Causes and Results of The Great Depression

Men looking for work during the Great Depression

There were many reasons the Great Depression was sparked in the 1920s and 1930s. The weakness in the United State's economy also effected the economy of numerous other countries, especially Latin American countries, that their economies were dependent on the cheap export of international goods ("The Great Depression." para 2).

Here are some of the main events that sparked the Great Depression of the 1930s:

• Buying on Margin
• Buying on Credit
• Supply and Demand
• The Stock Market Crash
• Drought

Buying on Margin is something that was done to buy stocks. Many of the stock prices rose over night making the owners of these stocks rich at the end of the decade, some rich at the break of dawn the next day. Buying on margin was just an easy way to get stocks quick to try and make money. Many stock buyers would go to the bank and ask to take a loan out and buy stocks with that money, but when the stock market crashed, they were not able to pay the money back because the had lost all the money they had had before. Now, the bank doesn't have any money to stay open and starts to shut down. This is happening all across the country ("The Great Depression - Causes of the Depression." para 1)

Buying on credit is another reason the Great Depression was what it was in the 1930s. People that didn't have the money to buy something right then and there bought on credit. All credit is is not paying what you need to now and just paying it back in small portions. Many people bought things like washers, dryers, and dishwashers, on credit in the 1920s, but when the Stock Marker began to crash, they were not able to pay back the person or company they bought the item from. This is somewhat like buying on margin because in both situations, you didn't have to money to either buy stocks or buying something like a washer. This ended up the same way as did the buying on margin is the sense that people weren't able to pay back the money they owed, the people or companies had no money to keep going on and went out of business. This meant no money or work for people ("The Great Depression - Causes of the Depression." para 2).

Supply and Demand was another great reason that the Great Depression occurred. Supply and demand made a difference because of the farmers producing food and the factory producing food. Many of the average Americans had an average pay for the 1920s. While the price of food was high, the income still stayed the same, but for rural livers, they had even less than the urban livers. No one was buying the farm produced items because it was too expensive to buy. The farmers were trying to get more money faster, but ended up getting no money at all. This resulted in cutting workers from the farmer and these workers then had no money, which they couldn't buy from the factories and the factories didn't get money either so they had to lay off workers. This trend continued until the unemployment rate hit its highest mark ever ("The Great Depression - Causes of the Depression." para 3).

The Great Stock Marker Crash was probably the biggest reason the Great Depression occurred. The Stock Marker Crashed happened when the high stock market began to drop, but President Hoover said the economy and stock marker was fine, trading and selling went on as usual. Later on, the stock market began to drop quickly and people who were invested in the stock marker began to panic. They didn't know what to do and when the stock brokers asked for the investors to pay their debts they had, they couldn't and started to sell their stocks. This combo made the stock drop even more. No money being paid back and then no owners of stocks. The stocks dropped very quickly that year, despite the rapid selling of stocks ("The Great Depression - Causes of the Depression." para 4).

The final major reason of the Great Depression is Drought. The drought at this time was at the worst it has possibly ever been in the plain states. This was bad because of the fact that there were absolutely no crops being produced in this area of the United States because of the major lack of rain. There were migrant workers that traveled their way on Route 66 looking for jobs that they could make the minimum wage on just to stay alive. Many people didn't want them to work because they would be taking away from the farmers that had their farms destroyed by the Dust Bowl, which was cause of the drought ("The Great Depression - