The Great Depression

1. The Great Depression by: Savanah Bennett & Courtney Pierce

2. What was the Great Depression? TEXT PICTURE • The Great Depression, an immense tragedy that placed millions of Americans out of work. • The beginning of government involvement in the economy and in society as a whole.

3. Why did they name the great depression the great depression? • Historian William Manchester argued that Herbert Hoover deliberately chose to use the word “depression” when discussing the economic situation of the time. • Particularly noteworthy are instances in which presidents used the word “depression” during periods of economic turmoil that were later remembered as “panics.” • The beginning stages of the Great Depression, Hoover remained in a state of denial over worsening economic conditions. Shortly following Black Tuesday, Hoover remarked that the “conditions are fundamentally sound.” Even as late as December 1930. • Hoover maintained that “the fundamental strength of the economy is unimpaired.” It was not until 1931, when it became impossible to deny the economic train wreck transpiring, that Hoover began to refer to the economic situation of his own time as a “great depression.”

4. How the great depression started. The United States was thrown into despair on Black Tuesday. October 29, 1929, the day the stock market crashed and the official beginning of the Great Depression. Throughout the 1930s over 9,000 banks failed. Bank deposits were uninsured and thus as banks failed people simply lost their savings. With the stock market crash and the fears of further economic woes, individuals from all classes stopped purchasing items. in 1930 was of such proportions that many could not even pay their taxes or other debts and had to sell their farms for no profit to themselves.

5. How long was the great depression The great depression began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939

6. Web sites http://hnn.us/article/61931#sthash.ghemrBXq.dpuf