It all began with the over production in agriculture and industry. Farmers bought tons of farm equipment with loans, but then could not afford to pay them back. Therefore, small banks that gave the loans failed and big banks lost millions of dollars. In industry, people bought all they could and factories produced too much so the companies had to lay off workers and the unemployment rate soared. The stock market then crashes because banks invested peoples’ money in the stock market, but all of the money was gone. Everyone lost billions of dollars. After all of this had happened, the final cause that made everyone go crazy were the banks failing. The farmers couldn’t pay back loans. The factories couldn’t pay back loans. The stock markets crashed. People were going to the banks and demanding for their money, but by the time they got there, the doors were already shut. Everyone thought, ”What do we do now? We had lost everything we have lived for.”
During this time period, there were many horrific problems Americans had to face. Americans had become unemployed and could no longer afford to live in their homes. The individuals that lost their jobs and homes often moved into places called hoovervilles. They were old, small, cold, and poorly taken care of homes that were made of scraps. When the government failed to provide relief, President Hoover who was elected in 1932 to get the Americans out of the Great Depression was blamed for the intolerable economic and social conditions of the hoovervilles. Great amounts of children died from starvation and malnutrition and some adults even killed themselves under