What was the Great Depression?
Impoverished childrenA. The ” Great Depression ” was a severe, world -wide economic disintegration symbolized in the United States by the stock market crash on “Black Thursday”, October 24, 1929 . The causes of of the Great Depression were many and varied, but the impact was visible across the country. By the time that FDR was inaugurated president on March 4, 1933, the banking system had collapsed, nearly 25% of the labor force was unemployed, and prices and productivity had fallen to 1/3 below their 1929 levels. Reduced prices and reduced output resulted in lower incomes in wages, rents, dividends, and profits throughout the economy. Factories were shut down, farms and homes were lost to foreclosure, mills and mines were abandoned, and people went hungry. The resulting lower incomes meant the further inability of the people to spend or to save their way out of the crisis, thus perpetuating the economic slowdown in a seemingly never-ending cycle.
The Great Depression (1929-1941) was the most catastrophic economic collapse in American history. Economic output fell by half. Millions upon millions of men lost their jobs. And the Depression went on for more than ten years. • What were some of the consequences of the Depression? An entire generation of Americans was permanently marked with memories of hardship and attitudes of thrift and fear. The Federal Government underwent an unprecedented peacetime expansion as it struggled to jumpstart the economy. By many measures, most of the federal government apparatus we have today was started during the Great Depression. • How did the Depression end? Only Americas entry in World War II finally ended the Depression. • What would it be like today if we had an economic collapse of roughly the same dimensions as the Great Depression? This is what the students are to find out and describe. 3. Show the Great Depression segment of the video, The First Measured Century. 4. Distribute the handout
The Great Depression happened in 1929- 1941. World War II is what really ended it all. It is said that on Thursday, October 24, 1929 was when the depression started but the Big problems didn’t happen until Monday, October 28 and Tuesday, October 29. After that is was a sudden Panic around the world. The Collapse continued for a month…
