Depression: The Beginnings Of The Great Depression

Superior Essays
Alayna Wry
English II
Ms. Joy
20 October 2016
The Great Depression The world struggled greatly for 10 years from 1929-1939 due to one thing, the Great Depression. The depression left the world in ruins, but also taught America how to handle a national crisis. It tested the strength of people’s mental and physical health. The Great Depression had a lasting impact on the world’s history because it directly affected the economy, the people of all countries, and showed a glimpse into a future American crisis. World War I is one of the possible reasons for the start of the Great Depression. After World War I the value of money and the cost of products dropped greatly (Steindl 184). The world economy was already struggling from the war which
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For a long time most of the countries had some form of stable currency, but when the depression started that all changed. The Great Depression hurt the countries the most with a currency that wasn 't gold (Steindl 180). During the Great Depression the one stable currency was gold. With gold being the only stable source of currency and there being very little gold, prices in most countries were impacted. The value of gold affects prices of imports and exports, when the U.S got rid gold, money had no value (Temin 115-116). The depression could have gone a lot differently, but many countries wanted to keep their original currency. For example, on October 7 Britain started using paper money instead of coins, many people worried this change would affect them greatly (Romer 72). According to Steindl “the most undesired consequence of 1934 was devotion against gold”(181). This devotion against gold is one of the reasons people think the depression went on for almost 10 years. The most common theory for the end of the Great Depression was the money put into the economy from World War II. During the depression, currency wasn’t the only issue that impacted the United States. The American people also really struggled with the economy, public health, and jobs. The start of the Great Depression had a horrible impact on the U.S. unemployment and banking industry (Stuckler et al. 410). Unemployment was …show more content…
“Peddling Protectionism: Smoot-Hawley and the Great Depression.” Cato Journal 31.3 (2011): 661-665. ProQuest. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.
Grytten, Ola Honningdal. “Why was the Great Depression not so Great in the Nordic Countries? Economic Policy and Unemployment”. The Journal of European Economic Studies 37.⅔ (2008): 369-393, 395-403. ProQuest. Web. 19 October 2016
Romer, Christina D, Romer, David H. “The Missing Transmission Mechanism in the Monetary in the Money Explanation of the Great Depression.” American Economic Review 103.3 (2013): 66-72. ProQuest. Web. 12 Sept. 2016.
Steindl, Frank G. “What Ended the Great Depression? It Was Not World War II.” Independent Review 12.2 (2007): 179-197. ProQuest. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.
Stuckler, David et al. “Banking Crises and Mortality during the Great Depression: Evidence from US Urban Populations, 1929-1937.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 66.5 (2012): 410. ProQuest. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.
Temin, Peter. “The Great Recession & the Great Depression.” MIT Press 139.4 (2010): 115-124, 130. Proquest. Web. 16 Sept.

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