LYCOS RETRIEVER 
The Great Depression: United States
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Though the U.S. economy had gone into depression six months earlier, the Great Depression may be said to have begun with a catastrophic collapse of stock-market prices on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929. During the next three years stock prices in the United States continued to fall, until by late 1932 they had dropped to only about 20 percent of their value in 1929. Besides ruining many thousands of individual investors, this precipitous decline in the value of assets greatly strained banks and other financial institutions, particularly those holding stocks in their portfolios. Many banks were consequently forced into insolvency; by 1933, 11,000 of the United States' 25,000 banks had failed. The failure of so many banks, combined with a general and nationwide loss of confidence in the economy, led to much-reduced levels of spending and demand and hence of production... aggravating the downward spiral. The result was drastically falling output and drastically rising unemployment; by 1932, U.S. manufacturing output had fallen to 54 percent of its 1929 level, and unemployment had risen to between 12 and 15 million workers, or 25-30 percent of the work force.
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When the Great Depression started, Herbert Hoover was the president of the United States. People voted for a new president in 1932. His name was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt got the government to pass many new laws and programs to help people who were hurt by the Great Depression. These programs were called the New Deal. One of these programs was the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC.
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The stock market crash of 1929 was an indication of serious, underlying problems in the United States economy, but it was not the sole cause of the Great Depression. The Crash merely made the cracks in America's superficial prosperity much more obvious. And, since the causes of the economic crises were complex, the solution to the economic problems facing the United States would be complicated as well. This lecture examines the first few years of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, the New Deal, and the federal government's attempt to lift America out of the Depression.
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The Wall Street stock-market crash of 1929 precipitated the Great Depression, the worst economic downturn in the history of the United States. The depression had devastating effects on the country. The stock market was in shambles. Many banks couldn't continue to operate. Farmers fell into bankruptcy. A quarter of the working force, or 13 million people, were unemployed in 1932, and this was only the beginning.
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The Great Depression of 1929-33 was the most severe economic crisis of modern times. Millions of people lost their jobs, and many farmers and businesses were bankrupted. Industrialized nations and those supplying primary products (food and raw materials) were all affected in one way or another. In Germany the United States industrial output fell by about 50 per cent, and between 25 and 33 per cent of the industrial labour force was unemployed.
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In the mid-1930s, as the Great Depression stubbornly refused to lift, jazz came as close as it has ever come to being America's popular music. It had a new name now — Swing — and its impact was revolutionary. Swing rescued the recording industry. In 1932, just 10 million records had been sold in the United States. By 1939, that number would grow to 50 million. Swing — which had grown up in the dancehalls of Harlem — would become the defining music for an entire generation of Americans.
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