Great Depression and of Mice and Men

Great Depression and of Mice and Men

  • Submitted By: maleehakazim
  • Date Submitted: 12/28/2008 5:56 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 610
  • Page: 3
  • Views: 6721

The 1930s was a time of economic hardships. Many pieces of great literature are set during the Great Depression. John Steinbeck is an author who wrote about financial difficulties of men during great depression. The causes and the effects of the great depression lead to the book Of Mice and Men.
The causes of the Great Depression were many. “The consequences of the Great depression were a long-term chronicle of economic statistics. There is no one cause you could pinpoint, several causes merges in the quest for the roots of the causes of the Great Depression.” (Lowestein 3). Some important causes are the war of 1914- 1918 (WWI). After World War One many countries struggled to pay their war debts and reparations as Europe began to rebuild. This caused economic problem in many countries (Garraty 4). Throughout the 1930s over nine thousand banks failed. Bank deposits were uninsured and thus as banks failed people simply lost their savings. Surviving banks were unsure of the economic situation and concerned for their own survival so they stopped being as willing to create new loans. This frustrated the situation leading to less and less expenditures. The major cause to the Great Depression was the stock market crash of 1929. In October of 1929, stockholders had lost more than forty billion dollars. Even though the stock market began to regain some of its losses, by the end of 1930, it just was not enough and America truly entered what is called the Great Depression (Press 14).
The Great Depression effected basically every nation in the world. For farmers, there crop prices were so low they did have enough money to pay off loans and many lost their farms and homes (Lowestein 1). In cities, thousands of jobless men roamed the streets, looking for work. Two thousand to three thousand applicants showed up for one two job openings, with no source many lost their homes and had to struggle to get food to feed their families (Garraty 4). “Many American children has...

Similar Essays