Oftentimes people say, “History repeats itself,” and yes while sometimes that may be the case, it is still important to understand and study history and the effects it has. History is important to understand, in order for the people of today to progress and learn from the past. A way to illustrate history’s value is by studying the periods before, during, and after the Great Depression. When reviewing the Great Depression it is evident what lead up to it, how these factors can be avoided, and what to can be done in order for change to occur. There are essential questions historians must ask themselves such as, “How did it get to this,” “What measures were taken in order to change this fate,” and “How can the government ensure this does not …show more content…
Only after asking this question can they delve into the overarching question, which is, “What lead to this.” In terms of the great depression, the answer to the first two question is, millions of Americans are jobless, and this stems from the stock market crash of 1929 caused by a lack of regulation in the banking system, speculation, and consumers buying on credit. It is important to note that different historians are going to walk away with different answers to the question “What lead to this.” when they partake in their study. This does not mean that they are wrong. In fact, this is one of history’s hidden beauties. Different people see different things; someone may see something that we have glossed over or thought of as having little or no meaning. That is why it is important to have many people study history, so that society may benefit from different …show more content…
As mentioned earlier, there will be different answers, which is essential to providing more than one reason for the cause in this study. In order to prevent a wide-scale depression again, Roosevelt began to take action in his first 100 days in office in order to gain the trust of his citizens. He established the SEC, the FDIC, which began regulating and insuring banks, and he used Keynesian economics, aka deficit spending to establish jobs for unemployed Americans, as well as the establishment of social security to provide relief for the bottom percentage of Americans who were without unemployment or elderly. Now if a historian believes these factors lead to the reversal of the depression, he then can formulate an argument in which he explains his thought process. Responses from historians are the backbone of legislation they provide ammo in which to strike down deficiencies in the government. There is also value in the responses, in case a nation finds itself in the same position again and in the midst of a depression, it may use the works of historians in an attempt to bring economic stability to its country. The plethora of knowledge citizens today have access to can be read and applied to real-life situations in an attempt to fix these issues if history repeats itself then the
FDR's Response to the Great Depression. The stock market crash of 1929 set in motion a chain of events that would plunge the United States into a deep depression. The Great Depression of the 1930's spelled the end of an era of economic prosperity during the 1920's. Herbert Hoover was the unlucky president to preside over this economic downturn, and he bore the brunt of the blame for the depression.
The Great Depression was the biggest and longest lasting economic crisis in U.S history. The Great depression hit the united states on October 29, 1929 When the stock market crashed. During 1929, everyone was putting in mass amounts of their income into the stock market. For every ten dollars made, Four dollars was invested into the stock market, thats forty percent of the individual's income (American Experience).
Weize Tan History 7B 3/09/14. Chapter 23 1. What is the difference between a. and a. What were some of the causes of the Great Depression? What made it so severe, and why did it last so long? a.
The Great Depression was one of the greatest challenges that the United States faced during the twentieth century. It sidelined not only the economy of America, but also that of the entire world. The Depression was unlike anything that had been seen before. It was more prolonged and influential than any economic downturn in the history of the United States. The Depression struck fear in the government and the American people because it was so different. Calvin Coolidge even said, "In other periods of depression, it has always been possible to see some things which were solid and upon which you could base hope, but as I look about, I now see nothing to give ground to hope—nothing of man." People were scared and did not know what to do to address the looming economic crash. As a result of the Depression’s seriousness and severity, it took unconventional methods to fix the economy and get it going again. Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration had to think outside the box to fix the economy. The administration changed the role of the government in the lives of the people, the economy, and the world. As a result of the abnormal nature of the Depression, the FDR administration had to experiment with different programs and approaches to the issue, as stated by William Lloyd Garrison when he describes the new deal as both assisting and slowing the recovery. Some of the programs, such as the FDIC and works programs, were successful; however, others like the NIRA did little to address the economic issue. Additionally, the FDR administration also created a role for the federal government in the everyday lives of the American people by providing jobs through the works program and establishing the precedent of Social Security...
There are several causes of the Great Depression which Michiel Horn touches on throughout his writings. The initial tool that he used to help understand the situation was to look at statistical data from that time. Through use of this data, a greater understanding of the physical hardships could be quantified and compared to present day. The reading begins with statistics about the shocking rate of unemployment. In 1933, at the height of the depression, the unemployment rate was between 19.3and 27 percent. The industrial activity in 1933 was only 57 percent of the average activity for the years 1925-29. The causes for the Great Depression were easy to see, but hard to fix. The problems included the inability of foreign countries to purchase surplus goods produced by other countries. Before the Great Depression, the British used this tactic to stabilize the market. Unfort...
