The Great Depression

The Great Depression, which began in 1929, was a global economic crisis that shaped the United States and much of the world. In the 1920s, a booming economy hid serious problems like risky stock speculation, easy credit, and overproduction of goods. Wealth was unevenly distributed, leaving many Americans unable to afford the growing supply of products, while farmers and small banks were already struggling in the aftermath of World War I. Agricultural prices dropped, and many small banks failed after lending money to farmers who could not repay their debts. The system finally broke on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929, when stock prices collapsed and wiped out billions of dollars, marking the start of the Great Depression. The Depression marked a period of hardships and uncertainty, transforming the American economy and society.

Coursy of Bettmann/Getty Image

"The market opened in an absolutely free fall and some people couldn’t even get any bids for their shares and it was wild panic. An ugly crowd gathered outside the stock exchange and it was described as making weird and threatening noises. It was, indeed, one of the worst days that had ever been seen down there."
Craig Michell, New York Banker

Coursy of Bettmann/Getty Image

"“Banks are absolutely terrible in their insistence on payments... Families are eating dog food now. Breadlines stretch around blocks."
Great Depression: A Diary by Benjamin Roth

"In the Great Depression in which I grew up and remember vividly, unemployment was over 25 percent, and over 35 percent where I lived. A grown man would work all day, 16 hours, for a dollar. I remember hundreds of people walking by, people who had come down from the North just to get warm. They would come to our house as beggars even though they might have a college education. People didn't have money. They bartered; they'd trade eggs or pigs. It was just completely different."
39th U.S President Jimmy Carter

Coursy of Bettmann/Getty Image

"Lost my job at Ford after 12 years. Wife sold her wedding ring for $2 groceries. We're in a Hooverville shack by the tracks—cardboard walls, no heat. Kids cry for milk we can't buy. Government relief? A 25-lb sack of flour if you wait 3 days."
James Taylor(Chicago factory worker, 1931

Courtesy of Franklin D. Roosevelt Library

"How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond any other"
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

"Wall Street was in a panic today, with no one to guide it out. Stocks crashed 10 to 50 points to outrageous levels. Wheat broke 10 cents a bushel in Chicago on distress selling. Bankers were offering some support, but admitted the situation had gotten beyond them."
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 1929

Hoover Deepening The Crisis

Coursy of Presidential Library and Museum

At the beginning of the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover believed the downturn was part of a normal economic cycle and mostly stuck to a hands‑off approach. He tried cutting taxes, asking businesses to keep wages and jobs, and relying on private charity, but as people stopped spending, unemployment soared and by 1933 millions were poor and desperate. His limited approach fueled massive public resentment, symbolized by shanty towns called Hoovervillas, newspapers dubbed Hoover blankets, and empty pockets turned inside out as Hoover flags. This backlash over his refusal to act doomed his 1932 reelection bid against Franklin D. Roosevelt, who campaigned on building government intervention through the New Deal.

"Econcmic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves"
Herbert Hoover

"Hoovervilles", Coursy of Libery of Congress

Photograh by Carl Mydans for the U.S. Resettlement Administration

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