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105-979: In the 1970s, Brown operated Famous Footwear , Cloth World fabric stores, Bottom Half jeans stores, and Meis department stores. On May 27, 2015, Brown Shoe changed its name to Caleres. Current brands include Famous Footwear , Sam Edelman, Allen Edmonds , Naturalizer, and Vionic. The company was created in St. Louis and was originally named Bryan, Brown & Company after its founders George Warren Brown and Alvin Bryan. The company began business in 1878 and incorporated in 1881 as Bryan-Brown Shoe Company. Founder George Warren Brown moved from New York to St. Louis in 1873 to work in his older brother’s shoe business, and saw potential for shoe manufacturing in St. Louis. At that point, most shoes were manufactured in New England. After four years in his brother’s wholesale shoe business, Brown had

210-634: 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,

315-418: 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

420-632: A brief foray into the comic book publishing industry. The characters appeared on the covers of the comic books, and each contained an adventure, such as Robin Hood . The characters were revived with an updated, more contemporary look for a brief advertising campaign in the 1980s and 1990s. Famous Footwear Famous Footwear is a nationwide chain of retail stores in the United States dealing in branded footwear , generally at prices discounted from manufacturer's suggested prices . The chain

525-406: A building in downtown St. Louis. During this time of high competition, Brown Shoes kept profits high by keeping labor costs as low as possible, as the cost of plant equipment and materials were somewhat fixed. As the work became more mechanized, shoe factory jobs required less skill, and in the industry at large, positions were increasingly filled by women and children, who could be paid less. In 1911,

630-426: A character developed by cartoonist Richard F. Outcault they would use for marketing. As Brown Shoes grew, St. Louis became increasingly known as a center for shoe manufacturing, and competing factories set up in the city. In 1904, a deadly elevator accident occurred at a Brown Shoe factory in St. Louis. It happened on January 13 when a crowd of employees was waiting for the elevator at the factory and someone raised

735-538: A failure to raise fresh capital for a reorganization. Stock of the company was suspended on the St. Louis Stock Exchange on June 23, 1939. The last transaction saw shares sold for 20 cents each, after a peak when its stock sold for up to $ 60 a share. Opening a plant in Dyer, Tennessee , in 1941, Brown began moving production toward the traditionally non-Union south. In the 1940s, Brown's third president, Clark Gamble, began pushing

840-604: 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

945-467: 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

1050-567: A lot of regular-priced retailers. The name "Famous Footwear" was launched in 1964 when Moldenhauer opened a second store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa . By the end of the 1960s, eight Famous Footwear and Neil's Factory Shoe Outlet stores were in operation, with combined annual revenues approaching $ 1 million. By 1974, all stores in the chain—which then consisted of 15 stores—were unified under the Famous Footwear banner. Ninety percent of

1155-600: 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

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1260-402: 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

1365-497: A new five-store test of an outlet concept called "Mind Body Soul", concentrating on footwear related to the toning and fitness category. Test stores would average 2,000 square feet (190 m ) and would initially be launched in Denver , Tulsa , Orlando and Palm Beach, Florida , and Burlington, Massachusetts . Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period

1470-567: 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

1575-480: 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

1680-713: 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

1785-541: A stock boy, a man who later rose up the company ladder to become president of Famous Footwear in 1979. Nearly half a century later Cook recalled: "We were one of the first factory outlets in the Midwest .... The store bought all closeouts and was primarily a women's store. The market had never seen anything like that... Most of the stores that shoppers went to were mom-and-pop stores , department stores were all very expensive, not at all like they are today. The market

1890-568: A strike-breaking agency and infiltrating the unions themselves. The Illinois Federation of Labor forced a grand-jury investigation into Brown in 1935, after a union representative was almost tarred and feathered. There were no resultant indictments, although the Regional Labor Board in St. Louis did later issue a complaint, where they cited Brown for intimidation of employees using agents and officers, and unfair labor practices . The subsequent hearing revealed that John A. Bush had hired

1995-401: A subsidiary of Caleres. Its brands included Avia , Ryka and Nevados. In December 2016 Caleres acquired Allen Edmonds, a men's shoe company. Since 1904, Caleres (Brown Shoe Company) mascots have been cartoon characters Buster Brown and his dog Tige. Both appear on the company's television commercials . In the 1940s and '50s, they became stars of Buster Brown Comics when the company made

