The Great Depression

The Great Depression was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. It began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors.

During the 1920s, the U.S. stock market underwent rapid expansion, reaching its peak in August 1929, after a period of wild expectations. By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stocks in great excess of their real value. The Stock market crash also brought along low wages, debt, and a struggle in agricultural sector and an excess of large bank loans that could not be liquidated.

Levels of unemployment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its nadir, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. Though the relief and reform measures put into place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped lessen the worst effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the economy would not fully turn around until after 1939, when World War II kicked American industry into high gear.

Many people became homeless because they lost their job and couldn’t pay their rent.  The homeless then did anything to keep a roof over their head, including making shacks out of anything, forming Hoovervilles.  The more people that were homeless, the more competitive the job market became.  Discrimination increased during this time because  Americans were in competition for a shrinking amount of jobs.