The Great American Depression of the 1930s :: American History Essays

The Great American Depression of the 1930sThe sparing depression that beset the United States and some other countries inthe 1930s was rummy in its magnitude and its consequences. At the depth ofthe depression, in 1933, one American worker in every quaternary was out of a job.In other countries unemployment ranged between 15 percent and 25 percent ofthe weary force. The great industrial slump continue throughout the 1930s,shaking the foundations of western sandwich capitalism and the society based upon it.Economic Aspects President Calvin COOLIDGE had said during the vast prosperity of the 1920sthat The headache of America is business. Despite the seeming businessprosperity of the 1920s, however, there were serious stinting weak spots, a straits one being a depression in the agricultural sector. overly depressedwere such industries as coal mining, railroads, and textiles. Throughoutthe 1920s, U. S. banks had failed--an average of 600 per year--as hadthousands of other business firms. By 1928 the construction boom was over.The spectacular rise in prices on the STOCK MARKET from 1924 to 1929 borelittle relation to literal economic conditions. In fact, the boom in thestock market and in real estate, along with the expansion in credit(created, in part, by low-paid workers buying on credit) and lofty profitsfor a few industries, hide basic problems. Thus the U. S. stock marketcrash that occurred in October 1929, with great losses, was not thefundamental cause of the Great Depression, although the crash sparked, andcertainly marked the beginning of, the most traumatic economic period ofmodern times. By 1930, the slump was apparent, but few people expected it to continue antecedent financial PANICS and depressions had reversed in a year or two.The popular forces of economic expansion had vanished, however. Technologyhad eliminated more industrial jobs than it had created the supply ofgoods continued to exceed demand the world market system was basicallyun sound. The high tariffs of the Smoot-Hawley Act (1930) exacerbated thedownturn. As business failures increased and unemployment soared--and aspeople with dwindling away incomes nonetheless had to pay their creditors--itwas apparent that the United States was in the grip of economic breakdown.Most European countries were hit even harder, because they had not yet richly recovered from the ravages of World War I.) The deepening depression essentially coincided with the bourne in office(1929-33) of President Herbert HOOVER. The stark statistics scarcely conveythe mourning of the millions of people who lost jobs, savings, and homes.From 1930 to 1933 industrial stocks lost 80% of their value. In the four