The Great Depression

The Great Depression
On October 29, 1929, a catastrophic event occurred for the United States economy. The stock market crashed causing millions of people to lose their life savings and forced them to move to the streets. This event was known as the Great Depression. Although this event was a worldwide occurrence, it was the most prevalent in the United States of America.
October 29th was known as Black Tuesday because that was the day everyone realized the crash of the stock market. Although there were many causes to the failing of the stock market, the most important cause was that many had withdrawn too much money from the stock market. The cause of this is the lack of confidence in stock prices to rise.
During the next ten years, America would try to rebuild. At almost 25%, unemployment had never been so low. Franklin Delano Roosevelt took over office in 1932 as President and his plan was to have the government help out with the people’s financial dilemma. Roosevelt created jobs for people and created more assurance in the United States banking system.
By the end of Roosevelt’s second term, World War II was looming around and the U.S. needed to get ready for battle. This was when the economy noticeably turned around. The cause for this was newly created jobs both in creating defense weapons and also within the military itself. Many women were now working while their husbands were preparing for war.

The Start of World War II
(next article in textbook)


Neil Sanghvi
English 289 014