Explain How The Great Reform Saved America

The Great Reforms That Saved America
During the early 20th century there were mountains of economic problems, one of the most impactful events, was the Great Depression. This Great Depression in the American economy was one that was felt by nearly every American in the country. Even the richest of the rich were in some way affected by the Great Depression. As a response to the Great Depression, there were new laws and acts put in place to try to solve the issues at hand. Although these acts and laws were meant purely to help America come out of this depression, not every act or law affected America in a good way. The New Deal and the Glass-Steagall bank reforming act, were laws and acts that affected America in numerous ways. This new legislation,

This depression was caused by many key events, and the whole depression lasted a decade, starting in 1929. Although there are many key events that caused the great depression it also had many slowly developing events that gradually helped to cause this economic trouble. The time period that slowly caused this gradual downfall was known as the Roaring Twenties. The Roaring Twenties was a time when the United State’s economy grew extremely quickly. It grew so quickly that, “The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929” (H. Staff, The Great Depression). This rapid growth in the Roaring Twenties gave people confidence in the economy. This confidence led people to buying houses, borrowing on credit and investing huge amount of money into stocks. The stocks people bought were then traded at the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street in New York City. The idea of trading stocks at this point was very profitable and almost anyone could have in on it, “Everyone from millionaire tycoons to cooks and janitors poured their savings into stocks. As a result, the stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929” (H. Staff, The Great Depression). This was all perfectly normal and wouldn’t have any negative affects if the same growth continued. (H. Staff, The Great

On March 4th,1933 Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address, “President Roosevelt tells the American people: So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance” (editor). In that speech, President Roosevelt promised to get America out of the depression as though we were at war with a foreign invader. This speech made Americans feel like Roosevelt would be a great leader and would get them out of the depression. His plan to get America out of the depression was with the New Deal. This New Deal, was a cover all statement for his acts that would help America out of the Great Depression. There were so many acts that were made that I could probably write one hundred pages about it if I tried, so I’ll limit it to two Acts or programs. The first Act I’ll summarize is the Public Works Administration. This act created massive amounts of jobs, because they were focused on building up the infrastructure of America. The people that worked for the PWA built schools, bridges, hospitals and dams. The dams that were created produced colossal amounts of electricity that help make electricity affordable and cheap. In all this act was short lived, but it helped immensely with getting America out of the depression because there were tens of