Causes of the Great Depression by Doreth H.

Graph Depicting Soaring Unemployment Rate - Graph courtesy of: http://www.uri.edu/artsci/newecn/Classes/Art/INT1/Mac/Measure/Lab/LM1.U.html




The terrible and horrible conditions which occurred in the United States and the rest of the world in the 1930's are known as the Great Depression. In identifying the origin of almost any event, one must start by examining the problem at the tail end, working forward towards the beginning of the problem. There may be multiple causes for the events in this chain (Watkins, 2000). The first very noticeable decline of the economy into depression is the unemployment rate. In 1929 Americans were fully employed and by 1933, there was a 25 % unemployment rate (Watkins, 2000).

The causes of the Great Depression leads back to the restrictive financial policies of the Federal Reserve System. Many African Americans in the South and ethnic immigrants in the North were denied benefits on the grounds of “moral unfitness.” (Champagne, et al 2005) The perplexing economic problems of the Federal Reserve, racial tension, homelessness, social problems such as breakdown of families and poverty were some of the factors that played a role in The Great Depression.

References


Champagne, A., Forshee, J., Harpham, E. (2005). An introduction to American
politics. (5th ed., p. 706). New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Schultz, S. (1999). The depression. Board of Regents of University of Wisconsin. Retrieved September 13, 2010, from http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/lectures18 .html

Watkins, T. (2000). The great depression of the 1930's and its' origins. San Jose State University. Retrieved September 13, 2010, from
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/dep1929.html

Unemployment rate graph (n.d.). Retrieved September 13, 2010, from
http://www.uri.edu/artsci/newecn/Classes/Art/INT1/Mac/Measure/Lab/LM1.U.html