The Great Depression

The Great Depression

Meredith S.

It is October 24, 1929, there is pandemonium on Wall Street, New York, New York. The stocks have taken a dramatic drop. There are very few buyers and everyone is intent on selling their stocks. Yesterday, October 23, nearly thirteen million stocks had been sold during the last hour and the stock prices plummeted. Today, the people are scared of losing money by the crash and want to sell their shares before they lose a fortune. Millions of shares have changed hands already. The economy had been going well, the drop in stocks had happened overnight. What will happen to the United States’ economy after all of the stocks are sold?

What is the Great Depression?

The Great Depression was the longest-lasting, most severe economic crash in history. It began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. The Great Depression did not only happen in the United States, it was worldwide. On October 24, 1929, sixteen million shares of stock were sold by panicked investors who had lost faith in the economy.

It was followed by a dramatic crash and the day was renamed “Black Thursday”. The crash brought a rise in poverty and fall in prices. Millions of people were left unemployed because of the sudden catastrophe.

Weakness contributed to the crash. Prior to the depression, World War 1 left countries struggling to pay war debts and repair areas of desolation. Many countries were in serious debt and most of their cities were razed to the ground. Then, the people went through a brief period of prosperity and purchasing new items.

During this time, new ideas were introduced and useful inventions were created.

These reasons altered the severity of the crash and made it unexpected. Unemployment and poverty reached alarming rates and the situation continued to get worse as the countries carried on. Prices fell drastically, causing many people to lose their homes and jobs. Companies closed and many people went hungry.

This was considered the worst crash in history.

How was the world affected by the Great Depression?

The Great Depression was a global phenomenon. Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North and South America were all affected by the economic crash. International trade fell by 30 percent. By 1932, about thirty million people were unemployed around the world. The purchase of raw material and other commodities like cotton, tin, rubber, and coffee dropped to forty percent. The deepening depression brought many political consequences and issues. One of the responses was military dictatorship. This was found in Argentina and other countries in Central America.

Germany, Italy, and Japan responded to the Great Depression with militarism and fascism. Hitler lead a huge program of military rearmament that ended in unemployment. Italy faced fascism with there dictator, Ben Mussolini. Militarists seized control of the government in Japan. Communism broke out in the Soviet Union, resulting in famine and killings. Welfare capitalism was found in countries like Canada, Great Britain, and France.

The Great Depression was the worst in the United States. The unemployment rate was higher than any other country and stayed higher longer, after most of the other countries were fully recovered from the Great Depression. By 1936, European countries significantly reduced the unemployment rate and began to recover faster than the United States.

The world suffered from low wages, unemployment, issues with the economy, and violence during the Great Depression.

What was life like for people during the Great Depression in the United States?

The Great Depression affected rural and urban areas. It devastated working class and middle class people alike and influenced every age.

Many children were deprived of an education because many places were forced to close schools because of lack of money. Only a few children were fortunate enough to attend a school. 20.5 percent of the children suffered

from

malnutrition

and

dietary

diseases

were

rampant.

Many teenagers left home because they felt inadequate or wanted a better life. At the height of the Great Depression, about 250,000 teenagers roamed America by train. Eighty-five percent of these teenagers sought employment. Before the depression, farmers were having a hard time maintaining a wage and their job. They were losing money because the United States was becoming more industrialized and replacing workers with new machines. When the Great Depression first started, the prices on the farmers’ produce dropped, so that farmers were unable to make a profit off of their land. Most farmers could barely produce enough food to feed their family, because a drought was going on in the middle of the United States. As a result, many farmers moved west. Women during the Great Depression worked to keep their family and home together. Women that had an education looked for jobs and some were able to join the workforce. Many families were forced off of their land and out of their houses, after not being able to afford a place to live anymore. These people wandered the country, in search of a job and a place to live. Many camps were set up and used by the homeless and jobless as a place to live. A Hooverville was the name for camps like these, named after President Herbert Hoover because he was President when the collapse of the stock market happened.

Many

people

blamed

him for the incident.

“In other periods of depression, it has always been possible to see some things which were solid and upon which you could base hope, but as I look about, I now see nothing to give ground to hope-nothing of man.� - Calvin Coolidge

In 1932, it was reported that over 25,000 families roamed the United States without a home. People who had worked their way through college found their degrees useless in gaining a job. They didn't have any advantage over those who had never been to college. A conducted search found that 21,974 men and women that had college degrees were unemployed. Many middle class people were out of work because of the foreclosure of over 5,000 banks.

These people suffered from low incomes if they held a position in a company, which many people did not.

Despite the suffering of the lower classes, most of the upper class people were barely affected by the Great Depression. Many did not realize that the United States was in a desperate situation during the Great Depression. Some were oblivious to the suffering of the lower classes. However, some of the wealthy lost money when the stock market crash, but most were able to retain their wealth and jobs. When the New Deal was put into place, many of the upper class people were angry because they paid more taxes to fund it. Most of them felt that it was not their responsibility to provide money for other people who were poor or out of work.

Many people were unemployed or homeless. Others had jobs, but had extremely low incomes, barely enough to provide for a family. Even though the wealthy were not as affected, they had to work to get the country out of the depression and back on track. Everyone was affected by the Great Depression and their lives were filled with hardships and hard work.

Conclusion: The road to recovery was long for the United States. They were in a desperate situation. President Roosevelt helped to stabilize the country with his New Deal. It helped create new, long-term job opportunities. It decreased supply to drive the prices up and helped homeowners pay mortgage. Due to the work of the President and of the people, the country eventually recovered. Today, the government makes sure that the United States will never have an economic crash like the Great Depression.

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