To What Extent Was Hoover Responsible For The Great Depression

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If Herbert Hoover had not become President of the United States, he would be remembered as an exceptional man of his age. Even though he was orphaned at age nine, he was in the first class to graduate from Stanford University, and after that, he became a successful mining engineer, travelling all over the world establishing business enterprises until he became a multi-billionaire. Then in 1929, less than one year after Hoover became President, Black Tuesday happened and the United States was plunged into the Great Depression. While some people both at the time and since have blamed Hoover for the depth of suffering Americans experienced during the Great Depression, many economists and historians argue that Hoover was not really to blame. He should only be partially faulted because there were many other factors that greatly affected the Great Depression. To bring back the prosperity of the 1920s, Hoover employed a Laissez-Faire economic model that he …show more content…

The debts of WWI already left many nations bankrupt and obstructed the government to respond to all the demands. Hoover began his presidency at such a hard time and even if the president was someone else, it would have been difficult for him to clean up all the mess quickly and not get the full blame for the recession. On top of all this, banks were failing and people lost their whole savings within the day. Due to this, there was a huge reduction in purchasing across the board and businesses started to fail. The economy was not effective due to business fails and it was worsened when there were drought conditions in the Midwest region in 1930s and was known as the “Dust Bowl”. People moved to the West and many lands were abandoned. These factors were not all caused by Hoover so it is unreasonable for Hoover to get full blame for the

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