Wall Street crash

The great depression of 1929

The United States lived a clear situation of economic growth. There were many growing businesses. It was the golden age of advertising. The economy grew and the stock gave great benefits. This apparent prosperity, ended with the international economic crisis, which began in October 1929 with the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange. One of the causes that led to this financial crisis was the overproduction and inflation of credit, in addition the misdistribution of wealth people made in the twenties and the extensive speculation in the market.

October 24^th of 1921 was a fateful day in the history of the world. The strength of America’s economy came to an end. The value of shares on the American Stock market collapsed.This was the start of an economic crisis that devastated the world; it was "the biggest financial crisis of the 20th century". The American loans to Europe were cut; this made many European businesses go bankrupt. The depression began with the Wall Street crash. This brought a dramatic slump in the USA.


This Financial crisis that America was having during the 20^th century didn’t only affect the country byitself but also the whole world. It affected not only the economic aspect but the political and social aspect too. The world’s economy depended on the USA and with the collapsing of the American Stock Market the world economy collapsed as well. The Depression hit hardest those nations that were most deeply indebted to the United States like Germany, Great Britain, etc. In the other hand the depression was a piece of luck for Adolf Hitler. As consequence people started losing faith in democracy and started turning to the two parties, Nazism and Communism. The depression contributed by raising him to power.

The number of unemployed people reached was about 13 million and many people were living in a primitive condition. This led to many poor families being forced into homelessness, poverty and starvation. Businesses and industry were also affected. Having lost much of their own capital many businesses started cutting back their workers' hours.

The U.S. economy broke down and entered the Great Depression during the presidency of Herbert Hoover. People blamed him for the Great Depression. During the 1932 presidential election Franklin Roosevelt won the elections. The first thing he did was to close all the banks and only let them reopen once they were stabilized. Next, Roosevelt began to establish programs that became known as the New Deal. Some of these problems helped farmers and civil by hiring people for various projects.

President Roosevelt was a hero. He did know what to do, establishing the country after it crisis. The New Deal programs eased the sufferings of the Great Depression; however, the U.S. economy was still extremely bad by the end of the 1930s. The economical crisis improved after World War II because both people and industry became essential to the war effort. The most important thing was how the Americans managed to overcome the difficulties they were going through and even though, they had still remained one of the most important countries of our time.

Written by: Micaela Espinosa