Bust - The Great Depression

Wall Street Crash

• Factories over producing

• Sept 1929 a few cautious people began to sell their shares, word spread and more people sold, prices dropped

• People just didn’t want their shares anymore so rushed to sell - mad panic on 29^th Oct

• Banks went bankrupt because people had borrowed money to buy shares and couldn’t pay back - 659 banks went bust

The Great Depression

Country had gone from boom to bust

• Ordinary Shareholders: tried to pay off their bank loans by selling their valuable items like cars

• Factory workers: lost their jobs

• Bank managers: loaned out huge amounts of money and when banks went bankrupt they lost their jobs

• Rich: some lost their wealth but lots had property or land to fall back on

• Farmers: had been losing money for years, had to sack workers, lost their farms

Effects of the Great Depression

• Around 13 million people lost their jobs

• Companies went out of business

• Unemployed workers travelled looking for work - known as hobos

• Camps for homeless called Hoovervilles

• Many people reduced to begging

• President Hoover was convinced USA would recover soon & believed in rugged individualism

• Some turned to violence or protests for change

Why did Roosevelt win the 1932 Election?

• His wife cared deeply about the poor

• Had a job in the navy during WW1 but caught polio which nearly killed him - used a wheelchair

• Had ideas for dealing with the depression - New Deal

• Made lots of speeches convincing the American public he was the answer