America's Dark Period of the Great Depression

The Great Depression is one of the darkest periods in America’s history. It was a time of despair for all Americans. The Great Depression was caused by various reasons. It also had many effects which left an impact on America still up to this day. At that time, there was no abundance of anything: not jobs, not food, and certainly not an abundance of money, but there was surely an abundance of sadness. America had no hope since the money was a thin, green line. The Great Depression impacted the economy, unemployment rate, other foreign countries, and the many lives of the people. The monstrosity officially began on October 29, 1929.

The most major cause that led to the Great Depression was the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Most Americans, however, also remember it as Black Tuesday, when the stock market crashed. That day, the stock market dropped violently, losing most of its value. The Dow Jones Industrial average fell by 13%. In less than eight weeks, the market lost a total of 40% of its value. Then after three years, the Dow Jones Industrial lost 89% of its value. Stock holders lost 10 billion dollars and New York Stock Exchange lost 5 billion dollars after Black Tuesday. Unfortunately, Black Tuesday was only the beginning, and it had already impacted the economy very heavily. Soon, there was more to lose.

Another cause were bank failures. Banks began to fail immediately after the crash of the stock market. Overnight, thousands of people started to withdraw their money form their banks, leaving banks with no or little money to give to businesses and farmers. Some people even lost all their money because banks were not insured. Because the banks failed, they ran out of business and shut down. Luckily, there were still a couple...

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...tration (WPA), and Social Security Act. These policies helped improve America's economy greatly and got it back on track. The use of radio became very popular since that was the way President Roosevelt kept updating citizens. The Great Depression, however, didn't really end until it joined World War 2. When America got involved in the war, people and industries worked very hard to provide supplies for the war. Men went to train to become soldiers, while women kept factories going. War jobs took up 17 million unemployed men. Enrty to the war caused the unemployment rate down to 2%. With the help from the Congress, America finally made it out of the Great Depression. The Congress cut top income tax rate from 94% to 82%, they repealed the excess profits tax, which absorbed more than 1/3 of all corporate profits since 1943, and cut corporate tax from 40% to 38% in 1946.