Causes Of The Great Depression Essay

Paper 2: The Great Depression The Great Depression is one of “the nation’s worst economic crisis, extending through the 1930s, producing unprecedented bank failures, unemployment, and industrial and agricultural collapse.” (The American Journey) This paper will describe what many think are the causes of the Great Depression. The United States stock market had hit record highs during the preceding years of the Great Depression. “Stimulated by optimism, easy credit, and speculators’ manipulations.” (The American Journey) On October 24th the stock market crash begins and by October 29th also known as Black Tuesday, the stock market had crashed. The prices of stock plummeted and banks started calling in loans. In the next few months billions of stock dollars had disappeared and “panicked …show more content…
Causes of the Great Depression were unequal distribution of wealth and income, domination of American economy by oligopolies, weakness in important industries, international economic problems and government policies. The United States stocks hit an all-time low and many suffered from this plummet. The depression left millions of Americans without paychecks and most of the time there was one breadwinner in the family and that income vanished. The Great Depression ended with the New Deal which “The landslide of 1936 revealed the impact of the New Deal on Americans. Industrial workers mobilized to secure their rights, women and minorities gained increased, if still limited, opportunities to participate in American society, and southerners and westerners benefited from government programs they turned to their own advantage. Government programs changed daily life, and ordinary people often helped shape the new policies.” (Goldfield, David) After all of the years of struggling with the economy it took a while it to come back but it did and some people blame it on World War