Editing History of Missouri (section)

===The Great Depression and the New Deal===
The [[Great Depression]] affected nearly every aspect of Missouri's economy, particularly mining, railroading, and retailing.<ref name="kirkendall 133">Kirkendall (2004), 133.</ref> In 1933, the [[Missouri Pacific]] railroad declared bankruptcy; retail sales declined statewide by 50 percent, and more than 300 Missouri banks failed in the early 1930s.<ref name="kirkendall 133"/> St. Louis manufacturing declined in value from more than $600&nbsp;million in 1929 to $339&nbsp;million in 1935; despite industrial diversification in the city, output fell more and unemployment was greater than the rest of country by the mid-1930s.<ref name="kirkendall 133"/> The brick and tile industry of St. Louis virtually collapsed, dramatically altering the economic conditions of neighborhoods such as [[The Hill, St. Louis|The Hill]].<ref name="kirkendall 134">Kirkendall (2004), 134.</ref> In response to rising discontent with the economy, the St. Louis police surveilled and harassed unemployed leftist workers, and in July 1932, a protest by the unemployed was violently broken up by police.<ref name="kirkendall 134"/> The Depression also threatened Missouri cultural institutions such as the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, which nearly folded in 1933.<ref name="kirkendall 138">Kirkendall (2004), 138.</ref> Kansas City suffered from the Depression as well, although not as severely as St. Louis.<ref name="kirkendall 140">Kirkendall (2004), 140.</ref> Manufacturing fell in value from $220&nbsp;million in 1929 to $122&nbsp;million in 1935; charities were feeding 10 percent of the population by late 1932.<ref name="kirkendall 140"/> Unlike St. Louis, Kansas City was able to supply work to many of its unemployed citizens via a $50&nbsp;million bond issue that allowed for several large public works projects.<ref name="kirkendall 140"/>

Rural Missouri suffered under the economic effects of both the Depression of natural forces.<ref name="kirkendall 132">Kirkendall (2004), 132.</ref> In 1930, a statewide drought struck the Ozarks and the Bootheel regions particularly hard, followed by equally deleterious droughts in 1934 and 1936.<ref name="kirkendall 132"/> In addition, grasshoppers attacked Missouri cropland in 1936, destroying nearly a million acres of corn and other crops.<ref name="kirkendall 132"/> Farm prices declined, and banks and insurance companies took ownership of foreclosed farmland in the Ozarks.<ref name="kirkendall 132"/><ref name="stepenoff 1995 61-78">Stepenoff (1995), 61–78.</ref> Despite these hardships, the farm population of Missouri increased during the early years of the Depression, and unemployed urban workers sought subsistence farms throughout the state and particularly in the Ozarks.<ref name="kirkendall 133"/>

Banks in the Ozarks frequently arranged rentals to tenant farmers, who in turn hired their [[sharecroppers]] for labor. The tenant-sharecropper system began before the Great Depression, but by 1938, there was increasing mechanization on farms. This shift allowed a single farmer to work more land, putting the sharecroppers out of work. Left-wing elements from the local Socialist movement, and from St. Louis, moved in to organize the sharecroppers into the Southern Tenant Farmers' Union. They had a highly visible, violent confrontation with state authorities in 1939.<ref name="stepenoff 1995 61-78"/><ref name="williams and brassieur 1996 52-85">Williams and Brassieur (1996), 52–85.</ref>

By the late 1930s some of the industries of the state had recovered, although not to their pre-1929 levels. Both Anheuser-Busch and the St. Louis Car Company had resumed profitable operations, and clothing and electrical product manufacturing were expanding. By 1938, the St. Louis airport handled nearly double the passengers it had in 1932, while the Kraft Cheese Company established a milk processing plant in Springfield in 1939. Recovery seemed at hand. However, in 1939, manufacturing as a whole remained 25 percent below its 1929 level, wholesaling was 32 percent below the 1929 level, and retail sales were 22 percent lower than they were in 1929. In early 1940, the Missouri unemployment rate remained higher than 8 percent, while urban areas had a rate at higher than 10 percent. Both St. Louis and Kansas City lost ground as industrial producers in the country.<ref>Kirkendall (2004), 224–27.</ref>