What Happened in Britain During the Great Depression?
It is easy to hear “Great Depression” and immediately think only the United States. The reason for this is that the Great Depression began in United States, but the effects were far from being isolated to the United States. Though Britain was effected in many ways by the Great depression, I believe that the greatest overall effect of the Great Depression on Britain was a high and unrelenting unemployment rate. The recurring unemployment of at times, more than a million British citizens had several huge impacts on British life. But before I get to those, let us look at some background history of the Great Depression.
In Britain, the first effects of the Great Depression were significant drops in British exports, because the demand for British goods had diminished (Aldcroft). This decline in exports led to many layoffs among manufacturing workers. Eventually, some factories, shipyards, and other businesses closed because they had become unprofitable. The result of all the cutbacks was a large and steadily growing unemployment rate. As the Great depression wore on, there was much debate among politicians as to what was the best course for Britain. Some were in favor of allowing businesses to come together into corporations which would run the economy. Others thought that the only possible solution was for Britain to turn to a socialist system in which all workers would unite for the common good (Ritschel). This political tug of war continued throughout the great depression. But while the politicians debated and attempted resolutions, many working class families of Britain were suffering the harsh effects of prolonged unemployment.
Families who lacked income became dependent u...
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...n were supporting Jarrow’s call to stop unemployment.
The effects of prolonged unemployment went from lowered health and living standards, to protests, and general anger at the current state of affairs. This high unemployment rate was brought on by the economic backwash caused by the Great Depression. The depression took the wind out of the sails of British commerce. It lowered the expectations of common people and made them question the system under which they lived. Most of all, the Great Depression united many people in Britain in their desire for lasting change to their government structure. Their desire was for an effective government which would maintain better control over the economy. Britain hoped that the new government would provide more stable jobs. This desire for better government played a large role in shaping Britain into the nation we see today.
The great depression was a very sad and hard time. This was a time where people had little money, no available jobs and just had a hard time with everything. Many people had nd any way to make money whether it was cutting kid’s hair in neighborhood, picking fruit, selling iron cords house to house or even painting a house for 5 dollars. Even though this was a very hard time some people still had hope that things would get better. This was a really bad time until Franklin Roosevelt who was for the government supporting the Americans and not the other way around became president.
The Great Depression, beginning in the last few months of 1929, impacted the vast majority of people nationwide and worldwide. With millions of Americans unemployed and many in danger of losing their homes, they could no longer support their families. Children, if they were lucky, wore torn up ragged clothing to school and those who were not lucky remained without clothes. The food supply was scarce, and bread was the most that families could afford. Households would receive very limited rations of food, or small amounts of money to buy food.
The Great Depression was one of the most important historical events that has happened within the last century that impacted every Americans life one way or another. There were many factors that could be an explanation of why The Great Depression happened, but there is no one definitive list of the reasons of what caused The Great Depression. It was a mixture of events in the United States and outside of it that probably led to this period of time to happen. The main reason that everyone could agree on was the event of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Because of The Crash, it made people go on a bank run which made thousands of banks to close because they simply did not have all the money for all the people wanting to withdraw their savings. Because everyone was trying to take their savings out, most people were turned down by the bank and essentially lost of their savings in the bank. The banks were failing and because they had no more money left, this stopped the banks from having available credit for people to use which made matters even worse for the people. This leads people to poverty and were left with nothing. Because people were poor and were scared of spending their money now, it made people stop buying extra things that weren't essential to live. This was the cause of the unemployment rates during this time period because if no one was buying anything, then there was no reason to keep extra workers for things people are not buying.
The Great Depression was felt worldwide, in some countries more than others. During this time, many Americans had to live in poor conditions. In the United States, 25 percent of the workers and 37 percent of all nonfarm workers lost their jobs (Smiley 1). Unemployment rates had increased to 24.9 percent during 1933 (Shmoop 1). Unable to pay mortgages, many families lost their homes.
The Great Depression was in no way the only depression the country has ever seen, but it was one of the worst economic downfalls in the United States. As for North America and the United States, the Great Depression was the worst it had ever seen. In addition to North America, the Depression greatly affected Europe and other various countries throughout the world significantly during the 1920’s and 1930’s. The Great Depression was caused by the collapse of the Stock Market, which happened in October of 1929. The crash exhausted about forty percent of the paper values of common stocks. It was the worst depression due to the fact that at the time of the Great Depression the government involvement in the economy was higher than it had ever been. A unique government agency had been set up exclusively to prevent depressions and their related troubles for instance bank panics. All of ...
