The Great Depression: The Worst Economic Crisis in the American History

During the 1930s, the United States suffered the worst economic downturn ever known as the Great Depression. Understand that The Great Depression was caused by a sum of events rather than one specific event. The beginning of The Great Depression was marked by the stock market crash during the late 1920s, in which millions of share prices drastically dropped, and billions of dollars were lost. After the stock market crash the bank's failures became inevitable, with less money in circulation, many Americans panicked and tried to withdrawal all their life-long saving for their banking accounts, unfortunately, the banks did not have the sufficient funds to return their savings at all once, which caused the failure of more 9,000 banks, and caused depositors to lose $140 billion dollars. Without money to spend, savings or credit, Americans could not afford to spend money in consumer goods which caused many companies to go bankrupt, in turn this event left thousands of Americans without a job or giving income.

As the Great Depression worsened, the United States decided to raise taxes on imported goods, then the countries that traded with the U. S imposed tariffs on American goods, which dropped the world trade by 60% in just a few years. Finally, what made the Great Depression worse than ever was the environmental destruction of the land used for crops and livestock, which led to a massive dust storms named the Dust Bowl, in which millions of plants and livestock were killed. We all these events together caused the Great depression, which had devastating effects in the United States economy and affected most Americans; however, it did not affect all Americans equally, the difference between the living conditions, working conditions and unemployment rate varied greatly amongst whites and African Americans.

The Great Depression had a great impact in the daily lives of average Americans. The poverty line, the unemployment rate, and the suicide rates increased dramatically amongst American families. Simply a few, years after the initial crash more than thirty million Americans lost their jobs, and the few that kept their jobs earned barely enough to put food on the table for their families, their working conditions were extremely dangerous, and new jobs were almost impossible to find. Many men had to face the harsh reality of not having enough money to feed their families, which drastically increased the suicide rate amongst men in America during the Great depression. Before the Great Depression being helped by the government was seen as shameful, however, this idea changed during the Great Depression, and many Americans seek help from the government to feed themselves and their families, and although the government had many different plans to help those in need, the government only spend about $1 dollar per American.

While men struggled to feed their families, women struggled to make food last for all of their family members, to take care of all of their children, and to make sure that items such as clothes, and shoes were reused over and over. During this time many children were unable to go to school, and the few lucky that went to school were taught by teachers that were paid almost nothing and did not really cared about teaching. Also, many teenagers that realized how hard it was for their families to take care of them decided to leave home to stop being a burden to their families and in search of sources of income, these teenagers were known for “ riding the rails” Huge numbers of these were youngsters who felt they had turned into a weight on their families and left home looking for work Rough wrongdoings at first spiked amid the initial couple of long periods of the Incomparable Despondency, yet across the nation, rates of manslaughters and vicious violations started to fall strongly somewhere in the range of 1934 and 1937—a descending pattern that proceeded until the 1960s. Definitely the economy security, the sources of income and the amount of food on the table changed drastically for almost all Americans.

The Great Depression was undoubtedly one of the worst events that Americans lived in the United States history, however, one of the groups that suffered the most during the Great Depression were African Americans. At a time when racisms and segregation was still present, and whites were still superior over blacks, companies and employers preferred to hire whites over African Americans and fired their African Americans employees to hire whites. In fact, the unemployment rate for African Americans doubled the unemployment rate of the whites, their working conditions were even worse than the working conditions of the whites, their wages were not even enough to feed themselves or their families, during the early public aids many African Americans received far less help than whites, and they were even excluded from the soup kitchens of many organizations that were meant to help those in need. Also during this time many African Americans who could no longer lived in their homes, or pay their debts, decided to migrate from the rural south to the urban South, in search of new sources of income to meet their basic needs. fortunately, during the Great Depression African Americans united to help each other out, and worked hard to change the administration of the government, which pushed them to implement new aid plans that benefited and helped African Americans. During the Great Depression many African Americans changed from the republican party to the democratic party, and they supported successfully the democratic candidate, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Definitely the lives of whites and Africans Americans during the Great Depression were different, although many whites suffered a lot because of the Great Depression they did not suffer as much as African Americans. Whites were far more likely to get jobs, that were almost impossible to get, and they had a clear advantage of jobs over African Americans, also, many whites had more access to the government aids that African Americans, although, their wages were really low, they still were higher than the wages of those of the African Americans. African Americans have been the ones who suffered the most during the harsh times in the United States, Unfortunately, African Americans were always seem as inferior people even many decades after their emancipation, and that did not change during the worst economic event in the United States History. The Great Depression were really harsh times for all Americans, the food was scarce, the basic items for survivals were almost impossible to get, even the jobs to be able to get the money in order to survive. The normal American family didn't have much additional salary to spend on recreation exercises amid the 1930s. Prior to the Misery, going out to see the film theater was a noteworthy hobby. Less Americans could bear the cost of this extravagance after the securities exchange smashed—so more than 33% of the films in America shut somewhere in the range of 1929 and 1934.

The radio likewise gave a free type of amusement. By the mid-1930s, many white collar class families claimed a home radio. Parody projects, for example, Amos 'n' Andy, cleanser musical shows, games and swing music occupied audience members from ordinary battles. Relational unions ended up stressed, however numerous couples couldn't stand to isolate. Separation rates dropped amid the 1930s however abandonments expanded. A few men left their families out of shame or disappointment: This was here and there called a 'poor man's separation.' It's evaluated that in excess of two million people progressed toward becoming voyaging beggars.

The Great Depression was one of the worst, if not the worst time in the economy of the United States. After the stock market crash that happened during the 1920s the events that led to the Great Depression were almost inevitable. After the stock market crash the thousands banks failed because they did not have sufficient funds which caused investors to lose billions of dollars, therefore Americans could not withdraw their money from their saving accounts, which left little money in circulation and Americans were unable to spend the little money they had on goods, or any other item that was not food, because Americans did not spend a lot of money thousands of industries were left without people to sell their items to, which caused them to go bankrupt and to fire the thousands of Americans that were working for them, which worsened even more the economy of the United States, because the Great Depression was getting worse the United States decided to imposed higher taxes on the imports of goods from other countries, as a result, other countries imposed higher tariffs in the products of the United States, which led to a 60% decline in the world trade and in top of all that, the destruction of the land used for crops and livestock caused the loss of millions of crops and livestock that could otherwise feed those in need. Although, the Great Depression started in the United States, it spread pretty much around the world, but no other country suffered as much as the United States did.