The Great Depression History - 1409 Words

The Great Depression Suzette Toliver HIS205 Contemporary World History Belhaven University - Houston Cause The Great Depression has been labeled as the worst economic depression in the United States History. â€Å"On September 3, 1929, the Dow Jones was at a high of 381 points, and on October 29, 1929, it had fallen to 41 points after a week of panic selling.† http://thegreatdepressioncauses.com/causes/. Things started to become unstable as many people were getting rid of their stock. Banks were so confident in the stock market and because of that, they gambled the consumer’s funds in their bank accounts and invested these funds into the stock market. â€Å"Seeing a few banks close caused another panic across the country. Afraid they†¦show more content†¦This contributed to the Great Depression because the majority of people were not wealthy. So when the market high, everyone pulls out to make money and pay off loans, it sends the market down.† Since there was no longer any money to loan people were no longer able to seek credit and things were becoming wo rst by the minute. People began to ration things and stopped spending any of their money and unemployment rose to very high levels. â€Å"A drought that lasted from 1930 to 1936, known as the Dust Bowl, aggravated the problems of the Great Depression. More than a million acres of farmland were rendered useless because of severe drought and years of over farming, and hundreds of thousands of farmers joined the ranks of the unemployed.† Since there was not any income available it causes many families to become homeless and people were seeking charities. Researchers have said that, â€Å"Pro-labor policies pushed by President Herbert Hoover after the stock market crash of 1929 accounted for close to two-thirds of the drop in the nation s gross domestic product over the two years that followed, causing what might otherwise have been a bad recession to slip into the Great Depression, a UCLA economist concludes in a new study.† http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/pandering-t o-labor-caused-great-91447. Because people were so desperate to feed their families, crime increased. They committed small crimes for the sake of putting some food on the table. Some committed