The Great Depression

Introduction

Great depression was the most influential event in the 20th century because not only did our country suffer from not having money, but it caused the people to suffer. They didn't have enough money to buy food, nor other necessities. It taught our country how to keep itself from going bankrupt, and how to manage money. Unfortunately it didn't help all of the individuals. The Great Depression was the worst economic slump ever in U.S. history, and one which spread to virtually all of the industrialized world. The depression began in late 1929 and lasted for about a decade. Many factors played a role in bringing about the depression; however, the main cause for the Great Depression was the combination of the greatly unequal misdistribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade. The mistake of distributing wealth in the 1920's existed on many levels. Money was distributed disparately between the rich and the middle-class, between industry and agriculture within the United States, and between the U.S. and Europe. This imbalance of wealth created an unstable economy. The excessive speculation in the late 1920's kept the stock market artificially high, but eventually lead to large market crashes. (Gauti 1476-1516). 

Discussion

The main cause for the Great Depression was an unequal distribution of wealth throughout 1920's and a wide stock market speculation. The imbalance of wealth created an unstable economy. The speculation of stock market in late 1920's led to large market crashes. These crashes combined with unequal distribution of wealth, caused the American economy to capsize. (Bernanke 7)

        The value of shares had risen greatly. This was called a "Bull Market" since investors believed in benefiting in profit only from buying shares. About one million people had investments. October 24, "Black Thursday", when prices started falling dramatically, and by June 8, 1932 share prices hit their lowest. One of the main causes for this depression was that too many people over estimated the stock market's stability, and they put lots of money into it (Eichengreen 119). When the stock market did crash, the people that invested in it lost everything. Also, people that put their life savings in banks lost everything they had, because the banks lost all their money. After this, it was hard to get the American people to put their trust back in the banks and the stock market, so President Roosevelt made a series of new laws and deals, creating more jobs, and ensuring that your money would not be lost in a bank. The new jobs that President Roosevelt created were mostly construction jobs to maintain and repair public lands. For example, one of the new jobs was to fix and maintain highways. Also, he gave money to farmers for them to set up work camps on their farms. These work camps offered jobs to anyone that was willing to travel to a farm and work there. This process of leaving your home, and living wherever you can work, is called migrant labor.

During this historical ...