Great Depression Dbq

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The Great Depression was an ten-year economic crisis that took place from 1929 to 1939, and proved to be the deepest and longest-lasting economic downfall of the Western industrialized world. It left millions of people unemployed (causing the unemployment rate to skyrocket from 3 percent to nearly 25 percent), raised interest rates, caused divorce rates to raise, lowered birth rates--however, not all people were affected by it. Nearly forty percent of the country did not feel any of the hardships faced by the remaining sixty percent, and were oblivious to the hardships that they faced. The Great Depression did not come without warning. The first signs came from the agricultural part of America; farmers were producing a surplus of food, and therefore the prices for produce decreased dramatically. Due to the rapid productions, farmers began to default on their loans and the banks foreclosed. Following, the Dust Bowl--where many people in the central United States faced heavy drought and dust storms--dismantled the farmer’s system and left them devastated. Another early warning sign was the uneven distribution wealth among American people. At the time that The Great Depression occurred, laissez faire was …show more content…

This severely impacted international trade during the time of the Great Depression. By 1932, the total value of world trade had fallen by more than half as country after country took measures against the importation of foreign goods. . In countries such as Germany and Japan, reaction to the Depression brought about the rise to power of militarist governments who adopted the regressive foreign policies that led to the Second World War. The Depression did not just affect America; political implications and the collapse of world trade followed for many countries other than the U.S. during the Great

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