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Explain the causes of great depression
The 1929 wall street stock crash as well as the economic and social impact of the crash in usa
Explain the causes of great depression
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There were several factors that caused what we know now as "The Great Depression".
Most people point out the crash of the "Stock Market" as the major cause but, there was also a drought known as "The Dust Bowl", that caused crops in that day to not grow resulting in farmers having to sell the items at higher prices that most people could not afford.
There were also over 9,000 bank failures resulting in people losing there savings because the banks were uninsured during the 1930's.
There was also a 25% unemployment rate that resulted in people being unable to purchase items they normally were able to pay for so most products were left on the shelf or in the inventory.
There was less trading between America and other Foreign countries because
In the Roaring Twenties, people started buying household materials and stocks that they could not pay for in credit. Farmers, textile workers, and miners all got low wages. In 1929, the stock market crashed. All of these events started the Great Depression. During the beginning of the Great Depression, 9000 banks were closed, ending nine million savings accounts. This lead to the closing of eighty-six thousand businesses, a European depression, an overproduction of food, and a lowering of prices. It also led to more people going hungry, more homeless people, and much lower job wages. There was a 28% increase in the amount of homeless people from 1929 to 1933. And in the midst of the beginning of the Great Depression, President Hoover did nothing to improve the condition of the nation. In 1932, people decided that America needed a change. For the first time in twelve years, they elected a democratic president, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Immediately he began to work on fixing the American economy. He closed all banks and began a series of laws called the New Laws. L...
Unfortunately, the circumstances in the Great Plains all came to a head, resulting in a horrific ten years for citizens of the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl caused government and people to look at farming practices and evaluate their output. These policies resulted in overproduction of crops, causing the prices to fall. The conclusion of World War I and countries that stopped importing foods added to the pain the farmers were already feeling.
The stock market crash was a result of rapid growth, and banks and lenders overextending loans and investments. Overextending loans and investments resulted in factories shutting down, banks closing, people losing their life savings and millions of Americans out of work, thousands starving and homeless. The rural areas of America were much luckier than the urban in that they were not hit as hard by the depression, they were still able to grow their crops, raise their animals and continue on with life as normal for the most part. In 1930 a severe drought struck America which only helped to make the Great Depression worse for all of America, including those in rural areas with farms as it effected their ability to grow crops and water their animals. The droughts effected those in the Great Plains and their surrounding areas the most. For years the lands had been stripped of its natural vegetation and soil had been overworked to produce crops, mainly wheat in large amounts. Overworking the land caused it to lose its vitality, leaving no sod to hold the sand or powdery dirt down. Without rain these problems were just exasperated, vegetation was unable to grow back to replace what was
The wheat supply forced the price down from sixty-eight cents/bushel in July 1930 to twenty-five cents/bushel in July 1931. Many farmers went broke and others abandoned their fields, but most decided to stay despite the unfavorable conditions.
Overspending by Americans in the Roaring Twenties, the increase in bank offered credit, the rise and final crash of the stock market all took part in causing the Great Depression (“The Great Depression”, n.d.). These were times the wealthy saved their money and the middle class had taken on too much debt putting them in the same place as the poverty-stricken. Proceeds in this time made by the owners of the manufactures and other profitable companies were held close at hand. Workers couldn’t keep up with the times nor were their pockets becoming larger at the larger demands were upon them; thus, most losing their jobs in the end. Disbursement of monies was hugely lopsided and President Hoover with his minimalist approach did not try to correct this. When he won his election, he had led the nation to believe the U.S. was well on its way to ending poverty altogether; however, within an instant, this dream and his words fell short. His support from the people lowered every year he was in office and finally crashed as did the stock market.
The summer of 1929 was the beginning of a recession for the American people, and many were optimistic in it passing quickly. On October 29, 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, the stock markets crashed and sent the world into an economic depression that did not end until the year 1939. This depression, known as the Great Depression, was the most dynamic, deepest, and longest depression that the Western World had ever experienced.
