Black Tuesday: The Cause Of The Great Depression
History.com recounts that in one year 4 million people were unemployed and by the next year another 2 million were added to that leaving 6 million Americans without jobs by 1931 (The Great Depression). On October 29, 1929, also known as “Black Tuesday”, the stock market crashed. This was caused by the trade of millions of stocks in one single day, sending Wall Street into a panic and naming the start of ten year economic depression. Following the crash, many American people rushed to the banks to retrieve their money and savings but at this time the banks did not have enough actual cash to give each person their invested amount in full starting the historical event known as the Bank Run. At this time, Herbert Hoover was in the Presidential Office and many of the American citizens blamed the economy’s downfall on him, even naming their shantytowns “Hoovervilles” to insult him and his failed recognition of the severity of the Great Depression. Four years into the depression the people elected a new President, a man by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he was Inaugurated on March 4, 1933, and from that day forward change was implemented.
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President Franklin D.
Roosevelt introduced the New Deal to society and it became a turning point in American history because it created jobs for the public, reopened the banks, and restored faith in the government amongst the people at the
time. The New Deal program created jobs through multiple different acts within what were called the Alphabet Agencies. Before FDR came into office, unemployment was at a record high with “more than 20 percent of the U.S. population” out of work (The Great Depression). This was just an overall percentage, some cities were hit harder than others with Toledo, Ohio’s rate of unemployment at 80 percent and Lowell, Massachusetts topping it with 90 percent unemployment by 1933 (New Deal). The New Deal’s philosophy of relief, recovery, and reform was partially directed towards fixing the unemployment problem. One of the Alphabet Agencies that was directed towards fixing unemployment was the CCC also known as the Civil Conservation Corps. This program selected unmarried men and paid their families directly at the end of the month for their services of “planting trees, building parks, roads, and fighting soil erosion on federal lands” (Hanson). This particular program provided 2.5 million jobs while it was in service. Along with the CCC other programs that provided jobs were: CWA, NYA, PWA, TVA, and WPA. Not only did FDR create jobs for the country he put programs in place to improve the working conditions. The FLSA or the Fair Labor Standards Act was extremely important because it was a law setting minimum wage per hour and maximum work hours per week along with finally declaring the use child labor illegal after two prior failed attempts. One other agency that improved working conditions was the NLRA known as both the National Labor Relations Act and the Wagner Act created “to protect the rights or organized labor to organize and collectively bargain with employers” (Hanson). Before Roosevelt started on bringing jobs to the American people he first focused on the reopening of the banks. Soon after his Inauguration he announced a four day “bank- holiday” where every bank would close in order for Congress to seize control of the situation and give a solution. The solution was the Emergency Banking Relief Act and “three out of every four banks were open by within a week” (Franklin D. Roosevelt). The act allowed the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to loan money to the banks to meet the cash demand, along with doing so the President made a statement that said “I can assure you that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than under the mattress” (Greene). The EBRA was not the only act put in place to help and protect investments in banks, part of the economy failure lies in the hands of the banks for using the investor’s money to make risky investments and FDR wanted to put a stop to this. Two examples of such acts that were put in place were the FDIC and the SEC.
President Franklin D.
Roosevelt introduced the New Deal to society and it became a turning point in American history because it created jobs for the public, reopened the banks, and restored faith in the government amongst the people at the
time. The New Deal program created jobs through multiple different acts within what were called the Alphabet Agencies. Before FDR came into office, unemployment was at a record high with “more than 20 percent of the U.S. population” out of work (The Great Depression). This was just an overall percentage, some cities were hit harder than others with Toledo, Ohio’s rate of unemployment at 80 percent and Lowell, Massachusetts topping it with 90 percent unemployment by 1933 (New Deal). The New Deal’s philosophy of relief, recovery, and reform was partially directed towards fixing the unemployment problem. One of the Alphabet Agencies that was directed towards fixing unemployment was the CCC also known as the Civil Conservation Corps. This program selected unmarried men and paid their families directly at the end of the month for their services of “planting trees, building parks, roads, and fighting soil erosion on federal lands” (Hanson). This particular program provided 2.5 million jobs while it was in service. Along with the CCC other programs that provided jobs were: CWA, NYA, PWA, TVA, and WPA. Not only did FDR create jobs for the country he put programs in place to improve the working conditions. The FLSA or the Fair Labor Standards Act was extremely important because it was a law setting minimum wage per hour and maximum work hours per week along with finally declaring the use child labor illegal after two prior failed attempts. One other agency that improved working conditions was the NLRA known as both the National Labor Relations Act and the Wagner Act created “to protect the rights or organized labor to organize and collectively bargain with employers” (Hanson). Before Roosevelt started on bringing jobs to the American people he first focused on the reopening of the banks. Soon after his Inauguration he announced a four day “bank- holiday” where every bank would close in order for Congress to seize control of the situation and give a solution. The solution was the Emergency Banking Relief Act and “three out of every four banks were open by within a week” (Franklin D. Roosevelt). The act allowed the twelve Federal Reserve Banks to loan money to the banks to meet the cash demand, along with doing so the President made a statement that said “I can assure you that it is safer to keep your money in a reopened bank than under the mattress” (Greene). The EBRA was not the only act put in place to help and protect investments in banks, part of the economy failure lies in the hands of the banks for using the investor’s money to make risky investments and FDR wanted to put a stop to this. Two examples of such acts that were put in place were the FDIC and the SEC.