Historians argue what caused the Great Depression, some say it was due to the stock market, others say it may be the war debt or overproduction. To believe the Great Depression was caused by only one event is naive. It was caused by a multitude of problems that the government failed to fix.
The Great Depression of the 1930’s was caused by many problems. They include overproduction, monetary policy, war debt, tariffs, the stock market crash, and unequal distribution of wealth. These each play a specific and intricate role in bringing the U.S economy to its knees.
Before the depression happened many factories and farms alike, were producing mass amounts of cheap goods/produce, more than people could buy. This led to product prices falling, due
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The stock market crash, called Black Tuesday. Unequal distribution of wealth was a key factor during the time period as well. The day know as “Black Tuesday” was the day the stock market crashed. This led to the fall of stock prices, in fear, people sold their stocks and gathered the money they could. The people who didn’t, lost all of their stocks. Those who bought them on credit, they were now in debt. Investors lost a collective amount equal to the amount spent in WWI, that’s billions of dollars gone, approximately thirty-two billion dollars (32,000,000,000). As bad as the crash was, unequal distribution of wealth did not help. The rich saw an income increase of 70%, and the poor saw an increase of 9%. More than 70% of families earned less than $2500/year. Many of these families couldn't afford household products, such as the flood of overproduced goods. Only one out of ten families owned an electric refrigerator. One thing many people overlook when on the subject of the Great Depression is the president's influence on the situation. The two presidents during this time were Herbet Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hoover was in office during the collapse of the economy, he didn’t believe in national relief, he believed in self-prevalence and self-help. His beliefs didn’t get the confidence of the people, in 1933, a fourth of working American’s were out of a job, that’s more than fifteen million people unemployed. Many people disliked Hoover, so when they needed to make a home out of paper, glass, tin, or whatever they could find, they named the towns constructed from these items “Hoovervilles”. They were found mostly on the outside of cities. Hoover's idea of self-reliance didn’t get him reelected, he lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Roosevelt brought forward a new strategy to take on the economic problems, it was called the New Deal. The New Deal was a series of actions him and his
To begin with, the first cause of the Great Depression was the bank failures during that time. Prior to the Stock Market Crash of 1929, banks were renting out money to consumers without doing any kind of speculations. The people who rented the money would then go on and invest that money into the stock market not knowing it was going to crash. Once the market crashed, banks were dealt with a huge deficit
The Great Depression was a time of great economic tragedy during the 1930’s. October 24, 1929 was the day of the stock market crash, causing economical shortage everywhere, even globally, and this scared everyone, including the rich. This day was/ is known as “Black Thursday”, where over 2.9 million shares were traded. On “Black Tuesday”, five days later, more than 16 million more shares were traded in another wave of panic. Many investors then lost confidence in their banks and demanded deposits in cash which forced the banks to liquidate loans in order to supplement their on hand cash reserves. By 1933, around 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. This stopped Americans from purchasing which then led to less production of goods and decreased the amount of needed human labor. In the end, millions of shares ended up worthless, and those investors who had bought stocks with borrowed money were wiped out completely.
There were many causes to the Great Depression. Many people would debate how many there were exactly. Out of all of them, here are four of the bigger ones. International payment problems, unequal distribution of wealth, the banking system, and overproduction.
The Great Depression was caused by many factors built up over time. The stock market crash, driven by greedy investors hoping for profit, was a vital cause of the Great Depression. In a 1952 article, Harry Carman and Harold Syrett claimed that the speculative boom between 1927 and 1929 was the leading cause of the Great Depression (Document C). They expanded on the idea that investors bid on stocks to the point that they became invaluable, forcing stock prices up.
The first main cause of the Great Depression was The Stock Market Crash of 1929. On October 29, 1929 the New York Stock Exchange experienced a huge downfall that was detrimental to the US economy. For example, in Document 3 the title of the newspaper article is, “Stock prices Slump $14,000,000,000 In Nationwide Stampede To Unload Bankers To Support The Market Today.” These losses that occurred because of this crash were probably the most devastating ever experienced in the stock market. Because of
Second cause of the great depression is the uneven distribution of wealth. Business owners made huge profit from the beginning of the Roaring Twenties. These business owners did not deal with the low wages of their workers. As a result, the workers were not able to afford goods as these companies produced them. Also, after the world war one, the European nations owed America billions of dollars. The economy of these European countries was devastating; thus, there was no way for these countries to repay.
The Great Depression was a dreadful worldwide economic depression that occurred in the 1930s and it was the most profound and longest depression in the American History, which lasted from 1929-1939. Although the Great Depression began soon after the crash of the stock market in October 1929, it is too straightforward to say that that was the major cause of the Great Depression. This crash did not by itself cause the Great Depression. Even before the year 1929, signs of economic trouble had become evident. (Give Me Liberty! An American History, 5TH Edition, Eric Foner, Pg 811).
There were easily multiple causes for the start of the Great Depression in 1929. Many historians and economists put emphasis on organizational causes such as actions by the Federal Reserve. Often part of any business cycle are recessions due to the changes of supply and demand, but what turns this business cycle into a depression is always up for debate. In the case of the Great Depression, the stock market crash of 1929, bank failures, debt deflation, and American economic policies with Europe
There were several factors that played a major role in the Great Depression. The main explanation was overproduction of both farm and factory and the unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920s. The excessive speculation in the 1920s kept the stock market at a deceitful high, and came crashing down in 1929. Over extended credit at
The next major factor that contributed to the Great Depression was the reduction of goods being purchased during the time period. After the stock market crashed, consumers from
Many people think that the Great Depression was caused solely by the stock market crash. Anybody who tells you this probably didn’t pass U.S. History in high school. The fact is, the Great Depression was caused many different factors. Four of which were overproduction, uneven distribution of wealth, protective tariffs, and the four “sick industries” of the 1920’s.
There were many causes of the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Some of the major reasons the Depression took place, listed from the most important to the least, are the cycle of lay-offs, the stock market crash, credit buying, natural disasters, and government policies.
In 1929, the United States Stock Market crashed. However, this “most disastrous day” that sparked the Great Depression did not occur out of the blue. There were many contributing factors to the Great Depression of the 1930s, the most influential being stock speculation and installment buying of goods, maldistribution of income, and the overproduction of goods. These three topics led up to the Bull Market Boom and the Great Depression.
The causes of the Great Depression of the 1920's and 1930's has been argued about for generations. Most people agree on several key topics and that it was the severity and length of time the Depression lasted that was actually the most remarkable. Hoover made many noteworthy attempts to try and solve this crisis, yet in the end it was President Roosevelt and his "New Deal", that brought many Americans hope for the future.
The Great Depression was a difficult time for all the American people. It was a time of unemployment, falling wages, and hope for recovery (“Chapter 27”). Some of the causes of the Great Depression were government policies, economic factors, and the gold standard (“Chapter 27”). Other reasons included the fall of the stock market, overseas investments, and the investments in Florida real estate (Farless). The president at the time of this difficult time was President Herbert Hoover. When the Great Depression started, Herbert Hoover took matters into his own hands. President Herbert Hoover came up with multiple recovery attempts.