The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939. There had been depressions before, but none of them were that bad. None of them were that long, either.

There were many causes of the Great Depression, and all of them were linked. First, people started buying stocks with loaned money. Then they bought only what they needed to pay back the loan. When everyone started doing that, businesses didn’t get enough money, which led to employee layoffs. Many of those employees also had loans to pay off. When they got laid off, they couldn’t pay back their loans. Everybody tried to pull all of their money out of the banks. Finally, the banks crashed and nobody had money.

During the Great Depression, marathon dancing became very popular. Marathon dancing was where couples would dance for 45 minutes and rest for 15 minutes. The audience would watch and throw coins to their favorite couple. That was called the “Silver Shower.” Couples would continue marathon dancing for months. The last couple dancing won money.

The movie industry grew. People could watch movies all day for 15 cents. People often called movies “Their Great Escape” from life during the Depression. Sometimes, they were where people “Got Their News.”

Radio also became popular. Comedians played on the radio. Many women were housewives, so the radio played soap operas for them. The president would talk on the radio at least once a week, which were called “Fireside Chats.” Families would drop what they were doing to listen to what Roosevelt had to say. On the radio, people heard the Hindenberg tragedy as it happened.

The Dust Bowl also happened during the Great Depression. The dirt became dry and the wind picked up in the Great Plains. People started moving to California to get away from the dust storms. People who moved from Oklahoma were called Okes, and they were treated badly.

There were a lot of homeless people. Okes were homeless, because they moved out of their homes and couldn’t afford to buy a new house. Some people lived in places called shantytowns, which were often called Hoovervilles. Homeless men were sometimes called hobos. Hobos would travel on trains or they would walk. They were originally called ho boys.

Dorothea Lange was a professional photographer. She started out taking pictures of America’s wealthy families. Then, she started taking pictures of homeless families. She found a family with a mother and her children. Lange took six pictures of them. One of the six pictures was very famous and it was called “Migrant Mother.”

During the Depression, some people got angry and became rebels. One of the most famous rebels was Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd. Floyd robbed the money that was left in the banks. People loved to hear whenever Floyd killed someone or robbed a bank. Eventually, they realized that Floyd was taking their money. Floyd died after being shot 14 times.

In Harlem during the Great Depression, black people were laid off first. A street called 125th street became known as the “Great White Way,” because black people weren’t allowed to have jobs on that street. The black people started a riot when a rumor went around that a 12-year-old boy was killed for stealing a 10-cent pocketknife. They soon found out that the police had only taken the boy home, unharmed.

Roosevelt started a group of government programs to help put people back to work. There was the first New Deal and the second New Deal. The first New Deal mostly put people back to work on construction projects. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) put people to work on national resource conservation, like building dams. Other construction jobs were put out, like making new public buildings. Artists were put to work painting those public buildings. It also made banks safer, because there was insurance on the money that everyone had in the bank up to a certain amount. The second New Deal had a program called the Social Security Act. That was security for the elderly and unemployed people. The Depression was only really over when World War II started.

The Great Depression was a world-wide tragedy. Almost half of Germany, 44%, was unemployed. Hitler created an army called the Brown Shirts. They were working class men who fought with labor unions daily. Hitler eventually turned against the Brown Shirts. He formed a new army, who assassinated the leader of the Brown Shirts. Hitler started to attack some of the other European countries and war started.

The Great Depression was very eventful. A lot happened in those ten years. Many people were homeless, starving, and unemployed. Then, it resulted in World War II.