A. The quotes from Henry Ford and Herbert Hoover suggest that the great depression took government and businesses by surprise. Hoover talks about how America was “nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in this land”, and that they were in a good position. In reality the country was continuing to fall into a deeper hole of financial problems. Hoover also suggests that he felt he didn’t need to interfere with the situation, as the country was doing just fine. The same goes for Ford who says that there are enough jobs in the country for people who are actually willing to put in work, when in reality he is forced to fire more and more people. B. The excerpt from the song “Brother can you spare a dime” showcases the anger of the veteran during the great depression. The song describes how he “went sloggin’ through hell” during the first world war. But is not being
Mass production due to Henry Ford’s idea of an assembly line increased the worker output of manufactured goods by 32 percent. Manufacturers figured that they’d make more profit if more goods were produced and sold. However, even with the installment plan, there were limits on how much a person was capable of buying. Eventually, people stopped buying as much as they did when buying on credit was a new concept. As the demand for goods went down, prices also decreased. Manufacturers had overproduced, so factories began laying off an abundant number of workers. As jobs were lost, people could not afford to pay for the goods that were bought through installment plans, and their items were repossessed. The unemployment rate increased by 25%, which meant even less spending in the economy. Along with the decline of industries, farmers’ incomes fell throughout the decade. Overproduction of crops and meat strained the prices for farm products to fall. President Calvin Coolidge refused to help solve farmers’ problems. As a result, farmers had to take out loans against their homes and land, but food prices still continued to fall. Farmers ended up in debt and their families, roughly a quarter of the United States population, struggled economically. As you can see, overproduction and underconsumption of consumer goods was an immense part of causing the Great
The booming economy of the 1920's led to the Great Depression. It affected almost all of the industrialized world. The main cause of the depression was because of the unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade. The mal-distribution of wealth in the 1920's existed on many levels.
The Great Depression is one of the most well known phenomenons to happen in the U.S. The Great Depression was an economic downfall that lasted 10 years. Leading to more than half the banks in the U.S. to fail. The unemployment rate began to raise dangerously high along with the rate of people becoming homeless. People were frantick but the crash was so large that there was no coming up from it anytime soon.
The Great Depression was a period, which seemed to go out of control. The crashing of the stock markets left most Canadians unemployed and in debt, prairie farmers suffered immensely with the inability to produce valuable crops, and the Canadian Government and World War II became influential factors in the ending of the Great Depression.
Weize Tan History 7B 3/09/14. Chapter 23 1. What is the difference between a. and a. What were some of the causes of the Great Depression? What made it so severe, and why did it last so long? a.
The Great Depression was the biggest and longest lasting economic crisis in U.S history. The Great depression hit the united states on October 29, 1929 When the stock market crashed. During 1929, everyone was putting in mass amounts of their income into the stock market. For every ten dollars made, Four dollars was invested into the stock market, thats forty percent of the individual's income (American Experience).
What started these tragic ten years were really the events categorized under ‘economic factors’. The economy went into a downward spiral, first, with the Stock Market Crash of October 29, 1929, nicknamed “Black Tuesday” (PowerPoint). The cause of this was actually many factors all happening within a few months. Many companies went bankrupt from overproduction of goods and started stockpiling them. They assumed the economy will keep rising like it did during the “Roaring Twenties”; but when Europe started to mend from the destruction of the war, the demand for products went down. In addition, on October 29th, the value of the stocks became overpriced, and everyone wanted to sell while they were ahead. The sheer number of stocks on the market lowered their value so much, that the price afterwards was only a fraction of what it was before. However, it was not just the Stock Market Crash that overturned the economy, but the farmers also had trouble coping. In the early 1930’s, a massive drought swept through the prairies and the central US, killing off anything that...
Most of the reasons concerning agrarian discontent in the late nineteenth century stem from supposed threats posed by monopolies and trusts, railroads, money shortages and the demonetization of silver, though in many cases their complaints were not valid. The American farmer at this time already had his fair share of problems, perhaps even perceived as unfair in regards to the success industrialized businessmen were experiencing. Nevertheless, crops such as cotton and wheat, which were once the staples of an agricultural society, were selling at such low prices that it was nearly impossible for farmers to make a profit off them, especially since some had invested a great deal of money in modern equipment that would allow them to produce twice as many goods. Furthermore, improvements in transportation allowed foreign competition to emerge, making it harder for American Farmers to not only dispose of surplus crop, but to transport crops period. Finally, years of drought in the Midwest and the degeneration of business in the 1890's devastated many of the nation's farmers, and as a result of this agricultural depression' many farm groups, most notably the Populist Party, arose to fight what farmers saw as the reasons for the decline of agriculture.