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Causes of the great depression and effects
Lasting impact of the great depression on canada
Lasting impact of the great depression on canada
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The decade known as the Great Depression was an era filled with both hardship and tribulation. Historians continue to debate the root causes of the collapse of the stock market which led the country into depression. Other deride the ineptitude of the Canadian government’s response to the crisis. At any rate, the “Dirty Thirties” was a period of time unlike any other. While those who suffered through it are largely gone, the memory of those dark days remains to this day.
Firstly, there are many factors that contributed to making the Great Depression start. Over-production and expansion was a problem because almost every industry was expanding in the 1920’s. Industries made products quickly that weren’t selling and in order to slow down production they laid of works because they forget the basic economic rule to only make as many items they can cell and since wages weren’t high enough to buy all the goods that were made. Also Canada’s dependence on a few primary productions and dependence on United States had a huge effect on the depression. Canada’s economy is linked closely to the U.S and when the American economy got sick Canada suffered because they no longer needed products produced such as sold wheat, fish, minerals, pulp and paper. When the depression hit demands for all these items dropped as well as other countries produced huge surplus which drove prices down. Another cause was Canada putting on high tariffs was a factor of the great depression as well but effected many countries because it chocked off international trade, countless countries put high tariffs on goods coming into their country to protect homeland industries which caused trades between nations begin to slow down. Even credit buying and stock buying was a ...
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... money from the munition workers and they would feel secure enough to buy a dress and then the tailor would feel confident to go and buy a dresser and so on. This started to economy to get back into shape and departing from the Great Depression.
In all, everyone was effected by the Great Depression in one way or another. The government didn’t take responsibility until the 1940’s but that still did not make up for the men and that went through that dark decade. The ‘Dirty Thirties’ was a time no one wanted to return to and were glad to see it go. As though industries got back on their feet, people started to get more jobs because of the war, and food started to grow the devastation of the Great Depression was not forgotten. Those lives that could have been lived painlessly had suffered greatly and the memories of those days still linger to those till this very day.
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 1930's in Prairie Canada, the Great Depression created harsh conditions and it was a struggle until it ended. The event which triggered the Great Depression was the Stock Market crash of October 24, 1929 in New York. Another important cause was that: Later in the 1930's, the wide adoption of the gold exchange in many countries was widely criticized as a great mistake which greatly contributed to the severity and length of the Great Depression. 1 In Canada, wheat, the most important export, was being over-produced around the world, despite the fact that the 1928 supply of wheat was still available in 1929.
They left people without jobs, homes, and money. In the story “Digging In” by Robert J. Hastings it explains how people did anything to make money for their families even if it was only for 5 dollars. Even with these hard times some people still had hope like it showed in “Depts” by Karen Hesse. In this poem a farmer had hope that rain would come to grow his dying wheat while his wife didn’t think so. This was a very stressful time right until president Roosevelt made some changes. In the article “The New Deal” it explains how Roosevelt helped end the great depression with programs that gave millions of people jobs. The great depression was a very hard, stressful, and sad time for the american people that had many
The depression years of 1929 - 1939 proved to be the worst, and some of the best years for Canada and Canadians. It was a time of extreme highs and lows socially, emotionally, and economically. It was a time that Canada came into her own being on the world wide stage.
On the day of October 29, 1929 the Great Depression had begun. This was due to the worth of the New York stock market falling intensely. The Great Depression was a time when Canadians suffered extraordinary levels of poverty due to unemployment. It shaped Canadian’s political views, and also their views about their country and role of the government. Canadians joined together in various new political parties, labor groups and other organizations that represented detailed regional, economic or political interest. Canadians scrambled through the crisis with a makeshift blend of private and public charity. Private Citizens in wealthier provinces recognized the dilemma of Saskatchewan and sent hundreds of carloads of fruit, vegetables and clothing westward. This showed that Canada is a crew of kind and supportive individuals.
The Great Depression was a terrible point in Canadian history, and for most of the world. It was a point in time where thousands of people lost their jobs, and even lost their homes because of the depressed economy. Business was booming in the early 1920s, but when companies tried to expand, and therefore issued stocks, the economy was thrown off. Some investors sold their stocks for high prices, and as a result, everyone else followed. With less of a demand, stock prices became fractions of what they used to be, and on October 29, 1929, the New York Stock Exchange collapsed, followed by the Toronto and Montreal Stock exchanges. This collapse of the stock markets caused a depression like which the world had never seen before. It was important for governments to find methods to deal with the depression, but the Canadian government wasn't very successful in its attempts to deal with the Great Depression.
