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.
Such an event caused many problems in the country. The first problem had been that when banks lost tons of money due to the stock market crash, they also lost the life’s savings of so many hard working families. In one case, the working father of the family became so desperate for cash; he would turn to his daughter’s piggy bank. Shown in document 2, many of the rampaged Americans would crowd around banks’ doors to demand their lost money back or to get their money out while they still could. The next problem was that unemployment increased dramatically. According to document 1, after the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment went from about 4% to 8%. But, by 1932, about 23% of Americans were unemployed. Many industries had too much surplus not being sold in the country so, many workers would be laid off. With no money coming into a household, it leads to a third problem America faced in the Great Depression and that is starvation. In document 3, it described the average American’s struggle during this time to have a simple meal. But, it was even harder for the average family to feed everyone. Desperation to cure their fatigue would lead many to fish a meal out of a dumpster. From top class to the bottom, these problems crushed America’s hopes.
With all of these issues, government and kind citizens decided to get involved. In document 5, it stated how Franklin D. Roosevelt was more than aware and eager to