The Great Depression and the New Deal in the United States

The stock market crash of October 1929 began a collapse that became the Great Depression. Thousands of banks failed, wiping out savings; by 1933 about a quarter of American workers were unemployed; and homeless camps nicknamed "Hoovervilles" spread. President Herbert Hoover relied mostly on voluntary cooperation and limited federal action, and in 1932 the Army forcibly cleared the Bonus Army of World War I veterans from Washington. In the Great Plains, drought and poor farming practices created the Dust Bowl, driving hundreds of thousands of families, many from Oklahoma, west to California. Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected in 1932, launched the New Deal, aimed at relief, recovery, and reform: programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration created jobs, the FDIC insured bank deposits, the Securities and Exchange Commission regulated the stock market, the Wagner Act protected unions, and the Social Security Act of 1935 created old-age pensions and unemployment insurance. Critics on the right said the New Deal gave government too much power, while critics on the left said it did too little. It did not end the Depression, which lasted until wartime production ramped up, but it greatly expanded the federal government's role in the economy.

This explanation is AI-generated and can occasionally be wrong. 🚩 Report