The Great Depression
The Depression was caused by multiple factors, and was the lowest economic point ever for the US, poverty low profits and many other things were at the worst point they have ever been in. One major cause of the Depression was the Stock Market Crash of 1929, which occured on a Tuesday now known as Black Tuesday. Stockholders lost more than $40 billion dollars. This was a major cause which led into the Depression. During the 1930's thousands of banks they were uninsured so when they closed down they lost all their savings. This was a big reason why many people were poor. Since the stock market crashed people became scared and stopped purchasing products this led to businesses not making as much money so they had to fire people and created unemployment so what im getting from this is that it was all just a big vicious circle. When businesses began to shut down the government passed the Smoot Hawley Tariff to keep people buying american goods. The drought in the mississipi river valley was a smaller part in the Depression it was so bad that farmers could not even pay their taxes and so had to sell their farms at a low price.
Men in the Streets(during the Great Depression)
During the Depression the homeless population was the highest it has ever been in the US even now. Many became migrant workers, who traveled via train from place to place looking for an occupation. Many businesses had to shut down or lay off workers thus people had a lack of money and were forced into the streets. The homeless rates were said to be as high as 25 % during this time. Shantytowns aka hoovervilles named after president hoover were small towns or villages that people below the poverty line would live they were constructed out of cardboard, scrap wood and so on. Conditions did not improve much until around the beginning of WW2, because many men presumably homeless or poor men went over to fight the war. So that gave them jobs, and this gave women something to do because they needed uniforms food ex. War industry also gave men and women jobs. So this was probably the only good thing about the war. So WW2 single handedly pulled the US and probably the rest of the world out of the Great Depression.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_the_United_States
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/greatdepression/tp/greatdepression.htm
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