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The Great Depression started in the United States and gradually spread to the other industrial countries in the world, which had become economically dependent on each other. The Depression saw rapid decline in production and sale of goods, and sudden and drastic rise in unemployment. People ended up losing their jobs, homes and savings. Many ended up surviving on charity. 1933 was the worst stage in the Great Depression with 15 million American being unemployed, which constituted to one-quarter of the nation’s workforce.
The Depression was caused due to weaknesses in the US economy. While the 1920s appeared to be prosperous, in reality it was not the case. Income distribution was uneven. The wealthy made large profits while the common man spent more money than he had earned. Farmers faced low prices and large debts. In addition, there was the disastrous crash of the US stock market in 1929, which ruined thousands of investors and destroyed confidence in the US economy. The Great Depression continued throughout the 1930s and it ended when massive spending started for World War II.
The Great Depression changed the relationship between the people and the government. The people expected and wanted the federal government to play a role in their lives and the economy. This led to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt creating a program known as New Deal. The New Deal was introduced to overcome the effects of the Depression and it expanded government intervention into new areas like social and economic aspects of the nation; it created a social assistance programs across the nation.
During the Great Depression, people did not have enough to eat. Although a few died from starvation, it was not unusual to see people searching garbage dumps for food, and if that did not work, they ate weeds to survive. Malnutrition was quite rampant. To survive, women took jobs to replace the lost pay checks of their husbands or to supplement their husband’s reduced wages. Women had been excluded from manufacturing jobs, which were the hardest hit by the Great Depression. Women excelled in work like clerical, teaching and social-service jobs, which grew during the New Deal era.
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