Years of Crisis
The Great Depression
• The Great Depression
in the United States
occurred due to the
devaluation of stocks in
the stock exchange
which in turn
decimated business
and in the process,
millions of people were
left unemployed.
How did Great Depression
Stock investments in turn
Americans invested in the happened?
was utilized to produce
goods like steel,
Investments created capital
stock market for overproduction.
automobiles, and
appliances.
• Companies are not making a profit
due to overproduction.
“4 Children For Sale: Lana, Milton, Raeann, and Sue-Ellen” (c. 1948) —
Robley D. Stevens, 30-year-old victim of the Depression, wears a sign that reads: "I am for
Library of Congress, Public Domain
sale. I must have work or starve," while standing on a sidewalk in Baltimore, Md., in Aug.
Families who were unable to pay rent were frequently evicted from
their homes
A war veteran sleeps on the sidewalk as his wife sits wrapped in blankets in Washington D.C. on July 29, 1932 during the Great
Over the course of the depression, authorities deported an
estimated 400,000 Mexican Americans, over fears of
workplace competition. But many of those people were
American citizens.
A migrant Mexican field worker's home on the edge of a frozen pea field in California's Imperial
A man wears a sign on his back outlining his unemployment. Valley CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
Outlaws: Bonnie and were American criminals who traveled the Central United
States with their gang during the Great Depression. The
Clyde couple was known for their bank robberies
To save their economy, the United States withdrew all foreign
assets from the recuperating economies of Austria and Germany,
which weakned the banking systrem of these countries.
Germany after World War I
The financial cost of the First World War is credited to be the main
cause of the economic crisis which plagued European countries
particularly Germany.
Germany could not pay the reparations and in
consequence France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr
Valley – Germany’s coal and steel producing
heartland.
The unpopularity of governments in Germany and in Italy brought by the
inadequacy to respond on the financial crisis made popular the ultra-
nationalists and their rhetoric of authoritarianism and militarism which
foreshadowed dark times ahead.
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