There were many causes for the Great Depression. The first and one of the largest was the stock market crash. Before 1929 the stock market was flourishing and everyone wanted to buy stocks. People were so confident in the stock market that they were buying “on margin”, which meant that brokers would lend them 10% of the money they invested (D1). The problems began when stocks were being over speculated. When people began to realize this, they began selling there shares. On October 29, 1929, 16 million shares were sold (D9). This day became known as “Black Thursday”, the day the stock market crashed (D12). The second reason was the overproduction of goods. Factories had already produced too many goods and now there was no demand for them. The government began to raise tariffs to protect Canadian industries but things only led downhill from there.
Firstly, the stock market crash in the late 1920s was one of the main factors that contributed to the onset of the Great Depression. The common goal of many Canadians in the roaring twenties was to put behind the horrors and doubts of World War I, and focus on what was to come in the near future. However, on October 29, 1929, the Stock Market in New York City experienced one of its worst days of all time. The catastrophic impact that the stock market crash had was enough to shift the world in the direction of an economic downfall. The rapid expansion of the 1920 stock market caused the market to hit an all-time high.
During the 1920’s, America was a prosperous nation going through the “Big Boom” and loving every second of it. However, this fortune didn’t last long, because with the 1930’s came a period of serious economic recession, a period called the Great Depression. By 1933, a quarter of the nation’s workers (about 40 million) were without jobs. The weekly income rate dropped from $24.76 per week in 1929 to $16.65 per week in 1933 (McElvaine, 8). After President Hoover failed to rectify the recession situation, Franklin D. Roosevelt began his term with the hopeful New Deal. In two installments, Roosevelt hoped to relieve short term suffering with the first, and redistribution of money amongst the poor with the second. Throughout these years of the depression, many Americans spoke their minds through pen and paper. Many criticized Hoover’s policies of the early Depression and praised the Roosevelts’ efforts. Each opinion about the causes and solutions of the Great Depression are based upon economic, racial and social standing in America.
Many Canadians thought the depression was brought about by the wheat crop crash and not the stock market crash because many Canadians and farmers were dependent on the growth of wheat because it made up a majority of their exports, but seeing as the wheat provinces were hit with a severe drought the wheat crops crashed leaving many farmers out of jobs and money, causing a great affect on Canada. The causes of the great depression were due to over-production and over-expansion because Canadian companies expanded their industries of goods so that they could generate more profits. Yet economic activity shrank in the late 20’s and companies were left with a heavier debt and lack of...
For the average American living in the city, The Great Depression was a time to cut back on luxuries, and find ways to cut comers on even the most basic items. Appliances, jewelry, and flimiture were some of the first items that Americans stopped buying. Because industries must sell in order to continue, the decline in sales of goods caused many factories to close causing unemployment, and worsening the depression. (DiBacco 538-539)
The great depression hit the nation quite hard with an un-comparable feeling of instability and weakness. The United States and other nations including Europe and Great Britain were quickly affected. The depression, caused by the fall of the stock market in 1929, caused many individuals to panic and the depression was everywhere by 1932. Many people were affected by the depression. Investors, the ordinary work force and consumers sank rapidly with the panic that spread across the world. The United States tried to gain security through several attempts at restoration. With the help of president Roosevelt and his attempt to restore security with The New Deal the nation would overcome the onset crisis.
The cause of the Great Depression has been debated for many years. The actual cause of the Great Depression is a multitude of factors, there was no single cause. Several reasons for the Great Depression were supply and demand, the banking system, wages of workers, success and failure of business, government policy, excessive speculation in the stock market and the unequal distribution of wealth between the rich and the middle class. While there are many theories to what caused the Great Depression; all of these factors played a role in the Great Depression.
The Great Depression is seen as one of the most sorrowful and desolate times in the history of the United States. This time was the longest period of recession ever seen by this nation so far. It lasted from 1929 to 1939, over ten years of complete confusion and despondency within the people. Many Americans were affected greatly by this tragic time and sacrificed much of their lives so that they and their families may have the chance to live. This act of desperation can be seen throughout the movie, The Cinderella Man, where a professional boxer, Jim Braddock, becomes crippled by the depression, both economically and spiritually. The observer can see this through the explicit cinematography of the movie and depiction of the Great Depression made by the director. However the director left out a key aspect of the happenings of the depression, the stock market crash. Perhaps, this catastrophic event was irrelevant to the plot and message of the movie, but it is important to the actual Great Depression of the United States. Furthermore, the nation of 2010 is well on its way to repeating history. There are frightening similarities between that dreadful time of the 1930’s and the present that should not be overlooked, or the United States might condemn itself back into that horrific state it has so long tried to avoid.
The Great Depression was an economic slump in North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. There were a few main areas of focus during the Great Depression. The key areas were the Crash of the Stock Market, Unemployment Rate, the effect on the rest of the world, World War II and our political out look and the way different countries handle themselves today. The Great Depression was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world.