Maybe I should have limited my post to my first line of response, which was "Fewer people could afford to buy things back then".
From another FR thread:
Myths of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff
In consistency with today, free traders historically look at tariffs (indirect taxes) on imports as causing consumers to pay more while ignoring direct taxes on American consumers. There are few that will mention or acknowledge that President Hoover raised the top income tax rate from 25 percent to 65 percent in 1932. FDR continued this atrocious policy by further raising the rate to 79 percent!This insurmountable climb in the income tax rate reaped far more damage on the American consumer than any modest tariff increase on a select amount of import sensitive items. Keep in mind that tariffs are a discretionary, indirect tax. The consumer can choose to buy the import or the domestic good, and therefore refuse to pay the tariff, but no consumer escapes direct income taxes. Everyone must pay. It's no wonder it took World War II to drag us out of the bottom of the economic barrel.