Question 1: What caused the Great Depression?
Answer: While the immediate trigger of the Great Depression was when the Stock Market crashed on October 9, 1929 (“Black Tuesday”), there were other underlying issues that attributed to the weakness in the U.S. economy.
Other factors:
Overproduction in industry, “by 1920 the booming construction and automobile industries began to lose vitality as demand sagged. In fact, increases in consumer spending for all goods and services slowed to a lethargic 1.5 percent for 1928 – 1929.”
Concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, “by 1929, 1% of the population owned 36 % of al personal wealth. The wealthy had more money than they could possibly spend and saved too much. The working and middle classes
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Question 2: How did the Great Depression affect Americans and American society? {Include employment, marriage and family, as well as psychological impact}.
Answer: The Great Depression was difficult for thousands of people. “Between 1929 and 1932, an average of 100,000 people lost their jobs…at least one worker in four could find no employment.” Millions of Americans found themselves homeless, as they were evicted from their homes because they were unable to pay their mortgages or rent. They struggled to find places to live.
“Marriages and births…plummeted.” Low self-esteem was commonly see among fathers in the family unit. Being unable to provide adequate shelter, food, and other necessities was truly burdensome, and over time, took a toll on the self-worth of these men.
The hardships of the Great Depression had a huge psychological impact. The drastic change in living conditions compounded by the fellings of shame and self-doubt left long –lasting invisible scars. “I would go stand on the relief line and bend my head low so nobody would recognize me.” Some of the depressed population were truly desparate and committed
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This agency ensured Americans of bank deposits of up to $2,500.00. The FDIC guaranteed a specific amount of checking and saving s deposits for its bank members.
Question 4: Was the New Deal a success in restoring American prosperity?
Answer: Determining whether the New Deal was a success is difficult to answer. If we look at the unemployment rates between 1925 and 1945, the unemployment rates do not drop until the outbreak of WWII (1945).
However, FDR and his New Deal programs did accomplish many things. The New Deal created economic stabilizers which would regulate swings in the business cycle, federal insurance for bank deposits, unemplymet assiatnce, and greater control over money and banking.” FDR acted as a ‘political broker.” He was concerned about the welfare for all Americans. Lastly, under the New Deal FDR was successful in revitalizing democracy, “African Americans came into the party, joining workers and farmers. Political attention shifted to from cultural battles over Prhibition and immigration restriction to bread and butter issues of economic
No matter if a country was considered rich or poor, the Great Depression had devastating effects. The unemployment rate increased dramatically, going from 3% to 25%. For the people who were lucky enough to still be employed during this horrible time, their wages fell 42%. However, the crash of the stock market is not the only thing that caused the Great Depression. In the middle of the 1930’s, a severe drought struck and it ruined much of the agriculture of the United States, which was known as the Dust Bowl.
There were many factors that led to the United States to go into the great depression. For example, the main one was the crash of the stock market. After the stock market crashed. Many banks had to close, and many people that had their moneys in the bank, lost it all. Also the amount of loans and debts that were created do to world
The New Deal was to relief, recovery, and reform. Some policies that Roosevelt put in place to end the Great Depression includes Emergency Banking Act (EBA), Created Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), Civilian Conservation Core (CCC), Works Progress Administration (WPA), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Homeowner’s Loan Corporation, Glass Steagall Act, WAgner Act, Securities Exchange Act, Social Security Act, and the National Recovery Act (NRA). The New Deal was successful because it started getting the United States out of the Great Depression, but World War II is what really helped the United States. Without World War II it would have taken longer for
The Great Depression era was one of the most severe hardships in United States history. The amount of suffering that ordinary Americans endured during the Depression was unprecedented. The Depression caused big businesses like Ford to layoff much of their workers during the Depression. This massive unemployment caused millions of workers to lose their homes and their livelihoods, puting Americans in destitute situations of extreme poverty. During the Depression the contemporary safety nets that existed to help take care of people when disaster struck had dried up and was unable to assist everyone.
“No, I don’t see the Depression as an ennobling experience. Survivors are still ridin’ with the ghost – the ghost of those days when things came hard”. This reminiscence was a stark outpouring of the hardships encountered during The Great Depression, an era that hopefully would be in the rearview mirror.
When Roosevelt came along he help pick up peoples spirits (“The New Deal”). Franklin D. Roosevelt had come into office promising a New Deal for the American people, This was used to help address the effects of the Great Depression. Roosevelt had and many others had made many new and successful programs that helped people get back on their feet such as the Emergency Banking Bill, which stabilized the banking system and restored the faith back into the public. With all of these new programs Roosevelt had given the people their hope and their jobs back (“The New
He had believed in the power of self-sufficiency, but this philosophy pushed him out of the White House. As a result, President Roosevelt took office and his first 100 days set a path of recovery. This was his New Deal plan. The first of the new deal was relief, FDR wanted our nation to take all this weight off their shoulders and take a deep breath, take a step back and realize
The Great Depression affected many Americans and their lives. Jobs were shut down and people were starving and thirsty. Many things caused the Great Depression. Mr. Roosevelt boosted things in the Great
The programs created by the New Deal satisfied the needs of citizens, even though several thought Roosevelt was overstepping his power. Roosevelt’s administration was not very effective in ending the Great Depression, however, some of the programs did help relieve
The Great Depression was caused by speculation and installment buying, income maldistribution, and overproduction because each of these factors combined made the economy worse before and after the stock market crash, which led to The Great Depression. Speculation and installment buying helped caused The Great Depression because people were buying so much stuff on credit, when
The great depression was a rough time for many Americans. The country suffered as a whole but everyone reacted differently to the crisis. The businesses, people and government all handed the Great Depression in different ways. Large businesses and corporations did not help too much to help when the depression hit. The cotton factories in specific were known as terrible places.
Everyone has depression, but did you know on October 29, 1929 the whole US went into depression. People lost their jobs, people lost their homes and lot’s of other things. Every bits and piece was super valuable at that time. Some effects the Great Depression had on people at that time was people lost their money. In an article called Digging In by Robert Hastings a girl explains how importants every minute of light is.
The Great DepressionTopic: the great depressionQuestion: How did the great depression affect americans?Thesis statement:The great depression affected americans because it destroyed their economy. Millions of families lost theirs savings as many banks collapsed in the 1930’s. The Great Depression was the worst economic drop of all times in the industrial world1. The Great Depression began because of a stock market crash in 1929 and came to end ten years later in 1939, around 15 million americans were unemployed and about half of the American banks failed. It was one of the darkest era in the United States.
However, while this is true (African Americans were not helped, unemployment had risen after the federal government stopped subsidising jobs), FDR’s New Deal changed the role of the federal government in American society from a quite passive role to an active one. Through the Great Depression, Hoover had a laissez-faire approach. This meant that the government lets America figure out the dilemma themselves. One of the most important key turning point of the New Deal was the change in the relationship between the government and the nation.
FDR helped everyone in America, one group of people that he dedicated time and money to are farmers. The AAA an agency that decreased the surplus of food raising farm goods helped farmers get more money for their farm goods. Another agency introduced through the New Deal was the TVA which electrified the Tennessee Valley with schools, healthcare centers, factories, etc. This benefitted people living in the Tennessee Valley, once again proving that the New Deal was a Success. FDR did the best he can trying to restore Public Confidence in banks with a bank holiday that let FDR look over banks for four days to make sure that thy healthy enough to reopen.