The Great Depression

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            America has been through a lot. Although it really isn’t a very old country, it has had some of the worst wars, including a civil war, with some of the worst results. It has had droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes and fires. And with economy, America has had many problems. In the 1920’s, the economy was booming. The stock market was doing great. But in 1928, signs were shown that something could happen to the wealth we had. In 1929, the stock market crashed. The whole world was devastated, and we were the main target. European countries suffered as well. The Great Depression, or Great Slump, lasted about 10 years, stretching from late 1929 to mid 1939. Although there was no real ending to it, the Great Depression obviously did have one. We’re doing fine now. But that wasn’t the only thing happening. There was the dust bowl, the worst drought in American history. It ravaged the plains, which were the main agricultural source of income at the time. It hit mostly the southern plains, but the northern ones didn’t get off completely. Children would wear gas masks to and from school it was so bad. The Great Depression was by far the worst incident in American history because of the money lost, the unemployment rate, the length of the incident, and the war that began during the time it was in.

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The Great Depression wasn’t just a sudden collapse of the stock market. America’s stock market was doing fine. It was a bull market, or one in which the prices continuously rise. No one suspected that it could ever turn into a bear market, or one in which the prices continuously drop. But many investors were buying their stocks on credit. They would get loans from the bank, and then invest the loaned money. The bank’s brokers would then borrow the money from other banks. This sort of economic activity was called speculation, which is a world that means putting a lot of money in a high-risk investment with the hope of making a huge gain. The ones who did this were called speculators. They believed that no matter how much money you spend on a stock, someone else would always spend more.  On September 3rd, 1929, the stock prices hit an all-time high. But soon after the record shattering highs, they all began to slip. October 24th, 1929, investors with a lot of stock sold almost all of what they had to gain money. Then that caused the prices to fall yet again, making our economy look worse.