures that would be inundated under

11316-400: The growth of cities and farms along it. However, construction of the dam also has had direct consequences to the morphology and vegetation zones along the river. By raising summer flows much higher than their natural average, and moderating the effects of most floods, the post-dam river supplies an even amount of water to the riparian zone each year, and resultantly vegetation has encroached on

11454-502: The hatchery until they are sufficient size to be released and return to the ocean. Long term production goals for Coleman NFH Complex are as follows: 12,000,000 fall Chinook salmon, 1,200,000 late-fall Chinook salmon, 250,000 winter Chinook salmon, and 600,000 steelhead annually. Winter Chinook salmon are reared at the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery , a sub-station of Coleman NFH, located at

11592-432: The highly seasonal precipitation. Although the Sacramento River discharges nearly 22.4 million acre-feet (27,600  GL ) of water each year, most of the flow occurs during winter storms and spring snowmelt, with natural runoff reducing to a trickle during late summers and autumns of drought years. As farming increased, low river flows dropped even lower, leading to saltwater intrusion from San Francisco Bay into

11730-519: The home, or took boarders, did laundry for trade or cash, and did sewing for neighbors in exchange for something they could offer. Extended families used mutual aid—extra food, spare rooms, repair-work, cash loans—to help cousins and in-laws. In Japan, official government policy was deflationary and the opposite of Keynesian spending. Consequently, the government launched a campaign across the country to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives. In Germany,

11868-490: The homes and lands of the Winnemem Wintu people. Scores of village sites, burial sites and other sacred locations now sit several hundred feet below the surface of Shasta Lake. Over 27 sacred sites lie underneath the water behind the dam. Tribal members argue that several reservation treaties originally set by the U.S. government in the 1850s were later broken so the filling of Shasta Lake could proceed; afterwards, only

12006-470: The initial crisis spread to the rest of the world. In the aftermath of World War I , the Roaring Twenties brought considerable wealth to the United States and Western Europe. Initially, the year 1929 dawned with good economic prospects: despite a minor crash on 25 March 1929, the market seemed to gradually improve through September. Stock prices began to slump in September, and were volatile at

12144-563: The lack of an adequate response to the crises of liquidity that followed the initial economic shock of 1929 and the subsequent bank failures accompanied by a general collapse of the financial markets. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 381 to 198 over the course of two months, optimism persisted for some time. The stock market rose in early 1930, with

12282-581: The lake including the Pit River Bridge) than its benefits. The water supplied from such a raise would be costly and could be saved if Central Valley farmers cut their water use by only a fraction. It would result in more problems for the ecology of the lower Sacramento, not least its dying salmon runs . One of the most important points made by dam expansion opponents is that raising the dam will not create more water (in fact it will actually cause some water loss due to evaporation) but merely increases

12420-513: The lake to keep it from overflowing. The intermediate and high dam raises would allow for increased generation of hydropower. Each would require the construction of a new powerhouse to accommodate five new turbines; for the intermediate expansion, five 215-MW generators would be added for a total capacity of 1,751 MW, while for the high one, there would be five new 260-MW units for a maximum capacity of 1,976 MW. Downstream Keswick Dam would also be raised and its power station retrofitted to accommodate

12558-542: The largest conveyor belt system in the world, 9.5 miles (15.3 km) long, that reached from Redding to the dam site. This was capable of transporting 1,100 tons of material per hour, and over the entire construction process, hauled more than 12 million tons of rock. The belt, which had some 16,000 rollers, was divided into 26 sections, 23 of which were powered by individual 200 horsepower (150 kW) motors. The remaining three were downhill and did not require power; in fact they were retrofitted to generate power for some of

12696-440: The late 19th century, the Central Valley was the main destination for large numbers of immigrants traveling into California from the eastern United States . The valley's land was coveted for farming due to its fertile soils, mild climate, gentle topography, and abundant water. The Sacramento River flows south through the northern third of the valley, known as the Sacramento Valley , for 400 miles (640 km) before emptying into

12834-659: The lower reaches of the river to the Upper Sacramento, Pit, McCloud and other tributary streams. It is estimated that half of the best salmon habitat in the Sacramento basin lies upstream of Shasta Dam. Also, the dam caused temperatures in the river to rise because it released waters from higher elevations of Shasta Lake, which are warmed by the sun far more than the surface of the original river pre-dam. Warm waters are harmful to salmon, which prefer colder temperatures, and also impact other fish populations such as steelhead and wild California trout . In an attempt to save

