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The Great Depression

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The Great Depression
The Great Depression: The Extensive Effects The 1920s was a time of roaring prosperity. Even mid-October of 1929, the average middle-class American saw an “illimitable vista of prosperity” (Dixon 1). The thought of poverty was close to an end; in 1928, President Herbert Hoover stated, “We have not yet reached the goal, but given a chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, and we shall soon with the help of God be within sight of the day when poverty will be banished from the nation” (Dixon 1). The prescience of the end of poverty became known as the American Dream; however, this foresight was shortly lived. On Tuesday, March 26, 1929, the Hoover Administration saw the largest stock market crash of their administration to that date. Several months later brought Black Monday, the largest stock market crash in American history and the cardinal cause of the Great Depression. The Great Depression is one of the single most important events in the financial history of the United States and the world; the effects of and leading to the Great Depression lasted for several years. The Great Depression was an economic deficit with worldwide effects that began with the stock market crash of October 1929; the most profound effect of the Great Depression was the highest rate of unemployment in American history: banks, factories, and stores closed, leaving millions of Americans jobless with no money. Without money, many Americans had to rely on either the government or donations from charities to be obtain food; as the depression continued, however, the Roosevelt administration created government agencies to aid in supplying Americans with food, relieving the effects of the Great Depression, preventing a catastrophic event like it from occurring again (Great Depression). The group of people most affected by the Great Depression and the events it instigated were the American stockholders; thousands of stockholders lost large sums of money due to the rapid


Cited: Dixon, Wecter. The Age of the Great Depression, 1929-1941. New York: Macmillian, 1952. Effects on France. 12 April 2009 <http://www.thegreatdepression.co.uk/effects-on-france/>. Effects on Germany. 12 April 2009 <http://www.thegreatdepression.co.uk/effects-on-germany/>. Effects on the United Kingdom. 12 April 2009 <http://www.thegreatdepression.co.uk/effects-on-the- united-kingdom/>. Garraty, John A. The Great Depression: An Inquiry into the Cause, Course, and Consequences of the Ninteen-Thirties as Seen by Contemporaries and in the Light of History. 1st Edition. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1986. "Great Depression." World Book Encyclopedia 2001: 338-43. Smitha, Frank E. The Great Depression, to 1935. 1998-2005. 11 April 2009 <http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch15wd.html>. The Global Effects of the Great Depression. 20 March 2008. 11 April 2009 <http://recessionhistory.info/the-global-effects-of-the-great-depression/>.
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