The Great Depression

Economic Impact
The economic impact of the Great Depression was devastating. The Great Depression was the longest economic downturn in the history of the Western Industrialized world. The Great Depression started in the U.S with the Stockmarket crash in October 1929 which wiped out millions of investors. By 1933 over 13 million people were unemployed and there was no money in the banks. People begin to suspect that the bank did not have the money that they had deposited and confronted the bank demanding for their money back in cash. Turns out the people's suspicions were correct the bank in fact did not have the cash money to pay back all the people who demand their money in cash. The banks instead invested the money thus failing to pay the people back. Since thousands of people started demanding their money back all at one time this forced banks to close. Another contributor to the Great Depression was the crash of the stock market in 1929. People started seeing the decline in prices of their stock and rushed to sell their investments. On October 24th, 1929 people rushed frantically to sell their shares of the stock. Since the banks were not able to give people's money back people went to sell and hopefully get cash money from selling their stocks. Since fewer people were in investing this caused business's prices to drop. In the mid 1930's former President FDR in acted the New Deal, which is a series of laws that reorganized the financial sector of the economy. The New Deal also created a program that gave many Americans jobs and employment. The other factor that helped end the Great Depression was World War II. The war created more jobs for the American people including women.