Personal Reflective Essay: The Great Depression

Imagine this. You wake up one morning in the year 1929, in your luxurious, pricey mansion. You then make your way downstairs to eat that nice big breakfast. Then you kiss your family good bye and head off to your fancy job. You come home that evening and suddenly you’re flat broke. Meaning all your money and life’s savings vanished. Unreal right? Well it was real for hundreds of families on October 29, 1929. The day the stock market crashed and when America’s confidence was challenged greatly.

There is much debate as to what caused the Great Depression. There was certainly the short-term trigger of the Stock Market Crash of 1929, but there are also long-term causes that manifested itself during the 1920’s. Whether it is the shift from coal to electricity that negatively affected those invested with the old technology, or a shift more to trucks and cars to transport goods instead of railroads, or perhaps that farmers were losing their farms because over over-investment during the late 1910’s, many factors can be identified as a cause. But we can also look at the consumer as one of the root causes, as well. Consumer behavior contributed heavily to causing both the stock market crash and the Great Depression.

The two sources are both primary because they are documented letters by individuals who wrote letters to prominent people in certain positions of authority during the “Great Depression.” The first letter was written by a taxpayer from Hornell, New York March 7, 1934 and the other letter was written by a male (D.B.P.) during the timeline reference of 1929-1939. The questions the first letter raises are about the relief agencies in the United States and the possible need for investigation of the type of work the agencies were performing. The other questions dealt with are the agencies giving relief to ignorant foreigners who might not be citizens deserving of assistance because they were here in the United States by illegal means. The first letter considering the frame of reference during the time of the “Great Depression” of 1929 – 1939 digressed toward immigration and

During the 1920’s America was experiencing great economic growth. As WWI was ending Americans were out of energy. For almost 100 years they had been facing the problems of sectionalism, civil war, reconstruction, imperialism, and WWI. By the end they were ready to just sit back and party. Demand sky-rocketed and brought great economic growth. Americans failed to see the great problem looming overhead though. The Great Depression was caused by a combination of factors- a natural slowdown of the business cycle, weaknesses of the 1290’s economy magnified the slowdown, the republican response failed to help, a great environmental disaster, and the collapse of the world economy all contributed to the cause of the Great

Throughout the many years of the Great Depression, the American economy plummeted greatly because of ongoing issues throughout the United States. The American market, and essentially continuously buying, are what keeps an economy in any country moving. The point at issue which allowed the economy to go down consists of three major factors. All three of these aspects took a great amount of citizens down along with all of their profits. Families, businesses, and employees struggled to stay standing during this time period. The American economy suffered this vast plunge because speculation in the stock market, maldistribution of income, and overproduction of goods.

     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.

¨Fortunately, we were able to save our house from foreclosure.¨ Citizens struggled in the 1930’s due to rough times. This event was known as the Great Depression. The Great Depression had a negative effect on the people who fought through the economic fatality. Many individuals had to take on multiple jobs to try to bring in additional money to deal with the grim situation.

Many adolescents, In the Great Depression, received the full affects and suffered. Some were left hungry, impoverished, and hopeless, how are adolescents today compared? The 30’s were a time of great distress for many Americans. Events such as the stock market crash, an economy suffering from being inflated, overuse of credit, a farming crisis, and other events led America to the economic downfall known as the Great Depression. During the great depression, the unemployment was high, the wages were low, lines stretched around the city for food, families that lost their house had to live in makeshift homes in communities called hoovervilles, and children had to stop school to work for money. Teens effected by the Great Depression worked

Canada is a nation constructed from small stones of determination, and piles of perseverance. Today, Canada stands tall as a beacon of democracy and a fortress of ideological freedom. From the small stones of determination, to the status it wears proudly today, much has changed. It is the history that has shaped Canada into the nation it is; from the victorious moments to the days of misery and hardship. A prominent decade of true misery and hardship recalled by Canadians is the Great Depression. The Great Depression of the 1930s was a time of severe poverty, unemployment and unjust treatment experienced like never before by Canada. The Great Depression was unforeseen, yet inevitable. The Great Depression led many families to undertake

Pain, despair, loss, depression, anxiety. Those are the things that somehow made me as I am today. On October 8th I was born, a happy baby who had no idea the rough road ahead. When I was in second grade my parents got divorced. I was close to my mom so when she moved away I was lost in a whole new way. My dad had always had some anger issues but when they split it was a little more frequent. I had to move schools the next year and it was weird because I didn’t know anything about public school. I remember one day a girl walked up to me and asked if I wore mascara and I didn’t even know what that was. I didn’t know how to make friends, so I decided to be friends with the first person I met. That was a big mistake because she was just

When a person hears the words “The Great Depression,” almost everyone thinks of the worst economic times in the United States. The Great Depression started in the late 1920s and continued on until the early 1940s. It is known as being “the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the western industrialized world” (History.com). We can learn from the occurrences during The Great Depression that government involvement is the deciding factor of whether an economy will expand or continue to shrink during a recession.

The 1920’s was a very prosperous period for many Americans. Food production increased 64 percent, worker productivity increased by 40 percent, electricity sales doubled, fuel consumption more than doubled, and pay was increased for many industrial workers (Davidson, 2008). With the soaring economy and new items hitting the shelves all the time, American consumers were living the high life. Even if you wanted something and did not have the money you could simply get it on credit and pay for it later. After all, the economy was showing signs of immense economic prosperity with productivity at an all time high what could go wrong. Construction soared with the building of new skyscrapers, suburbs, and road construction.

The Great Depression was a time in American history that not only affected the United States deeply, but also the rest of the world (Irwin). Jobs were tough to come by, the stock market was poor, and the American people lacked strong government leadership for a time. In Europe, countries recovering from the great losses of World War I were buried once again in debt and turmoil. The Great Depression was a consequence of many actions of greedy men in a consumer driven economy. In order to understand the Great Depression, one must look at the prosperity beforehand. The Great Depression was caused by the lack of responsibility amongst consumers and businessmen, poor banking practices, and the absence of government leadership and regulation in industry.

They always say that depression is something that’s all in your head. It’s something made up, something fabricated by your own selfish internal world. You don’t realize when it hits you or how it hits you. One day you just realize you no longer know how to feel; you’ve become numb. Growing up I was happy. I lived a happy life. I had a bed of my own and a roof over my head. I was surrounded by friends and family who loved me. I was content for as long as I can remember.

The first act FDR passed was the Emergency Banking Reliefs Act. That gave the federal government control over the banks. The next significant act passed was the, National Industrial Recovery Act. Another significant act that Roosevelt pushed for was the National Labor Relations Act. The Social Security act played a huge role in America. One of the more significant acts passed was the Aid to Department Children act.