The Beginning of the Great Depression
The Great Depression lasted from 1929 until 1940. Many people borrowed more money than they could repay; they were buying too much on credit. The banks did not have enough money to give businesses the money to pay their employees. This caused a lot of people to lose their job. During this time, 25% of people did not have a job; 9,000 different banks closed; people were forced to leave their homes because they could not afford them. The Soup Kitchens in the Great Depression served free meals to the people.
Black Tuesday
On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in one day. Billions of dollars were lost, losing out thousands of investors. After Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the industrialized world went downward into the Great Depression, the deepest and longest economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world up to that time.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal
On March 4, 1933, during the Great Depression Franklin Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address in front of 100,000 people on Washington’s Capitol Plaza. “First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He promised that he would act swiftly to face the “dark realities of the moment” and assured Americans that he would “wage a war against the emergency” just as though “we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.” His speech gave many people confidence that they had elected a man who was not afraid to take bold steps to solve the nation’s problems.
The Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was the name given to the Great Plains region devastated by the drought in 1930s depression of America. The 150,000-square-mile area, taking over the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring sections of Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico, has little rainfall, light soil, and high winds, a kind of destructive combination. When the drought started in 1934 to 1937, the soil lacked the stronger root system of grass as an anchor, so the winds easily picked up the loose topsoil and swirled it into dense dust clouds, called “black blizzards.” Recurrent dust storms everything go crazy, choking cattle and pasture lands and driving 60% of the population from the region. Most of these “exodusters” went to agricultural areas first and then to cities, especially in the Far West.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City on October 11, 1884. She was the niece of Theodore Roosevelt and was one of the most outspoken women in the White House. She married Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1905. While her husband was president, Eleanor gave press conferences and wrote a newspaper column. After his death, she served at the United Nations, focusing on human rights and women's issues.
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John Dillinger
John Dillinger was born on June 22, 1903 in Indianapolis, Indiana. When he was a boy he committed petty theft. In 1924, he robbed a grocery store, and was caught and put in jail. He escaped, and he and his gang headed to Chicago, Illinois, to put together one of the most organized and deadly bank robbing groups in the country. The group continued on a crime spree in various states until they were arrested, with Dillinger receiving major media attention. In 1934, Dillinger was shot and killed in a setup by the FBI outside of a movie theater in Chicago.