The Great Depression: What really caused The Great Depression?

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workers, or 25 percent of the work force. Britain was less severely affected, but its industrial and export sectors remained seriously depressed until World War II. (www.americanhistory.about.com) Many other countries had been affected by the slump by 1931. The stock market crash in 1929, bank failures throughout the 1930s and reduction in purchasing across the board are three major causes of the Great Depression.

The Great Depression was the deepest and long lasting economic downfall in US history. It began as the stock market crash of October 1929, which set Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and rising levels of unemployment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its nadir, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. Though the relief ...

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