What Caused The Great Depression Essay

595 Words3 Pages

The Great Depression, was a worldwide economic recession that occurred in the 1930’s and lasted ten years. The Depression began on October, 29, 1929. When traders had sold $12 billion dollars with of shares, however, shares fell by 23%. This caused the Crash of 1929, which is considered to the start of the Great Depression. There is a major debate among historians, as to what caused the Depression. David Kennedy, Professor of History as Stanford University, spoke of the Mature Economic Thesis in an interview. The Mature Economic Thesis States that a successful industrialized society eventually will reach the plateau of production, therefore the society should focus on keeping production high and distributing the benefits evenly. Opposing this, …show more content…

The economic downturn stained Hoover’s presidency as many Americans blamed him for their economic woes. Then in 1933 election, Hoover was defeated in a landslide election, losing to Democratic nominee, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Roosevelt focused on saving the country and the people, even if he and his cabinet had to repeatedly change their minds. Roosevelt launched the New Deal, which was designed to revive the banks, alleviate the plight of farmers, put young men back to work, and provide pension for the elderly. The success of the New Deal is controversial, on one hand, The Mature Economic Thesis, as discussed earlier stated that society had to keep production high and distribute the benefits evenly. This is what the New Deal tried to do; it tried to keep the economy stable by giving money to the banks, so they would not go under and distributed the benefits evenly, through Social Security, which was not financed through the U.S Treasury, but from the paychecks of working Americans, this way Americans who had become too old could still have a stable source of