Cause And Effect Essay On The Great Depression

America has gone through many hard times before, but never has it suffered a burden as profound and extensive as the Great Depression. The Great Depression was a dark period of groundbreaking decline in economic activity in the United States that lasted from 1929 to 1939. This impacted the lives of millions of Americans ranging from wealthy business owners to families living in poverty. Not only was this depression an economic catastrophe, but it was a social and political catastrophe as well. Over the course of these few years, consumer spending and investment dropped significantly which in turn caused steep declines in industrial output and increased levels of unemployment as failing companies laid off workers. Many factors led to the Great …show more content…
“Black Thursday,” October 24, 1929, stock prices began to plummet and panic selling occurred as people tried to sell stocks for any price they could get. By October 29, “Black Tuesday,” stocks completely collapsed, thus leading to the start of what we now know as the Great Depression. On this day, Wall Street investors traded around 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange but sadly much of their money was lost, wiping out thousands of investors (“Stock Market Crash of 1929,” 2010). Prices continued to drop after this event and by 1932, stocks were worth just around 20 percent of their esteem in the mid year of 1929. By 1933, about a portion of America 's banks had fizzled, and unemployment was drawing closer 15 million individuals, or 30 percent of the workforce. In spite of the fact that the money market crash of 1929 was not the sole reason for the Great Depression, it was a crucial event that contributed to the progression of the economic downfall.
Banks were the bond between the public and economic stability. Once corruption within the banking system began to emerge, society 's faith in the economy started to