The onset of the Great Depression in October 1929 was a sobering and catastrophic shock to Americans. The post-World War I years had been a time of unprecedented prosperity for many Americans. Signs of progress were everywhere. Motor cars, bathtubs, electric refrigerators, radios, were the touchstones of progress. Keeping up with the Joneses, under the spur of fashion and advertisement, demanded nothing less than the latest model. Pressures of salesmanship urged even the duplication of luxuries two cars in every garage. . . . In his speech accepting the nomination of /*he Republican Party in 1928 more than a year before the stock market crash), Herbert Hoover announced that the conquest of poverty in America was near at hand. Hoover said: We nave not yet reached the goal, but given a chance to go forward, forward with the policies of the …