2100-409: A survey of shoe workers in St. Louis found that over half were between the ages of 14 and 19, with an average wage for a girl under 16 less than $ 10 a week. In response to the poor working conditions at shoe factories in the St. Louis area, including Brown Shoes', workers formed unions; the moderate Boot and Shoe Workers Union was followed by the more radical United Shoe Workers of America . The latter

2205-658: 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

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2310-477: Is a division of the St. Louis –based Caleres and had more than 1,125 stores in 2010. Famous Footwear began in 1960 with the establishment of a single shoe store, Neil's Factory Shoe Outlet (launched as "Neil's Shoes"), in Madison, Wisconsin . The store was launched by 29-year-old Neil Moldenhauer and was financed by a $ 10,000 loan. In 1963, Neil's Factory Shoe Outlet hired a college student named Brian Cook as

2415-493: 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

2520-539: 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

2625-615: The Great Depression of the 1930s the company struggled to keep costs down, and workers' wages dropped, with a government investigation finding that workers at one plant were paid as little as "$ 2.50 and $ 3.00 for a 60-hour week." During this time the company also remained fiercely anti-union, even closing a plant in Vincennes, Indiana , in 1933 when the workers there held a strike for recognition. The company also reportedly used physical intimidation against union organizers, hiring

2730-582: 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

2835-497: The New York Stock Exchange in 1913. Starting in 1917, the company secured lucrative military contracts with the United States government . The company encountered a crisis in 1920, when a rise in hemlines made many of Brown's high-topped shoes unfashionable and overstocked. The company had to go to Boston to secure credit from a bank, and the company then did well until the stock market crash of 1929 . During

2940-539: 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,

3045-635: The "Brown Shoe" name for a future line of men's footwear. The name Caleres comes from the Latin word calēre which means to glow with passion or intensity. The *5* that is part of the new logo was taken from a wear indicator stamp that was on the bottom of all shoes in the late 1800s that represented the company’s promise of comfort and fit. The company paid $ 5 to the wearer if the stamp wore out. Caleres purchased Allen Edmonds for $ 255 million in December 2016 from Brentwood Associates . As of November 2018,

3150-447: 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

3255-644: The 1980s. In 1985 the company divested itself of its recreational products operations, leaving its focus largely on shoe retailing and manufacturing, with a quarter of operations in other stores. Around that time, Brown began to move away from manufacturing and toward shoe importing, acquiring Arnold Dunn, Inc., an importer, in 1984, and in 1986, the company acquired Pagoda Trading Company, an importing firm based in Asia. In 1988, Brown began to concentrate marketing on its well-known brands such as Connie, Naturalizer, and Buster Brown, while discontinuing its marginal lines. In 1989

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3360-685: The A.A. Ahner detective agency in 1934, an agency known for strike-breaking . In 1936, Brown was cited by the National Labor Relations Board for violating the Wagner Act over the company dissolving the Salem local union, but Brown would not reinstate workers fired for union activity. The Fair Labor Standard Act of 1938 mandated that the remaining Brown workers receive higher wages. The company went bankrupt in June 1939, after

3465-813: 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

3570-614: The Brown Group, Inc. It continued to acquire companies in children's products and sports and recreation. In the 1970s, Brown operated Famous Footwear , Cloth World fabric stores, Bottom Half jeans stores, and Meis department stores. In February 1979, it was reported that Brown Group, then the largest American producer of namebrand footwear, was petitioning for price relief from the federal government. After closing its St. Louis warehouse in 1980, Brown began adjusting its business strategy to deal with pressure from cheap imports throughout

3675-530: 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

3780-521: 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

3885-489: 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

3990-442: 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

4095-642: 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

4200-481: 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

4305-544: 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

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4410-490: 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

4515-685: 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

4620-578: The United States, including 947 Famous Footwear stores and 179 thematically structured outlet stores. Some 26 new stores were launched or were planned to open in 2010. The company indicated a long-term desire to add another 400 to 500 stores. The company indicated that it had plans to close 126 underperforming stores by the end of 2012, approximately matched by planned openings of additional new locations. Famous opened five athletic driven stores named "Mind Body Sole" intending to show manufacturers like Nike, Reebok, Brooks, Asics, Adidas and Mizuno that it had