There were many causes of the Great Depression (need help on the first sentence). Yes, the stock market crash was a main reason of the Depression, but it actually began long before that, with the Roaring 20’s. With such a large disparity between the rich and the poor, the overproduction of goods (too much too quickly), and people racing to buy stocks, it was only fitting that it would soon come to an end. Before it actually crashed, the stock market played an important factor leading up to the Great Depression as well. As people were borrowing money to pay for stocks (on margin), they became more and more in debt, and caused the stock market crash to be a huge surprise to them. During the summer of 1929, an “ordinary recession” occurred, where people stopped buying things and goods piled up, due to their debt. Also, bank firms, which had received record profits during the ’20s, had invested their money into expanding, but as workers were no longer able to continue expanding it, soon had to close. (need help on a thesis statement)
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the start of the great depression which hit America and much of the industrialised world during the 1930’s. The cycle of prosperity turned into a spiral of depression as consumer spending fell by almost half, unemployment rose to over 12 million and there was widespread poverty and homelessness. The Hoover government’s ‘rugged individualism’ meant that people did not receive any relief from the federal government and led to a loss in support for Hoover as people blamed him for their problems. After his landslide victory in 1932, President Roosevelt vowed that through his reforms and economic policies, America would return to the road of prosperity. In 1933 he set out the ‘New Deal’ which sought to deliver relief, recovery, and reform. It could be argued that although the New Deal was effective in certain aspects such as short term relief, it did not end the depression; rather the war was the decisive factor.
The trouble with this view is that it completely ignores some important facts. The entire time that Roosevelt was in office, the economy improved except for 13 months in 1937-1938 when farms were the only ones getting government subsidies. Unemployment again went through the roof until the government stepped back in. And in the end, the Second World War is what ended the Depression through a large amount of government spending!
After the depression America was in a state mass hysteria as the Wall Street crash had caused a massive crisis among the American public because the impact of the wall street crash caused 12 million people out of work, it also caused 20,000 companies to go bankrupt and there were 23,000 suicides in one year because of the wall street crash this was the highest amount of suicides in a year ever. The main aims of the new deal were Relief, Recovery and Reform, Relief was for the Homeless and Unemployed, recovery was for Industry, Agriculture and Banks and Reform was to prevent the depression form happening again. The structure of The New Deal was the First Hundred Days (1933) where he would focus on relief by helping the homeless and unemployed and recovery by helping industry, agriculture and banks, there was also the Second New Deal where he would focus on Reform, preventing the depression from happening again. Roosevelt believed that the government should help those people worst affected by the depression, this is why he created over 50 alphabet agencies to deal with the problems caused by the depression, this is why he introduced the new deal because he wanted to ease the pressure
The Great Depression was a period, which seemed to go out of control. The crashing of the stock markets left most Canadians unemployed and in debt, prairie farmers suffered immensely with the inability to produce valuable crops, and the Canadian Government and World War II became influential factors in the ending of the Great Depression.
The Great Depression was one of the most important historical events that has happened within the last century that impacted every Americans life one way or another. There were many factors that could be an explanation of why The Great Depression happened, but there is no one definitive list of the reasons of what caused The Great Depression. It was a mixture of events in the United States and outside of it that probably led to this period of time to happen. The main reason that everyone could agree on was the event of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Because of The Crash, it made people go on a bank run which made thousands of banks to close because they simply did not have all the money for all the people wanting to withdraw their savings. Because everyone was trying to take their savings out, most people were turned down by the bank and essentially lost of their savings in the bank. The banks were failing and because they had no more money left, this stopped the banks from having available credit for people to use which made matters even worse for the people. This leads people to poverty and were left with nothing. Because people were poor and were scared of spending their money now, it made people stop buying extra things that weren't essential to live. This was the cause of the unemployment rates during this time period because if no one was buying anything, then there was no reason to keep extra workers for things people are not buying.
In response to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt was ready for action unlike the previous President, Hubert Hoover. Hoover allowed the country to fall into a complete state of depression with his small concern of the major economic problems occurring. FDR began to show major and immediate improvements, with his outstanding actions during the First Hundred Days. He declared the bank holiday as well as setting up the New Deal policy. Hoover on the other hand; allowed the U.S. to slide right into the depression, giving Americans the power to blame him. Although he tried his best to improve the economy’s status during the depression and ‘pump the well’ for the economy, he eventually accepted that the Great Depression was inevitable.
Great Depression was one of the most severe economic situation the world had ever seen. It all started during late 1929 and lasted till 1939. Although, the origin of depression was United Sattes but with US Economy being highly correlated with global economy, the ill efffects were seen in the whole world with high unemployment, low production and deflation. Overall it was the most severe depression ever faced by western industrialized world. Stock Market Crashes, Bank Failures and a lot more, left the governments ineffective and this lead the global economy to what we call today- ‘’Great Depression’’.(Rockoff). As for the cause and what lead to Great Depression, the issue is still in debate among eminent economists, but the crux provides evidence that the worst ever depression ever expereinced by Global Economy stemed from multiple causes which are as follows:
The US government’s role in the Great Depression has been very controversy. Different hypothesizes argued differently on the causes of the Great depression and whether the New Deal introduced by the government and President Roosevelt helped United States got out of the depression. I would argue that even though not the only factor, the US government did lead the country into the Great Depression and the New Deal actually delayed the recovery process. I will discuss five different factors (stock market crash, bank failure, tariff and tax cut, consumer spending and agriculture) that are commonly accepted to cause the depression and how the government linked to them. Furthermore, I will try to show how the government prolonged the depression in the United States by introducing the New Deal.
As corny as this sounds, history really does have a way of repeating itself. It’s up to the people like us, the future leaders of the country to decide if the good things or the bad things are the ones that will repeat themselves. Events that lead to the stock market crash, which lead to the great depression are being avoided, things that lead countries to war are being dealt with today in a different manner because no one wants another world war, Democracy, the longest standing form of government in the United States, is being spread around the world to avoid such conflicts that occurred with dictatorships in the past, and the newest problem, terrorism, that is occurring in today’s world, will be and is being looked at.