12972-446: The main dam structure and discharging onto the face of the spillway. The upper level has six outlets, each with a capacity of 6,534 cubic feet per second (185.0 m /s). The middle layer has eight conduits capable of carrying 3,100 cubic feet per second (88 m /s) and the lowest has four exits each able to discharge 4,450 cubic feet per second (126 m /s) for a total of 81,800 cubic feet per second (2,320 m /s). The spillway

13110-521: The market entered a period of recovery from 14 November until 17 April 1930, the general situation had been a prolonged slump. From 17 April 1930 until 8 July 1932, the market continued to lose 89% of its value. Despite the crash, the worst of the crisis did not reverberate around the world until after 1929. The crisis hit panic levels again in December 1930, with a bank run on the Bank of United States ,

13248-414: The mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U.S. Interest rates dropped to low levels by mid-1930, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment remained low. By May 1930, automobile sales declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices, in general, began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. Then

13386-423: The monetary base and by not injecting liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling, the Federal Reserve passively watched the transformation of a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would merely have been an ordinary recession if the Federal Reserve had taken aggressive action. This view

13524-502: The most to make recovery possible. Every major currency left the gold standard during the Great Depression. The UK was the first to do so. Facing speculative attacks on the pound and depleting gold reserves , in September 1931 the Bank of England ceased exchanging pound notes for gold and the pound was floated on foreign exchange markets. Japan and the Scandinavian countries followed in 1931. Other countries, such as Italy and

13662-427: The most. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 ended the Depression, as it stimulated factory production, providing jobs for women as militaries absorbed large numbers of young, unemployed men. The precise causes for the Great Depression are disputed. One set of historians, for example, focuses on non-monetary economic causes. Among these, some regard the Wall Street crash itself as the main cause; others consider that

13800-488: The multimillion-dollar commercial and recreational fishing industry in California. Three intake structures and associated conveyance facilities are used to divert and convey water directly from Battle Creek and the Coleman Powerhouse tailrace (Figure 1). The primary intake (1) is located within the tailrace of Pacific Gas and Electric ’s (PG&E) Coleman Powerhouse, on the north bank (Figure 2). Intake water

13938-613: The nearest being the Battle Creek Fault Zone located approximately 27 miles south of the dam and capable of producing a 7.3 magnitude event. Volcanic hazards are Mount Shasta , Mount Lassen , and the Medicine Lake Highlands . The Shasta Dam has had a severe negative effect on populations of Pacific salmon in the Sacramento River watershed ever since its gates were first closed in 1943. The massive structure completely prevents salmon migration from

14076-582: The need to balance the national budget and was unwilling to implement expensive welfare spending . In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , which taxed imports with the intention of encouraging buyers to purchase American products, which worsened the Depression because foreign governments retaliated with tariffs on American exports. In 1932, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation , which offered loans to businesses and support to local governments. In

14214-535: The onset of World War II prevented completing it to that final design height. Reclamation has suggested three options for the dam raise, ranging from less than 20 feet (6.1 m) to more than 200 feet (61 m). The "low option", which simply comprises adding a vertical concrete dike to the top of the dam, would provide maximum additional storage while minimizing requirements for reconstruction of buildings and facilities around Shasta Lake. The "intermediate option" would require adding more than 100 feet (30 m) to

14352-418: The other sections. As the foundations were completed, concrete placement of the main dam body could begin. For this purpose, a system of steel cable towers was erected to carry the steel concrete-pouring buckets. The tower setup comprised one main tower, standing 465 feet (142 m) high from its foundations and 700 feet (210 m) above the river, and seven movable auxiliary towers; cables were strung from

14490-483: The physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about 1 ⁄ 3 as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods such as: "imposing tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls". These restrictions triggered much tension among countries that had large amounts of bilateral trade, causing major export-import reductions during

14628-499: The plunging salmon populations, the federal government constructed the Coleman National Fish Hatchery on Battle Creek in 1942. The hatchery is situated approximately 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Redding, and produces 13,850,000 eggs per year – nearly 87 percent of which are for the fall chinook salmon run. Another remedy was carried out by the Bureau of Reclamation in 1991, with the installation of

14766-480: The policies prolonged the Depression instead of shortening it. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%; in the U.S., the Depression resulted in a 30% contraction in GDP. Recovery varied greatly around the world. Some economies, such as the U.S., Germany and Japan started to recover by the mid-1930s; others, like France, did not return to pre-shock growth rates until later in

