Darshini Stark
Literature
10/20/08
The Great Depression: Interview
The Great Depression occurred on October, 27 1929 during the presidency of Herbert Hoover. The person I interviewed was not alive during the Great Depression, but still knew quiet a bit about it. They, (meaning the person I interviewed) learned about the Great Depression through school, parents, grandparents, and research.
The stalk market crashed in 1929 causing the Great Depression. People put all their money into banks and into stocks. When the stoke market crashed people lost their money not only in the stocks, but also in their bank accounts, because the banks were not federally insured by the government. That fatal day was called "Black Thursday".
12 million people lose their jobs right when it happened, 20 thousand people were being laid off every day, 20 thousand companies went bankrupted, 1616 banks went bankrupted, 1/20 farmers were kicked off their land, and 23,000 people committed suicide in the first year of the Great Depression. Although the Great Depression was world wide, Germany was the only country except the U.S. to reach such a high percentage of unemployment. Life during the Great Depression was extremely trying since none could afford most necessary needs. People faced lack of food, jobs, education, and shelter. They came together to help another. Also they had their children get jobs to help pay bills.
The Great Depression ended in 1939 under the presidency of FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt). He promised the American people" The New Deal." From 1933-1938 FDR created the Emergency banking Act, National Industrial Recovery Act , Agriculture Adjustment Act, Tennessee Valley Development Act, National Labor Relations Act, Social Security Act, Soil Conservation Act, Fair Labor Standers Act, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act. In 1941 WWII began marking the end of the Great Depression.