The Great Depression: A Case Of Depression

The Great Depression wasn't the first depression this country has ever seen, but by far it was the worst and longest economic decline in history. The Depression officially began on October 29, 1929, which is known as Black Tuesday today; the ripple effect started after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Wall Street was the banking district in New York where the New York City Stock Exchange (NYSE) was located (Wroble 14). The Depression lasted for a lengthy ten years. While Franklin D. Roosevelt was running to become the 32nd president of the United States, he promised to have all the solutions on how to handle the Depression and get America back to its former beauty. When Franklin became president on March 4, 1933, he immediately put all his ideas together and called them The First and Second New Deals, both programs helped repair and restore the nation in economic and emotional ways.

The Great Depression was a dark time in American history that lasted from1929-1939. It began after the Stock Market crashed on October 19, 1929. According to A Biography of America: FDR- The Great Depression, “It was the deepest and longest lasting economic downturn in American History” (A Biography of America). As a result of the Great Depression one out of every four Americans was out of work. The Great Depression resulted in a life for Americans that was plagued by overproduction and under-consumption of products, starving families were forced into bread and soup lines, and thousands of agricultural workers became migratory workers in order to survive.

When most people hear the phrase “The Great Depression” they only associate it the crash of the stock market and the hard times that followed. Here in the Midwest, when we think of the Great Depression we also think of the Dust Bowl and the Dirty Thirties. The Great Depression was a very climactic end to a series of poor choices that greatly affected the entire United States.

During the Great Depression jobs, food, and money were hard to come by for most people. The period between 1929 and 1939, Americans from all over were struggling to just get by. The struggles people faced put a strain on families and even themselves. People during the Great Depression were often ashamed, humiliated, and lost their sense of self-worth. In Maslow’s hierarchy esteem is considered a high-order need, to establish that you must meet other needs like physiological needs, a sense of safety, and belonging. When those needs are not met the person will lose their self-esteem. People in America during this time struggled with their self-esteem and they had difficulty when trying to find purpose. That struggle results in broken families, and an increase in the homeless population. The inability to find jobs violates the sense of financial safety associated with Maslow’s hierarchy. During this time it wasn’t just the homeless and downtrodden that felt ashamed it was also the people providing relief to them, due to the prodding required.

Paul Von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor on the 30th January 1933. The Depression did play a vital role in this, however other factors such as the Nazis propaganda, the resentment of the Weimar republic and the political situation of 1932-1933 also contributed to his success.

In 2008, the Global Financial Crisis broke out; both the American economy and the economy in the West suffered a hard blow. However, a big economy system in the East emerged unexpectedly. China is now able to challenge the America’s decades-long dominant position in economic area. Started during the middle of 1990s, China’s manufacturing industry developed rapidly that billions of exports were floating out, and China was given the title of “the world’s factory”(BBC). By the end of 2010, China with a GDP of $5.8 trillion, surpassed Japan’s GDP of $5.48 trillion, became the world’s second largest economy system (BBC). China also exceeded Japan became America’s largest foreign securities holder. Since then, China has been seen as the US’s

“No one can possibly have lived through the Great Depression without being scarred by it. No amount of experience since the depression can convince someone who has lived through it that the world is safe economically.” was once stated by Isaac Asimov. The Great Depression was one of the horrific and troubling times of American history. Many homes were affected by this tragedy and many families were broken as a result of it. Man had the opportunity to prove himself by both continuing and struggling with his family of leaving them. In Cinderella Man Jim Braddock was the type of man to do anything for his family. His determination and strong will to provide for his family made him excel in his boxing matches. Their true

Cecchetti, Stephen G. "Understanding the Great Depression: Lessons for Current Policy ." Monetary Economics (1997): 1-26.

The great depression hit the nation quite hard with an un-comparable feeling of instability and weakness. The United States and other nations including Europe and Great Britain were quickly affected. The depression, caused by the fall of the stock market in 1929, caused many individuals to panic and the depression was everywhere by 1932. Many people were affected by the depression. Investors, the ordinary work force and consumers sank rapidly with the panic that spread across the world. The United States tried to gain security through several attempts at restoration. With the help of president Roosevelt and his attempt to restore security with The New Deal the nation would

The Great Depression, however inevitable, took people by surprise when the stock market crashed in 1929. At first people did not fully understand the state of the economy, they could not wrap their heads around the transition from popping champagne bottles to eating bread crumbs for dinner. People were expecting a quick fix to the problem, assuming their lives to go back to normal after a few months, ultimately underestimating the situation America was in. As a result, no one was prepared to properly combat the extreme shortage of food, jobs, and money in the years to come.

The Great Depression is probably one of the most misunderstood events in American history. It is routinely cited, as proof that unregulated capitalism is not the best in the world, and that only a massive welfare state, huge amounts of economic regulation, and other Interventions can save capitalism from itself. Among the many myths surrounding the Great Depression are that Herbert Hoover was a laissez faire president and that FDR brought us out of the depression. What caused the Great Depression? To get a handle on that, it's necessary to look at previous depressions and compare. The Great Depression was by no means the first depression this country ever had, but it was clearly the worst. What made it different than the rest? At the time

In 1929 the stock market crashes due to an unstable economy, over speculation and Government policies. Many people think that the stock crash was to blame for the Great Depression but that is not correct. Both the crash and depression were the result of problems with the economy that were still underneath society 's minds. The depression affected people in a series of ways: poverty is spreading causing farm distress, unemployment, health, family stresses and unfortunately, discrimination increases. America tended to blame Hoover for the depression and all the problems. When the 1932 election came people weren’t very fond of Hoover, but Roosevelt on the other hand introduced Happy Days and everyone loved that idea.

As “prosperity 's decade” came to a symbolically harsh and sudden end on Thursday, October 24, 1929, the United States government, led by President Herbert Hoover, was thrown into the unknown. No such downturn had ever presented itself before, which compounded itself with the lack of economic understanding present at the time. Yet it had seemed that the economy was healthy before the crash. Employment was high and inflation was low. Yet these conditions only served as a mirage for many Americans. As industrialists became wealthy using new age technology and selfish business methods, 70 million people lived below the poverty line. Many of these men and women lived in

Imagine your life is a bed of roses, everyone you know is prospering, and everything is going fine. Until the time comes where your parents don’t say there is a large problem, but you can feel the tension in your home. The portion of food that lands on your plate is reduced, the pleasures you had before diminish before your eyes. T You don’t say anything but you observe something isn’t right, but you just can’t put your finger on it. Until finally one day your parents stop eating and watch you eat and things just begin to spiral down from there. The kids of the horrible time period of the Great Depression went through it all, they had gone hungry for weeks without proper clothing and trying to get any food they could scrape together. They

“personal assertion of existential meaning in a universe of potential cosmic meaninglessness” (Mast, 246). In the adventure films and Westerns, heroes are willing to challenge authority for their personal beliefs and feelings. They take actions based on individual beliefs, definitions of right and wrong, and the urge to complete their personal goals and dreams. The helpless antiheroes in screwball comedies present the situation during the Great Depression from another aspect. They cannot make choices themselves because of others’ intervention, and unfortunate things just happen to them. The denial of humanness is one feature of antiheroes. Powerlessness of antiheroes in the ridiculous world definitely reflects the desperate situation faced by the Americans during the Great Depression.