The Great Depression lasted from 1929-1939. One of the causes of this was the crash of the stock market in October of 1929. On October 29, 1229, on the day we now know as Black Tuesday, Wall Street investors traded around 16 million stocks in one day. They lost billions of dollars and it wiped out tons of investors.
After Black Tuesday, America went in a downward spiral resulting in the longest lasting downturn of the time. In the years following, consumer investment and spending dropped. This caused unemployment to go up as well as industrial output. With the production of goods going down the prices went up. Anywhere from 13-15 million Americans were unemployed so it was difficult for people to afford the goods and services they needed.
Herbert Hoover, the president at the time, reassured
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Many homeless people in New York City sold apples at a price of about 5 cents apiece in an attempt to make money to feed their families. In 1931 food riots began to break out in parts of the U.S. such as Minneapolis. During these riots, people would smash windows to grocery stores and leave with food. Farmers, throughout the 20’s, had their own kind of depression due to drought and the fall of food prices. During The Great Depression, some farmers couldn’t even afford to harvest their crops. Since they couldn’t harvest them they were left in the fields to rot. The federal government eventually established the Soil Erosion Service. This was made due to the years of drought in the southern states. In 1933 the civil works administration was established. The idea of this program was to employ 4 million people. The CWA was involved in the building of schools, bridges, hospitals, airports, and parks, the funds go toward building highways and roads. In 1934 congress authorized about $950 million to continue this