Great Depression DBQ

Words: 1034
Pages: 5

The Great Depression was a time period (1929-1939) of economic turmoil that occurred on what was forever known as, Black Tuesday. After the stock market crash, unemployment and poverty spread to almost every American family, businesses had to lay off workers, and the industrial output soon declined. Two long term causes of the Great Depression were the Dust Bowl and bank failures. The Dust Bowl was a drought that left acres of farmland overworked and useless. Many farmers were left unemployed thereafter. Fearful of banks failing, Americans withdrew their money. As more more withdrew their money, more banks failed. Herbert Hoover was elected in 1928 and believed in rugged individualism, voluntary cooperation, and the wait and see approach. …show more content…
According to document 1, it shows that young people obtained jobs, thus receiving an income. More specifically, the NYA helped boost family incomes so children could stay in school. This shows that the New Deal was a success in that teens had a steady income, however, they had to work long hours and did exhausting and excessive work. In document 5, unemployment rate dropped when the New Deal was implemented. This shows that the new organizations that were created gave jobs to people that needed it. Since the unemployment rate dropped, people were able to sustain a better life style because of the New Deal organizations. However, it never dropped to the ideal employment percentage, so it did not completely end unemployment. In document 6, it shows how the social security act enable elderly people to gain money while not working. In other words, they earned monthly pensions for retired people, or their survivors. This demonstrates it was successful as young people could fill in their positions, yielding more jobs, and retired people could maintain a living. Unfortunately, most New Deal programs discriminated against blacks as white people got first crack at it. Even though these programs brought great ideas and opportunities, unemployment was still there, there were long and extensive work hours, and most of these programs were pointless and unaccessible for black