The Great Depression Research Paper

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The Great Depression

The decade of the 1920s, was a roaring and wonderful time for most people, but this careless life they lived, soon came to an end During the time of luxury soon after World War I, becoming rich was thought to be "easy" What people certainly did not realize, was that it was not The american society only thought about money and new ways to make it grow and not about the consequences that came with it Newspapers even convinced the people of it and told them it was safe (Nancy Millichap). The great Crash on October 29th, 1929 came unexpected for a few people and was the start of an economic crisis and life full of misery. While life would be different now if the Great Depression had never happened, it did happen and
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After October 29th, only few Americans believed that a decade long depression was soon to be there, but their minds rapidly changed as ninety percent of households had zero shares of stock (US History). Banks closed down, once and for all, savings disappeared as though they had never existed so the citizens had even less money to spend on goods and services (US History). This then led people to perform odd jobs like doing laundry or collecting and later selling apples, only to get a little bit of money to live on (US History). Unemployment was the next major problem which rose from 1,5 million Americans in 1929, to twelve million in 1932 (US History).That means that it had soared to twenty-five percent up from 3,2 percent. Businesses began to lay off workers to offset new losses, but since that only caused more unemployment, the economy slowed down even more and less money was there to spend (US History). Even the lucky people who kept their job had to suffer under the economic crisis, as their income decreased by approximately a third (sinking deeper and deeper). It was particularly hard for Mexicans in California and African Americans over the country as they still got discriminated and were usually the last ones to get hired and the first ones to get fired (Deeper and Deeper). Unemployment rates of African Americans were nearly twice as high as the white communities (US history). Californian Mexicans, however, were a bit more lucky, if that is what it may be called. They got offered a one-way-ticket back to Mexico, to decrease the unemployment rate (US History). Also, citizens of Oklahoma had a great deal to suffer. They got hit by a drought in the 1930s, which forced people to leave their homes and move to the west of the country without any money or property (US History). Not having any property then caused people to commit

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