The Great Depression

The Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. Times in which The Great Depression took place vary throughout different nations, beginning in 1929 in the United States of America, and ending in 1939. The depression was caused by a number of faults in the economy, and the effects of World War I caused problems in many countries. Europe struggled to pay for war debts and reparations (the action of making amends with someone by payment or other sorts of assistance to those who were wronged). These factors resulted in the great depression.

America’s “Great Depression” began when the stock market crashed on what’s known as Black Thursday, or the Wall Street Crash, on October 19th 1929, when over 16 million shares of stock were sold by worried investors who had lost hope in the American economy. By 1933, nearly 25% of America’s workforce, that’s 12,830,000 people, were unemployed, this being the height of the depression. Wage income for those who had managed to keep their jobs dropped by almost 43% between 1929 and 1933. Priced for farms dropped drastically, causing many farmers to lose their farms, homes and land, leaving many hungry and desperately looking for jobs.

Families split up or migrated from their homes and cities in an attempt to find work. Victims of the drought and dust storms in the Great Plains (an expanse of flat land that lies west of the Mississippi river), left their homes and headed to California, where they hoped they would find food to feed their starving families. Industry was badly shaken by the Depression, factories mills and mines shutting down and being abandoned, American business and labour were both in serious trouble. The people of America elected Franklin D. Roosevelt as president in 1932, finding their former president Herbert Hoover and his economic programmes to be useless. Within 100 days of Roosevelt’s administration, he had assembled a team of the best minds to advise him. This group of people were called the “Brain Trust”. His advisors and the U.S Congress passed into law a package of legislation, designed to help the country out of this crisis.

Although the Great Depression began in America, it caused drastic declines in output and severe unemployment in almost every country in the World. In New Zealand, the Depression led to over 20% of the population to become unemployed. Two ways New Zealand coped with this were by opening soup kitchens for those who were hungry and couldn’t afford food due to the country’s economic status and financial crisis, and creating work schemes for the unemployed. For New Zealand, the Depression came to an end in 1935.