The Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn that began with the 1929 stock market crash, becoming the longest and most devastating economic crisis of the 20th century.
A single catastrophic week on Wall Street triggered a decade-long economic collapse so severe that it reshaped the fundamental relationship between government and the economy across much of the world.
The Stock Market Crash
The crisis began with the stock market crash of October 1929, which wiped out enormous amounts of wealth and triggered a rapid contraction of the broader American economy.
Widespread Unemployment and Poverty
The Depression produced unemployment rates exceeding 25 percent in the United States at its worst, alongside widespread bank failures, homelessness, and severe agricultural hardship.
A Global Economic Crisis
The downturn spread well beyond the United States, causing severe economic hardship across Europe and much of the industrialized world throughout the 1930s.
Roosevelt's New Deal Response
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal introduced sweeping government programs and financial regulations aimed at providing relief and preventing future economic catastrophes of similar scale.
Reshaping Economic Policy
The Great Depression fundamentally reshaped economic thinking worldwide, leading to greater acceptance of government intervention in the economy that influenced policy for decades afterward.
