Publisher's Synopsis
Exploring The Struggles, Resilience, and the Road to Economic Recovery in the 1930s
Numerous people throughout the world are still feeling the effects of the Great Depression that hit the United States in the 1930s. Beginning with the stock market crash of October 1929, which caused Wall Street to go into a frenzy and destroyed millions of investors' wealth, the Great Depression was the greatest economic slump in the history of the industrialized world. It lasted from 1929 to 1939. Industrial production and employment fell sharply as failing businesses laid off employees due to a combination of falling consumer spending and investment during the subsequent years. At its worst point in 1933, the Great Depression left almost 15 million Americans jobless and nearly half of the nation's banks had collapsed. The Great Depression was the worst and longest economic downturn in industrialized Western history, and it caused major shifts in economic theory, macroeconomic policy, and financial institutions. Despite having its roots in the US, the Great Depression had a profound impact on nearly every nation on Earth, leading to sharp drops in production, high unemployment, and severe deflation. Particularly in the US, where the Great Depression was the worst hardship Americans had encountered since the Civil War, its cultural and social impacts were equally devastating. The Great Depression instilled in individuals from all walks of life the importance of economic stability and the necessity to persevere and overcome difficult circumstances instead of engaging in risky behavior with their finances or personal well-being.
