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The Great Depression - The New York Times. A Short History of the Great Depression. By Nick Taylor, the author of “American- Made” (2. Works Progress Administration. The Great Depression was a worldwide economic crisis that in the United States was marked by widespread unemployment, near halts in industrial production and construction, and an 8. It was preceded by the so- called New Era, a time of low unemployment when general prosperity masked vast disparities in income. The start of the Depression is usually pegged to the stock market crash of “Black Tuesday,” Oct. Dow Jones Industrial Average fell almost 2. But it was just one in a series of losses during a time of extreme market volatility that exposed those who had bought stocks “on margin” — with borrowed money. The stock market continued to decline despite brief rallies. Great Depression Series – Video #3. Video #1: Marriage Advice. Video #2: Living Through the Great Depression. Unemployment rose and wages fell for those who continued to work. The use of credit for the purchase of homes, cars, furniture and household appliances resulted in foreclosures and repossessions. As consumers lost buying power industrial production fell, businesses failed, and more workers lost their jobs. Farmers were caught in a depression of their own that had extended through much of the 1. This was caused by the collapse of food prices with the loss of export markets after World War I and years of drought that were marked by huge dust storms that blackened skies at noon and scoured the land of topsoil. As city dwellers lost their homes, farmers also lost their land and equipment to foreclosure. President Herbert Hoover, a Republican and former Commerce secretary, believed the government should monitor the economy and encourage counter- cyclical spending to ease downturns, but not directly intervene.
As the jobless population grew, he resisted calls from Congress, governors, and mayors to combat unemployment by financing public service jobs. He encouraged the creation of such jobs, but said it was up to state and local governments to pay for them. He also believed that relieving the suffering of the unemployed was solely up to local governments and private charities. A timeline of the Great Depression from the American Experience documentary. Great Depression & WWII. Learn more about The Great Depression of the 1930s. 1929 set in motion a series of events that led to the Great. FDR’s New Deal policies to save America’s economy during the Great Depression. The Great Depression: A Great Disaster A. Browse the latest The Great Depression videos and more on HISTORY.com. Check out exclusive The Great Depression videos and features. By 1. 93. 2 the unemployment rate had soared past 2. Thousands of banks and businesses had failed. Millions were homeless. Men (and women) returned home from fruitless job hunts to find their dwellings padlocked and their possessions and families turned into the street. Many drifted from town to town looking for non- existent jobs. Many more lived at the edges of cities in makeshift shantytowns their residents derisively called Hoovervilles. People foraged in dumps and garbage cans for food. The presidential campaign of 1. Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the Democratic nomination and campaigned on a platform of attention to “the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.” Hoover continued to insist it was not the government’s job to address the growing social crisis. Roosevelt won in a landslide. He took office on March 4, 1. Roosevelt faced a banking crisis and unemployment that had reached 2. Thirteen to 1. 5 million workers had no jobs. Banks regained their equilibrium after Roosevelt persuaded Congress to declare a nationwide bank holiday. He offered and Congress passed a series of emergency measures that came to characterize his promise of a “new deal for the American people.” The legislative tally of the new administration’s first hundred days reformed banking and the stock market; insured private bank deposits; protected home mortgages; sought to stabilize industrial and agricultural production; created a program to build large public works and another to build hydroelectric dams to bring power to the rural South; brought federal relief to millions, and sent thousands of young men into the national parks and forests to plant trees and control erosion. The parks and forests program, called the Civilian Conservation Corps, was the first so- called work relief program that provided federally funded jobs. Roosevelt later created a large- scale temporary jobs program during the winter of 1. The Civil Works Administration employed more than four million men and women at jobs from building and repairing roads and bridges, parks, playgrounds and public buildings to creating art. Unemployment, however, persisted at high levels. That led the administration to create a permanent jobs program, the Works Progress Administration. To accommodate unions that were growing stronger at the time, the W. P. A. In response, Roosevelt made the misstep of trying to “pack” the Supreme Court with additional justices. Congress rejected this 1. New Deal measures, but not before the Social Security Act creating old- age pensions went into effect. Brightening economic prospects were dashed in 1. The new downturn rolled back gains in industrial production and employment, prolonged the Depression and caused Roosevelt to increase the work relief rolls of the W. P. A. Despite the New Deal’s many measures and their alleviation of the worst effects of the Great Depression, it was the humming factories that supplied the American war effort that finally brought the Depression to a close. And it was not until 1. Depression levels.
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