14904-459: The political situation in Europe. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States , Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System . Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006–2014) Ben Bernanke agreed that monetary factors played important roles both in

15042-417: The reservoir, one of the most popular recreational lakes in California. Houseboating, water-skiing, swimming and fishing are among the numerous activities available at the lake; hiking, picnicking, mountain biking, hunting and camping are popular in the mountainous vicinity surrounding it. Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period

15180-416: The river channel. The dam has vastly reduced the amount of sediment in the Sacramento, and the riverbanks now suffer decreased erosion, slowing the growth of meanders and side-channels. Additionally, nearly all the rock and sand used in the mixing of concrete for the dam was dredged from the river downstream of the dam, further depleting its sediment supply. Underneath the waters of Shasta Lake lie buried

15318-434: The scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions." According to Christina Romer , the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of

15456-648: The state authorized the sale of bonds to fund the Central Valley Project, whose main component was to be Shasta Dam. Unable to raise the necessary money, California turned to the federal government for help. In 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorized the Central Valley Project as part of the New Deal . The construction works at Shasta Dam and other parts of the project would provide thousands of much-needed jobs, contributing

15594-447: The state hoping to get jobs at Shasta Dam. In November 1938, construction started on a diversion channel that would shunt water to the east (left) side of the river so the foundations could be laid on the west side. The left bank of the river was widened and deepened using explosives, and a cofferdam was built to dry up the bypassed section. To supply sand and gravel to make concrete at the construction site, Pacific Constructors built

15732-500: The state, Shasta Lake can hold about 4,500,000 acre-feet (5,600 GL). Envisioned as early as 1919 as an effort to conserve, control, store, and distribute water to the Central Valley , California's main agricultural region, Shasta was first authorized in the 1930s as a state undertaking. However, bonds did not sell due to the onset of the Great Depression and Shasta was transferred to the federal Bureau of Reclamation as

15870-481: The summer of 1943. By then, a total of 15 million tons of concrete had been used in the dam's construction, comprising the 16,900 50-foot blocks. Water storage at the Shasta Dam began in February 1944 when the diversion tunnel was sealed. As the lake rose behind it, the dam was completed to its final shape and the last bucket of concrete was poured on January 2, 1945. During this time, the Shasta Dam powerplant, with

16008-428: The superintendent of Hoover Dam construction, to direct operations at Shasta Dam. The groundbreaking and official naming ceremony of Shasta Dam occurred on September 12, 1937 in the small town of Kennett shortly upstream of the dam. Congress initially approved $ 12 million for the project. Within five years Kennett would be submerged under the rising waters of Shasta Lake. The dam was initially known as Kennett Dam, but

16146-512: The tents and shacks typical of construction workers' camps, the town was characterized by comfortable multi-room wooden houses. Pacific Constructors set up its main camp, called "Contractor's Camp" or "Shasta Dam Village", near the base of the Shasta Dam site. The company built a 2,000-man mess hall, hospital, recreation center and other amenities at the dam site. Three other makeshift camps nearby, called "Central Valley", "Project City", and "Summit City", soon filled with unemployed men from all over

16284-459: The top of the main tower to each of the others. Using this system, construction crews were able to transport concrete from the mixing plant, which lay directly adjacent to the main tower at the end of the conveyor belt, to the rising structure of the dam faster and cheaper than any other method. The tower was not fully demolished, so it remains submerged behind the dam. On occasion, the lake level can drop low enough to expose it again. Building of

16422-425: The traditional lands of the Winnemem Wintu , one of nine groups of the larger Wintu ethnicity of northern California. The Winnemem Wintu tribe is considered to be a ghost tribe because they are not a federally recognized tribe. It is estimated that the pre-colonization population of the valley was roughly 14,000; by 1900, due to diseases and settlers' encroachment it was reduced to 395. Of the men who survived out of

16560-419: The turbines is driven by a high-pressure jet of water fed by a steel penstock 15 feet (4.6 m) in diameter. Two smaller turbines generate power for operations at the dam itself. The plant serves to generate peaking power for the northern Sacramento Valley. Keswick Dam , about 9 miles (14 km) downstream, serves as an afterbay for Shasta, regulating its fluctuating water releases. A gravity structure,

