The Great Depression

By Molly Gallant

Causes • Stock Market Crash of 1929 • Stock market crash on October 29, 1929• Called the “Black Tuesday” because prices for shares collapsed in the United States

and Canada.• Was one of the major causes that led up to the Great Depression. • Stockholders lost more than $40 billion • When the stock market regain some of its losses, by the end of the 1930s it wasn’t

enough. • Bank failures• 1930s over 9,000 banks failed. • As banks failed people lost their own savings.• This leaded to less and less expenses. • Reduction in Purchasing Across the Board• All the fears of the stock market individuals from all classes stopped purchasing

items.• This affected the number of items produced and the workforce.• As people lost their jobs they were unable to pay for the payments. • The unemployment rate rose above 25% that meant less spending to help the

economic situation.

• Drought conditions• Prairie farmers in western Canada experienced a terrible drought and destroyed their

farms and livelihood • They couldn’t pay their taxes or other debts so they had to sell their farms for no

profit to themselves.

• http://americanhistory.about.com/od/greatdepression/tp/greatdepression.htm

• Canada Face of the Nation pg.100

• Unemployment During the Great Depression• Average rate of unemployment

in 1929: 3.2%in 1930: 8.9%in 1931: 16.3%in 1932: 24.1%in 1933: 24.9%in 1934: 21.7%in 1935: 20.1%in 1936: 16.9%in 1937: 14.3%in 1938: 19.0%in 1939: 17.2%

• Full and healthy employment in 1929 at 3.2% shifted with the crash on Wall Street and global depression. Rising unemployment reached double-digits in late 1930, and the situation continued to deteriorate through the winter of 1932-1933, when well over a quarter of all workers were unable to find jobs. The New Deal helped to reduce unemployment from 1933 through 1937, when another economic briefly caused a resurgence in joblessness. Full employment did not return until the war years of the early 1940s.

Statistics

• Average rate of death by suicide (per 100,000 population)1920-1928: 12.11929: 18.11930-1940: 15.4

• The Great Crash of 1929, which suddenly brought economic ruin to thousands of people accustomed to a decade of prosperity, caused an immediate and dramatic spike in suicides. Suicide rates, which averaged 12.1 per 100,000 people in the decade prior to the Depression, jumped to an alarming 18.9 in the year of Wall Street's crash. The suicide rate remained higher than normal throughout the remainder of the Great Depression.

• Average divorce rate, (per 1,000 people)1920-1929: 1.61930-33: 1.41934-39: 1.81940-46: 2.81947-64: 2.5

• The economic hardship of the Depression made couples somewhat less likely to divorce, as individuals mostly the women stuck in unhappy marriages often decided to stay with it instead of risking financial ruin by leaving their spouses.

• http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html

The effect on the average family

• Family Life in the Great Depression

Fertility Rates (per 100,000 women aged 15-44)in 1928: 93.8in 1929: 89.3in 1930: 89.2in 1931: 84.6in 1932: 81.7in 1933: 76.3in 1934: 78.5in 1935: 77.2in 1936: 75.8in 1937: 77.1in 1938: 79.1in 1939: 77.6in 1940: 79.9in 1941: 83.4in 1942: 91.5in 1943: 94.3in 1944: 88.8in 1945: 85.9

• The widespread poverty of the Great Depression caused dramatic changes to family life. As younger couples, worried about their finances, they put off having children. The rate of women having children declined by nearly 20% from 1928 1935. Fertility rates recovered somewhat during World War II. After 1945, they made up for 15 years of long-deferred baby making by reproducing at record rates, creating the so-called 'Baby Boom'; from 1946-1964.

• http://www.shmoop.com/great-depression/statistics.html

Pictures

Solutions• Prime Minister Bennett moved quickly after the 1930 election to try and

raise tariffs and to provide relief money to the different provinces for unemployed workers.

• Then he waited so did the farmers, fishers, workers and small business owners waited.

• Prices continued to fail, crops failed on the prairies, exports kept shrinking and jobs were disappearing.

• Canada Face of a Nation pg.107

Individual part: On My Family

• Things that my family would have to do if something like this ever happened to us…

• Reduce extra expenses ex: ~ horses, horse trailer ~ camper and extra vehicle ~ sell house or rent an apartment or smaller house for less money ~ budget carefully for groceries and house supplies ~ no more expensive vacations

• No more extra curricular activities ex: ~ swim team or horse shows