The Great Depression by Robert S. McElvaine is pretty straightforward. In the beginning, the book compares the economic crisis of 2008 with the roots of the Great Depression in 1929. He believed that politicians in the twentieth century did not learn their lesson from before. The book also depicts the lives of people during The Roaring Twenties and how the downfall of the economy and overproduction lead to mass unemployment and struggling families. McElvaine’s point of view on the Great Depression was considerably biased. As he points out, “the changing mix of American values in the Depression - was of even more significance than was Roosevelt himself.” What McElvain is trying to express in this quote is that Americans were so unhappy and felt …show more content…
At times he may skip around a bit, but he primarily stays on topic. McElvaine begins presenting about the 1920’s. The twenties were a decade where people were majority of the families were living comfortably and many were striking it rich. Later, he then focuses on government relief programs. Though he was not alive during this period, he has studied for more than thirty years on this topic.
Although McElvaine did not focus so much on the economic side of the depression, he did focus a lot of information on the relief programs. This is part of the reason why I enjoyed reading the book. McElvaine demonstrates that when the American people were faced with a crisis, they were forced to come up with creative solutions. Americans have always had a history of coming together to help each other, and this was evidenced by the programs that were put into place during this time period.
One of the quotes from the book that will always be in my mind is “the most significant fact about the Depression era may well be that it was the only time in the twentieth century during which there was a major break in the modern trends towards social disintegration and egoism.” This era made a lot of people including the rich and middle class realize just was being poor felt like. This quote shows that the Great Depression did not discriminate against a specific
The Great Depression of 1929 is the one people know well, at least in the United States, but what cannot be agreed on is how it happened. Many historians turn to the Stock Market Crash that happened prior to explain it, which smoothly transitioned into the Great Depression, making it a viable option. Not all historians stopped there however, and dug further, fully analyzing and discovering less obvious factors that could have catalyzed the Great Depression. Such factors besides the Stock Market Crash that may have prompted the Great Depression were difficulties in wage adjustment, the overall failure of banks and monetary policies, and the Smoot-Hawley tariff controversy.
While wealthy American husbands continued to lead much more luxurious lifestyles than their poor counterparts, there was also a mass unemployment among men which added up and caused an overall decline in industrial production. This era seemed incredible at first, but it only lasted about 10 years before it began to decline. A lady from Chicago sent first lady Elanor Roosevelt a letter stating, Like thousands of other people, they had lost and used up what they had saved and were forced to go on relief. “Have been compelled to store small [amounts] of things we had, and live in one room which is detrimental to our health.
Yes, concerns about major social and political revolution were justified at the time of the Great Depression. After the stock market crashed, banks failed as well as a result of millions of Americans withdrawing their money. Unemployment ensued because of the rapid decrease of consumer spending. These all mostly affected the working class, since they were the ones who went out of work when the Depression hit. Additionally, the big disparity of wealth between the rich and poor encouraged the Depression; 32% of the country’s wealth went to the richest 5% of people, while only 10% when to the poorest 42%.
Dakota Gibbons Mrs. Skrobul Great Depression DBQ 11 February, 2015 The Great Depression Throughout United States history society has been separated into factions based on people's’ religion, race, and sex, but no matter which faction someone belonged to they were again separated based on wealth. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, the U.S. went through a period of recession known as The Great Depression. During this period more and more citizens dropped from their economic classes until they were confsidered to be a part of the lower class while living in poverty.
The Great Depression was a time period in the United States from the late 1920s to early 1940s, marked by severe unemployment rates nationwide. It had many origins, most notably of which was the Stock Market Crash of October 29th, 1929, also known as “Black Tuesday.” The administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the crippling unemployment and poverty rates of the Depression by establishing federal work programs to provide much-needed jobs to millions of Americans. Overall, however, this response was only marginally effective, because there was still rampant unemployment and discrimination throughout the duration of these programs. Through the establishment of these programs, the role of the federal government changed from a capitalist
Impact of the Great Depression The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, written by Amity Shlaes, gives a lengthy detail of the Great Depression. According to her viewpoint the government handled the situation of the economic crisis very poorly, which led to the Great Depression lasting longer than it suppose to. In this book, Shlaes wrote about observed action taken by Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt. She gave a detail of the years from 1927 to 1940 and in the beginning of every chapter she mentioned the unemployment rate and the average of Dew Jones Industry.
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The article by Edwin Gay and pictures compiled by Cary Nelson are both descriptions of how the Great Depression was and the several impacts that it had on the American economy. The range of the great depression is unprecedentedly wide according to Edwin Gay. The great depression was believed to have started from the collapse of the US stock market in 1929. This was shown in a picture as compiled by Cary Nelson
In 1929, the U.S. was hit with the worst economic crisis in the history of the country, the Great Depression. The Great Depression left millions of people unemployed and cost millions their life's savings. The Depression lasted for ten long years for the American people. Since the Great Depression ended, people have studied it, trying to figure out what happened that started it all. The problem was, in fact, the poor economic habits of the people at the time, such as speculation, income maldistribution, and overproduction.
The Great Depression was a period of an economic disaster that lasted from 1929 to 1939. The effects of the depression varied across the nation and had a significant impact on all the different classes of the society. The following investigation will explore the impacts of Great Depression on the daily lives of middle-class Americans. Middle-class Americans were severely affected by the Depression mostly because they stood in the most convenient place of the societal ladder, they were neither poor nor wealthy. So, when Depression struck, the middle-class almost disappeared from the ladder because the economic crisis was massive and affected their lifestyles drastically.
In this essay, I am going to look at what ways the Great Depression affected the American people with examples from John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men. Available jobs and high wages had been
He believed that it was the people’s responsibility to get themselves out of the depression since they got themselves into the mess in the first place. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the other hand would interact with the people of America during the depression, FDR would actually get on the radio every week and talk to the people about what he had planned for them. The New Deal was FDR’s plan and It was designed to give people their jobs back and reduce the amount of the unemployed people in the U.S. However, the New Deal wasn’t specific on how it’d give the jobs back in fact the New Deal actually catered to white people, black people were stripped of their jobs and were replaced by white people.
The Great DepressionTopic: the great depressionQuestion: How did the great depression affect americans?Thesis statement:The great depression affected americans because it destroyed their economy. Millions of families lost theirs savings as many banks collapsed in the 1930’s. The Great Depression was the worst economic drop of all times in the industrial world1. The Great Depression began because of a stock market crash in 1929 and came to end ten years later in 1939, around 15 million americans were unemployed and about half of the American banks failed. It was one of the darkest era in the United States.
The Great Depression was a time of little hope and small dreams. Much of what happened forced young children out of their world out of their world into the adult world. I’ve also had to step up into the vast realm of the adult world. During the Great Depression many kids had to step up and begin acting like adults.
“The Views of the Great Depression (1932)” is taken from a book called Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel. Terkel was an oral historian who wrote books on specific topics based on his interviews with everyday people (“Studs”). He was born on May 16, 1912 in New York City and he lived until October of 2008 (“Studs”). Terkel wrote this source to publicize the views of oppressed people during the Great Depression rather than focusing on the average, working, white man at the time.
To me, the Great Depression is something that I had known about, but never actually was taught it. I am from a different country and contrary to popular belief, we didn’t learn US History. We learn bits and pieces among the broader topics of Modern World History, but the topics and focus of many events in this class, Modern America were not taught at the school I was at in Australia. As I have slowly learned through other classes, the Great Depression was not something that simply happened, but it happened due to a line of multiple events in this time period that lead to the event In my opinion, one of the leading factors to the Great Depression was the “Cycle of Debt” that in turn led to series of events in years up to the Great Depression.