The Great Depression And World War II

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The Great Depression and World War III
The Great Depression (1929-41) was the deepest and longest-lasting downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. In the US, the Great Depression began soon before the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors (including banks) due to stocks declining by 50% in trading which was unparalleled. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and rising levels of unemployment as failing companies laid off workers. Over the course of 25 years (1920-1945), there was a 40% increase in unemployment. To elaborate, approximately 1.6 million Americans were unemployed and increased drastically to 12.8 million (about half were non-farmers). Americans were unemployed, many companies went under and nearly half the country’s banks had failed. To combat the economic crisis strict trading and banking regulations were put in place, as well as financial protections, enforced by the newly formed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The depression brought a rapid rise in the crime rate as many unemployed workers resorted to petty theft to put food on the table. Alcoholism increased with Americans seeking outlets to escape, compounded by the repeal of prohibition in 1933. Rural New England and upstate New York lost many citizens seeking opportunity elsewhere. Many of the migrants were adolescents seeking an opportunity away from the family that had younger mouths to feed. Overall, Americans felt for the first time the government was not there to protect them and shifted away from the conservative laissez-faire i...

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...00 vets marched on Washington, to state that they could not wait until1945 for their bonus they needed it now. However, Hoover summoned the Army to “remove them from DC”. In this event four people died, two kids died because of the tear gas the army used and two vets were stabbed by bayonets.
During these trials the US was divided in some aspects yet still united to overcome the Great Depression and WWII. Between 1929 and 1945 the Great Depression and World War II utterly redefined the role of government in American society and catapulted the US from an isolated, peripheral state into the world’s hegemonic superpower. Despite facing maladies began to appear faintly, then with mounting urgency once the Great Depression began. Yet curiously, as many observers noted, most Americans remained inexplicably docile, even passive, in the face of this unprecedented calamity.

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