Causes of the Great Depression
The Great Depression is a well known historical event. It lasted from 1929 to 1939. Consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed. The Great Depression has many causes, a few of the main causes being overproduction and the aftermath of World War One, but the cause that actually put the Great Depression in motion was the Stock Market Crash.
The Stock Market Crash of 1929, also known as the Wall Street Crash, began on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929. “This is often considered the first day of the Great Depression.”(History Learning, 2015). This started with the U.S. stock market having “rapid expansion”(History.com Editors, 2010). It expanded so much that it reached its peak in August 1929. By this time, production had declined and unemployment rates had risen, “leaving stocks in great excess of their real value”(History.com Editors, 2010). A few other causes of the stock market crash was low wages, a large amount of debt, etc. On that day a record 12.9 million shares were traded as investors rushed to salvage their losses. On Black Tuesday (October 29, 1929), stock prices collapsed completely and 16,410,030 shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors, and stock tickers ran hours behind because the machinery could not handle the millions of trading.