4725-543: 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

4830-549: The United States. In 1959, a U.S. District Court in St. Louis deemed Brown guilty of anti-trust violations, and the company was ordered to sell Kinney. The ruling was upheld in 1962, at which point Brown was the number-one manufacturer in the shoe industry. Afterwards, Kinney was sold to F. W. Woolworth . For a time, the Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company was the largest manufacturer of shoes in America. In 1959,

4935-638: 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

5040-460: 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

5145-465: 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

5250-494: The business trend of the price of such items. In 2010, Famous claimed to be dealing with some 800 brands as a company. In that year about 18 percent of the chain's business involved the brands of Famous' parent corporation, Brown Shoe Company (in May 2015 named Caleres ), which include Naturalizer, Dr. Scholl's , Franco Sarto, Sam Edelman and the chain's private label , Connie. In November 2010, Famous Footwear planned to launch

5355-447: The capability to sell these items through commitment to training and customer service. Once these small sales stores were unable to move certain high dollar items, the company would be able to move them into the outlet stores under the assumption of them being clear outs being shifted into the outlets. What happened, though, was that these items were moved into the outlets and the price was placed at or near retail price, regardless of age or

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5460-517: The chain had expanded to 722 stores in 44 states by the end of that year. Before 1974, because of its discounting policy, Famous Footwear was unable to purchase footwear from the two leading athletic shoe giants of the day, Adidas and Puma . Consumer demand for this emerging product category was enormous. In response, Famous Footwear opened up a number of little sporting goods shops called All Star Sports Centers, facilities which were directly promoted by regular Famous stores. The move accelerated

5565-443: The chain was purchased from Moldenhauer that year by a leveraged buyout led by longtime employees Dave Orfan and Brian Cook, along with a group of outside investors. Orfan initially assumed the role of president with Cook as executive vice president, a relationship which changed in 1979 when Cook assumed the presidency. The company became an attractive investment opportunity for the St. Louis–based Brown Shoe Company , which acquired

5670-462: 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

5775-444: The company closed 100 Naturalizer stores and remodeled 700 Famous Footwear outlets. The company had a loss of $ 4 million in 2001, and a $ 45.2 million profit in 2002. In the first half of 2003, Brown's stock value increased nearly 80 percent. At the end of that year, Brown signed a licensing deal to design and market footwear under Phillips-Van Heusen Corp.'s Bass label. On May 27, 2015, Brown Shoe changed its name to Caleres, retaining

5880-528: The company continues to be based in Clayton, Missouri . Caleres operates 900 Famous Footwear stores in the United States. The company also distributes brands through retailers, and licensing Dr. Scholl's and Disney brand footwear. Diane M. Sullivan served as president and CEO of Caleres from May 2011 until January 2023, after joining as president in 2003. She also became chairwoman of the board beginning February 2, 2014. In January 2023, Jay Schmidt took over

5985-686: The company had acquired Perth Shoe Company in Canada, and in 1965, Brown bought the Samuels Shoe Company. After doing well in the 1960s, in 1969 Brown's earnings dropped 25% after a 1968 flood of imports into the US shoe industry. W. L. Hadley Griffin became the company's president in 1969 and began diversifying into areas beyond shoes. In 1970 Brown acquired the importer Italia Bootwear, Ltd. After acquiring Eagle Rubber Company, Kent Sporting Goods, and other companies, in 1972 Brown changed its name to

6090-548: The company into retailing. Becoming president in 1948 after John Bush, Gamble in 1950 initiated a merger with Wohl Shoes, which wholesaled mostly women's shoes in 2,500 stores in North America and Cuba. In 1953, Brown acquired the large retail chain Regal Shoes, and in 1956 it acquired G. R. Kinney Corporation, then the largest operator of family shoe stores. At the time, Brown was the fourth-largest shoe manufacturer in

6195-527: The company sold all of its non-footwear retail operations except for the Cloth World chain. In the early 1990s, Brown closed six of its domestic shoe plants, and in 1993 it began to close its Wohl Leased Shoe Department operation. In 1995, the last Brown Group-owned shoe factory in the United States closed, leaving the company with only two manufacturing plants in Canada. It sold three of its five headquarters buildings and its Cloth World chain. 35 percent of

6300-475: 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

6405-625: 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

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6510-633: 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

