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The great depression began in the u.s on October 29, 1929, when the stock market suddenly crashed. The losses from that entire week totaled $30 billion, which would be equal to $377,587,032,770.41 today.
The day the stock market crashed was so grim that people named in “black Tuesday”. The value of the stock market continued to shrink for several years after black Tuesday, as well.The stock market`s value, which had been at 386.10 in September of 1929, reached an all-time low in July of 1932, when it fell to 40.60. In less than three years, the stock market had lost a total of 89 percent of its value.
The majority of people who had invested money in the stock market lost their savings. The stock market crash also caused many banks to close, which in turn led to morepeople losing money. The effects of the great depression were so astounding that they lasted until the early 1940s and could be felt around the entire world.
The world`s economies had experienced economic recessions and even depressions many times in the decades prior to 1929. However, none had reached the severity, in terms of both financial loss and duration, of that experienced during the 1930s, aperiod now known as the great depression. Many nations felt its effects, but few suffered as extensively as the United Estates. In America, thousands of banks and businesses failed, and unemployment and homelessness prevailed into the early 1940s.
While the exact combination of financial and social factors that caused the great depression will likely never be fully understood, one event isrecognized as its initial manifestation: the U.S. stock market crash of late October, 1929. As stock values plummeted, investors panicked and sold their shares al loss, crippling entire companies in the process.
Average Americans, worried about access to their savings, made massive withdrawals, which in turn led to a series of bank collapses. Funds evaporated, employers could not afford to compensatetheir workers, and farmers and homeowners became unable to pay their mortgages. Widespread homelessness and unemployment was the result, with the latter reaching a figure of 25% by 1932.
The American leader presiding over this financial disaster was Herbert Hoover. Following a philosophy of limited government, he refused to take federal action to stem the collapse, believing the market wouldcorrect itself. Needless to say, the millions of Americans living without work or shelter did not support this tactic. So it was not unexpected when, in the elections of 1932, Hoover was overwhelmingly defeated by challenger Franklin Roosevelt, who promised decisive government action to end the depression.
Roosevelt immediately instituted a bundle of policies he termed the new deal, aimed at rightingthe U.S. economy through federal intervention. He placed a temporary ban on bank withdrawals to prevent more bank failures and passed laws to support the recovery of businesses. He distributed money to families for food and clothing purchases, implemented a program of unemployment compensation, and founded the social security system to provide financial assistance to the elderly. Moreover, thenew deal created numerous government agencies to generate employment. These included the civilian conservation corps, which hired workers to replant deforested areas; the works progress administration, which created jobs in construction as well as among artists; and the Tennessee valley authority, which extended electricity service to rural communities through hydroelectric projects.
Despite thebreadth of the new deal policies, they were more successful in halting the depression than reversing it. It was not until America`s soldiers and, consequently, its industries became engaged in world war II that true recovery occurred. However, many of Roosevelt`s programs, such as unemployment compensation and social security, remain, and today they are considered fundamentals of American society....
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