Q. What was the Great Depression?
A. The "
Great Depression
" was a severe,
world -wide economic disintegration symbolized in the United States by the
stock market crash on "Black Thursday", October 24, 1929 . The
causes of of the Great Depression were many and varied, but the impact was
visible across the country. By the time that FDR was inaugurated president
on March 4, 1933, the banking system had collapsed, nearly 25% of the labor
force was unemployed, and prices and productivity had fallen to 1/3 below
their 1929 levels. Reduced prices and reduced output resulted in lower
incomes in wages, rents, dividends, and profits throughout the economy.
Factories were shut down, farms and homes were lost to foreclosure, mills
and mines were abandoned, and people went hungry. The resulting lower
incomes meant the further inability of the people to spend or to save their
way out of the crisis, thus perpetuating the economic slowdown in a
seemingly never-ending cycle.