Perhaps the worst economic downturn in the history of the United States occurred from 1930-1939. The Great Depression led to domestic and international crises effecting the poor and wealthy alike. Many financial experts today continue to debate the cause of The Depression, although most agree that several events led to the economic decline. The famous stock market crash on October 29, 1929 is just one of many causes economists believe led to The Great Depression. Known also as Black Tuesday, October 29th left stockholders shattered with recorded losses reaching $40 billion dollars (Kelly, n.d.).
The Great Depression was a severe period of poverty and tragedy. It effected many other countries not just America; especially in Europe, where many countries had not fully recovered from the aftermath of World War I. The cost of World War I weakened the ability of the world to respond to a major crisis. America alone had ten billon dollars of debt from the war. In Germany America’s economic failure contributed to the rise of Adolf Hiltler, so the Stock Market Crash had a domino effect on our country and others.
It brought devastation to the United States’ economy, as well as actual “depression” to the American public. Various issues caused the fall of the most prosperous country in the world such as, the accumulation of installment loans and lack of government agencies regulating the stock market. Throughout the 1930’s, the American government and its people dealt with the depression in numerous ways. Herbert Hoover was the
Starting in the year 1929 and lasting throughout the 1930’s, America was brought into the worst economic slump that America and the rest of the world has ever been brought into. This would soon be known as The Great Depression. What caused this depression was the crash of the stock market in 1929 and almost all of the Americans had to suffer from the stock market crash. People were without jobs, homeless, and left without nothing but their families and the clothes on their back. Some of the hardships that the Americans faced were unbearable.
Many lost their jobs, and were forced to look for work elsewhere. Numerous people were also forced to leave school to help pay the bills (Doc 1). Herbert Hoover, considered one of the worst presidents ever, did not help the situation very much. In 1930 he said that “The Depression is over.” However, the Depression did not end until 1937 when World War II began (Doc 2). The country was fed up with Hoover’s help.
Despite caution of the dangers of speculation, many believed that the market could sustain high price levels. Before the crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, ‘’Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.’’ The optimism and financial gains of the great bull market where shattered on ‘’Black Thursday’’, October 24, 1929, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) collapsed. Stock prices plummeted on that day, and continued to fall at an unprecedented rate for a full month. The 1929, crash came during a period of declining real estate values in the United States (which came up a round 1925) near the beginning of a chain of events that led to the Great Depression, a period of economic decline in the industrialized nations. After a six year run the world saw an Industrial Average increase in value fivefold, prices peaked at 381.17 on September 3, 1929.
Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by approximately 60%. There were many causes of the Great Depression, ranging from poor spending and over production to banks failing and the stock market crashing. Paragraph 2: Due to the Roaring 20’s, people were overconfident due to the information given by bad leaders, which led to poor spending. Doc A+B: According to the business cycle, there was going to be a 5 year growth for everyone in the US. -They would all become rich and poverty would just go away (Words of President Calvin Coolidge) Doc C: John T. Raskob, a well-known economist, told people to buy more stocks and in invest in banks and you’ll become a millionaire.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Impact On the Great Depression By: Alysha Burnett During the 1930’s, the United States faced a terrifying economic decline due to the sudden decrease in stock prices. This defining event not only affected the Americans but also several other nations around the world. In the U.S., millions of people were unemployed and lost their homes due to the businesses failing and the dramatic halt of the construction companies. As a result, many people found themselves becoming immensely dependent on their new President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt to bring them out of the isolation, poverty, and economic distress. By electing Roosevelt, the Americans lives were in for a positive change.
Only six months after Hoover took office, the economy collapsed and the Great Depression began. Many factors caused and contributed to the Great Depression of 1929. One factor would be the overproductions of many goods in the 1920s led to worker layoffs Another factor was that easy credit led to people spending more than they had, and it led to a rapid inflation that eventually caused people to stop buying. The Federal Reserve Bank, created in 1913, did a poor job which also led to the great depression. It did not monitor interest rates to help regulate the economy when overproduction and inflation had started to cause unemployment in 1928-29 and the economy seemed likely headed toward collapse.
The first big issue is the fact this time period is predominantly remembered as the “Great Depression.” The Great Depression began on October 29th, 1929 with the crash of the stock market in the United States. With stocks worth nothing, and a collapsing banking system the U.S. fell into a serious state of emergency. “The New Deal” had been put into effect by 1933 and had been putting a little giddy-up back into the economy. But by 1937, with the curbed spending by FDR and savings again on the rise, the economy and American lives took a second downturn and was referred to as the depression of 1937 I believe. As a business owner, people faced a lot of trauma in each major industry in Oregon.