life.
1. Resulting unemployment led to increased
2. There was a sharp decrease in marriage and
birth rates, while divorce rates increased.
3. Schools and colleges suffered because of a
4. Responsibilities shifted from private to
IV. This paper concludes with the election of Franklin D.
Roosevelt in 1932, the Democratic Party's program to
combat the depression, and a final analysis of the
importance of the depression of 1929.
A. There were many measures taken by Roosevelt and
the Democratic Party to alleviate the depression.
B. These measures did help, but the economy did not
improve until 1940 and the war in Europe.
The Great Depression in the United States brought an end to a long era of economic expansion and social progress which had been in full bloom since the 1890s. There had been monetary recessions in 1907, 1913 and 1921, but these reversals were never severe enough or long enough to shake the deeply rooted confidence in the American economic system or to generate any widespread national discontent. Many history books tell of the depression of the '30s; they often begin with the stock market crash of October 1929. Among economists, there is a tendency to decry the importance of the crash as a cause of the depression: "The crash was part of the froth, rather than the substance of the situation." The fundamental difficulty was America's failure to readjust to the developments arising from World War I, which culminated in the depression of 1929. One cannot overlook the profound importance of the Wall Street crash. It shrank the supply of investment funds and at the same time shook the confidence on which investment expenditures depend. Personal expenditures were reduced, and international trade and capital flows were disrupted. There were many complicated forces that combined to cause the depression. To clearly understand the circumstan...