FREE ESSAY ON THE GREAT DEPRESSION

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

The Great Depression
Welcome to the Depression. Your hungry, dirty, cold and unemployed. You need to point the
finger and you point it at Hoover. The 1920's was a time of great prosperity in the lives
of most Americans and our natural human stupidity made us think it would stay that way
forever. We had just come out of the WWI and business was booming, along with farming and
the stock market. The future looked good, but people failed to understand that economies
can't be good forever, it has to come down sometime. All of the signs of a depression
were there; the farmers were producing too much, uneven income, easy credit and huge
debts; people just didn't notice them. Not until October 29, 1929 black Tuesday anyway,
when the bottom of the stock market fell out, taking millions of Americans lives with it.
Even though any didn't admit it, they knew what was on the way. People who had been
buying stock on margin suddenly found themselves poor and in bigger debt than they could
imagine. America went into a panic, pulling money out of banks in a frenzy causing many
to close their doors. 
President Hoover tried hard to make the times better for the unemployed first by setting
aside almost $800 million for public works like the now Hoover Dam. Conditions, however,
failed to improve. His other policies, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the
Home Loan Bank Act, also didn't make much difference. The election of 1932 made it clear
that the American people were unhappy with Hoover. Franklin Delanor Roosevelt won the
election on the Democratic ticket by a landslide. His promise of "a new deal" gave
Americans hope for what he could do for them. Two days after his inauguration he ordered
a 'bank holiday' for all the banks in the country to close. When they reopened, people
felt more safe putting their money in banks with the government backing them up.
FDR's "New Deal" became what started the nation's turn around. With such programs as the
CCC (employing single males from the ages of 17-28 to do community labor like road
building), the FERA (used $250 million to aid the unemployed, elderly, and sick), the AAA
(paid farmers to grow less), the NIRA (set up price controls), the WPA (creating as many
job as possible), and others, Franklin Roosevelt became one of the most successful leader
this country has ever had. Throughout his Presidency, he almost single-handedly changed
the fate of America. He turned this country around so we could be a great nation again.
If you were to ask someone who lived through the Great Depression, as it came to be
called, what it was like, there answer would probably not be a positive one. But even
through immense tragedy, good still found a way to shine through. The Depression gave us
the chance to redefine what America stood for. The government now had the power to help
people in need, and in return people had more trust in the government because they knew
it would support them. The position of minorities improved somewhat be cause the New Deal
relief measures were almost color blind, and gave non-whites a small but significant
chance. Women also made their way into the workforce during and after the Depression. 
I will say this, FDR was the best thing that could have happened in this time. Being a YR
I feel that desperate times call for desperate measures. America is the best country in
the world. This is shown by us coming out of WWI (winning) and into a great depression.
We conquered the depression and became a stable union. We learned from out mistakes and
hopefully we won't have this happen again.
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