The Great Depression The year 1929 started off as a year of wealth and prosperity in America, but ended with the worst financial disaster America has ever seen. First, the period of prosperity ended in a single day, when a crash in the stock market lost over fourteen billion dollars of investor money. Banks across the country were closing to cope with the loss which sent customers into a panicked frenzy. Second, no one had money because the banks had no money, loans fell through and houses were foreclosed, some people losing everything. The class divisions became nonexistent as the rich became the poor and were just as bad off as everyone else. Last, the depression relief everyone waited for came with a change of presidency. Franklin D. Roosevelt worked with the affected citizens to end the depression and restore banks back to working condition, making major improvements within his first year in office. The Great Depression was a decade full of illegal activity and financial instability, every citizen was affected, and efforts to mend the fragile US economy. On October 29, 1929, the Wall Street …show more content…
Within Roosevelt’s first one-hundred days in office he signed the New Deal into action (Amadeo). The New Deal included forty-two acts to repair the country’s financial state and provide security that it would never happen again. The New Deal provided jobs and unemployment assistance. The acts include things like Social Security and the Federal Deposit Insurance which are still in use today (Amadeo). After the crisis ended, the US abolished the gold standard and relied on the Federal Deposits Insurance to protect depositors from bank failure. Next, Federal Emergency Relief helped fifteen million unemployed citizens. After multiple acts to prevent bank failure, not a single bank closed for the first time in sixty years