6615-408: 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

6720-435: 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

6825-402: 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

6930-427: 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

7035-472: The elevator gate, causing 10 people to fall down the shaft. At least 8 people were killed and the other 2 were described as "fatally injured." It's unclear if they succumbed to their injuries. By 1902, Brown Shoe had five factories operating in St. Louis, and in 1907, the company set up its first plant out of the city, where labor was cheaper in Moberly, Missouri . In 1907, the company moved its headquarters to

7140-576: 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

7245-500: 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

7350-503: 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

7455-525: The firm and immediately set about planning for rapid expansion. By 1986, the chain consisted of 230 stores. In 1990, Famous Footwear opened a 740,000-square-foot (69,000 m ) distribution center in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin , near Madison. This was followed by another 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m ) distribution center in Lebanon, Tennessee , constructed in 1993. Fueled by Brown Shoe Co. money,

7560-505: 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

7665-644: The funds to found Bryan, Brown and Company to make women’s shoes, with Alvin L. Bryan and Jerome Desnoyers also as investors. The company hired five skilled shoemakers from Rochester, New York , to start the factory in St. Louis, and it grew quickly. In 1878, it had sales of $ 110,000. In 1881, it was incorporated as the Bryan Brown Shoe Company. In 1886, the company became the Brown-Desnoyers Shoe Company, after Mr. Bryan retired. In 1893, Mr. J.B. Desnoyers also retired, and

7770-606: 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

7875-474: The growth of the Famous Footwear chain again, albeit the company's typical business model, which was historically based upon the long margins possible through bulk buying of discontinued products. In the ensuing decades, Famous gradually moved to a more traditional mark-up structure based upon the bulk purchase of current goods, while remaining a leading distributor of closeout branded merchandise. In October 2010, Famous Footwear consisted of 1,126 retail stores in

7980-519: 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,

8085-527: 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

8190-563: 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

8295-465: 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 ,

8400-414: 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

8505-423: 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

8610-502: 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

8715-427: 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

8820-544: The name was changed to Brown Shoe Company. In 1895, the Brown Shoe Company factory had about six hundred employees who could make five thousand pairs of shoes and boots a day. The company competed as Brown shoes were sold throughout the Midwest at prices lower than New England shoes, and by 1900 the company was growing at a rate of $ 1 million a year. Four years later the company bought the rights to Buster Brown ,

8925-582: 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

9030-598: The overall workforce at Brown was fired, eliminating 8,500 jobs. Brown then acquired the Larry Stuart Collection and the Le Coq Sportif brand in 1995. The following year, Brown signed license agreements to market athletic footwear under the Russell and Penn brand names. After operating from 1972 until 1999 as the Brown Group, it became Brown Shoe again in 1999. As part of a restructuring, in 2002

9135-483: 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

9240-480: 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

9345-459: 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

9450-701: The role of CEO and Sullivan moved into a position of Executive Chairman. Mike Edwards serves as president of Famous Footwear. Sam Edelman is division president of the eponymous Sam Edelman brand. Dan Friedman is division president of the company’s global supply chain, and Jack Calandra serves as CFO. Current brands include Famous Footwear , Naturalizer, Dr. Scholl’s Shoes , LifeStride , Bzees, Blowfish Malibu, Circus by Sam Edelman, Rykä , Sam Edelman, Allen Edmonds , Franco Sarto, Vince, Vionic Shoes, Life Stride, Zodiac, and Veronica Beard. Caleres also formerly managed Via Spiga and Carlos by Carlos Santana . As of February 2011, American Sporting Goods Corporation operated as

9555-434: 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

9660-476: 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

9765-624: 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

9870-778: 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

9975-658: 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

10080-478: 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

10185-656: Was associated with the Industrial Workers of the World . Strikes led to anti-union activities among workers as well, and the creation of the anti-union propaganda organization Citizens Industrial Association in St. Louis. Partly in response to the union activity, Brown Shoe Company increasingly turned to labor in the small towns in the surrounding area. With management remaining in St. Louis, the company secured tax subsidies from various towns to open factories in rural Missouri and Illinois . Brown Shoe Company debuted on

10290-423: 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

10395-474: 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

10500-426: 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

10605-500: 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

10710-446: 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

10815-523: 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

10920-470: 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

11025-407: Was wide open for big, open formats selling discount product. As a result, we started a rapid store expansion program. We ended up putting a lot of little stores out of business.... "Eventually, in the early 1990s, everybody was a discounter. Everyone was opening shoe stores like ours. Everyone copied our concept. We were groundbreaking and very revolutionary at the time, and not very popular with

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