16698-470: The unemployment rate in California up to 20 percent. The project was approved in the state legislature by a slim margin, mostly riding on Central and Northern California voters, who needed both the jobs and the water. Southern California generally opposed the project because they needed money to build an aqueduct to the Colorado River , from which the state had previously secured rights. In 1933,

16836-763: The west side of the river was rerouted. In December 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor , prompting the United States to enter into World War II . With thousands of men enlisting in the armed forces, the Shasta Dam site soon had a severe labor shortage. During the war years, many of the people who worked at the dam were women and high school students, working on mostly "non-hazardous jobs". The dam played an important part in World War II even before its completion, supplying much-needed electricity to shipyards and aircraft factories in central California. However, some generators originally intended for Shasta ended up in

16974-530: The winter. Water captured by the dam would increase the irrigation supply, for both the Sacramento Valley and the San Joaquin Valley further south, with which it would be linked by an extensive aqueduct and reservoir system. The Marshall Plan was not widely supported due to its high cost (about $ 800 million in 2008 dollars); when proposed to Congress in 1921, it passed in the Senate but failed in

17112-476: The world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933. There is no consensus among economists regarding the motive force for the U.S. economic expansion that continued through most of the Roosevelt years (and

17250-673: The world. The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil. With the rise in violence of National Socialist ('Nazi') and Communist movements, as well as investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in

17388-453: The world. The bridge was built to a height of more than 500 feet (150 m) above the Pit River, some 7 miles (11 km) east-northeast of the dam site, to accommodate the rising waters of Shasta Lake. The bypassed segment of the railroad from Redding to the Shasta site was re-appropriated as a branch line for construction trains, and was routed through a tunnel beneath the south abutment of

17526-778: The worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke also saw a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and pointed out that the Depression should be examined in an international perspective. Women's primary role was as housewives; without a steady flow of family income, their work became much harder in dealing with food and clothing and medical care. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12% from 19.3 births per thousand population in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935. In Canada, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births. Among

17664-658: Was a scramble to deflate prices to get the gold standard's conversation rates back on track to pre-WWI levels, by causing deflation and high unemployment through monetary policy. In 1933 FDR signed Executive Order 6102 and in 1934 signed the Gold Reserve Act . The two classic competing economic theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the Monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject

17802-478: Was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average ad valorem (value based) rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–1935. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four years from about $ 5.2 billion in 1929 to $ 1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did

17940-423: Was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty; drastic reductions in liquidity , industrial production, and trade; and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States , the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. The Depression

18078-474: Was endorsed in 2002 by Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz with this statement: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again. The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of

18216-417: Was eventually named after nearby Mount Shasta . After surveying several nearby sites, the Bureau of Reclamation chose to build the dam in a 1,000-foot (300 m) deep canyon about a mile above the abandoned smelter town of Coram and two-and-a-half miles below Kennett. The dam was planned to be over 800 feet (240 m) high. The winning bid of $ 35,939,450 for construction came from Pacific Constructors Inc.,

18354-426: Was given by American economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz . They argued that the Great Depression was caused by the banking crisis that caused one-third of all banks to vanish, a reduction of bank shareholder wealth and more importantly monetary contraction of 35%, which they called "The Great Contraction ". This caused a price drop of 33% ( deflation ). By not lowering interest rates, by not increasing

18492-500: Was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics, a portion of those demand notes was redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by

18630-446: Was intended. It exacerbated the Great Depression by preventing economic recovery after domestic production recovered, hampering the volume of trade; still there is disagreement as to the precise extent of the Act's influence. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was one of the leading causes of the depression. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened

18768-523: Was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the " Roaring Twenties ". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation , such as on the stock market , which resulted in growing wealth inequality . Banks were subject to minimal regulation under laissez-faire economic policies, resulting in loose lending and widespread debt. By 1929, declining spending had led to reductions in manufacturing output and rising unemployment . Share values continued to rise until

18906-470: Was the rollback of those same reflationary policies that led to the interruption of a recession beginning in late 1937. One contributing policy that reversed reflation was the Banking Act of 1935 , which effectively raised reserve requirements, causing a monetary contraction that helped to thwart the recovery. GDP returned to its upward trend in 1938. A revisionist view among some economists holds that

19044-609: Was the second highest dam in the world – surpassed only by Hoover Dam on the Colorado – as well as the highest man-made structure in California. It was also the second most massive concrete dam measured by volume, exceeded only by Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington . An anonymous workman reportedly said, "Old Shasta's about the secondest dam there is." When the dam was completed, chief engineer Frank Crowe

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