Great Depression was one of the most severe economic situation the world had ever seen. It all started during late 1929 and lasted till 1939. Although, the origin of depression was United Sattes but with US Economy being highly correlated with global economy, the ill efffects were seen in the whole world with high unemployment, low production and deflation. Overall it was the most severe depression ever faced by western industrialized world. Stock Market Crashes, Bank Failures and a lot more, left the governments ineffective and this lead the global economy to what we call today- ‘’Great Depression’’.(Rockoff). As for the cause and what lead to Great Depression, the issue is still in debate among eminent economists, but the crux provides evidence that the worst ever depression ever expereinced by Global Economy stemed from multiple causes which are as follows:
Jobs were cut, lower wages and less workers due to Depression. People thought it co...
There were many primary causes for The Great Depression, Unequal distribution of money to the economy,
The Great Depression began in October 1929, when the stock market in the United States dropped rapidly. Thousands of investors lost all of their of money and were forced to live on the streets often going without food. This crash led into the Great Depression. The ensuing period of 10 years ranked as the worst period of high unemployment and low business activity in modern times. Banks, stores, and factories were closed and left millions of Americans jobless, homeless, and without food. Many people came to depend on the government or charity to provide them with food. The Depression became a worldwide business slump of the 1930's that affected almost all nations. It led to a sharp decline in world trade as each country tried to protect their own industries. The Depression led to political turmoil in many countries such as Germany where poor economic conditions helped lead to the rise of Hitler. Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected President in 1932 and his 'new deal' reforms gave the government more power and helped slow the depression. The Great Depression ended as nations increased their production of war materials at the start of World War II. This increased production provided jobs and put large amounts of money back into circulation. Several factors led to the great depression. One being the lack of diversification in the American economy. The prosperity of America had been basically dependent on a few industries like construction and the automobile and in the late 20's these industr...
The Great Depression was one of the greatest challenges that the United States faced during the twentieth century. It sidelined not only the economy of America, but also that of the entire world. The Depression was unlike anything that had been seen before. It was more prolonged and influential than any economic downturn in the history of the United States. The Depression struck fear in the government and the American people because it was so different.
There are several causes of the Great Depression which Michiel Horn touches on throughout his writings. The initial tool that he used to help understand the situation was to look at statistical data from that time. Through use of this data, a greater understanding of the physical hardships could be quantified and compared to present day. The reading begins with statistics about the shocking rate of unemployment. In 1933, at the height of the depression, the unemployment rate was between 19.3and 27 percent. The industrial activity in 1933 was only 57 percent of the average activity for the years 1925-29. The causes for the Great Depression were easy to see, but hard to fix. The problems included the inability of foreign countries to purchase surplus goods produced by other countries. Before the Great Depression, the British used this tactic to stabilize the market. Unfort...
Chewing gum turned into alpha alpha, meat pies turned into gopher pies the whole standard of life was lowered during the depression. If you were an unemployed male you were not wanted anywhere and at the same time companies were laying off workers more often than they would pay their workers that is underpaying their workers. What was the government doing while all these people struggled you might ask ? It seemed like the government was doing nothing . Which is exactly what Prime minister King was doing , nothing.
Listening to the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he once said that “In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up - or else we all go down,” indicating the need of a unified country in order to solve the crisis. The Great Depression, and the many hardships that accompanied it, greatly altered American society in the 1930s in many ways such as the questioning of the capability of government, the economic effects on the nation, and the perception of society, its morals, and its values.
The great depression led us to have a better economic system and changed economic thinking. Laws were passed in order to prevent another depression from happening. Although many years have passed since the great Depression, things that were seen back then are still being seen today in 2014. High unemployment rates and low income among families forced to need the help of welfare are seen today as they were seen during the time of the Great Depression. The contrast between now and then however, is that the economy is under more control due to the laws that were passed to prevent another depression.
When the stock market started failing, many factories closed production of all types of goods. Businesses and banks started closing down and farmers fell into bankruptcy. Many people lose everything, their jobs, their savings, and their homes. More than thirteen million people are unemployed. The Great Depression caused major political changes.