Chapter 24: The Great Depression
Overview
During the 1920s, the United States saw a time of great prosperity. However, that would all change with the stock market crash of 1929. The country and the world would be plunged into an economic and social depression.
Companies were going bankrupt, banks were shutting down, and unemployment was skyrocketing.
One president would ignore the problem, another would radically alter the powers of government to help the nation. People were starving both in the cities and on the farms of America.
Throughout the 1930s and into the 1940s, the people of the United States faced some of their toughest years. Only the Second World War would put an end to The Great Depression.

The Great Depression caused immediate hardship on everyday life. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes, their jobs, and their dignity. Families, like the one shown above, were forced to live in make-shift camps that were overcrowded and unsanitary.
- KEY POINTS
- The causes of the Great Depression, culminating in the stock market crash of 1929.
- Herbert Hoover's presidency and ineffective actions toward the economic crisis.
- The New Deal and the challenges of FDR's presidency.
- Life during the Great Depression in cities, on farms, and the in the entertainment industry.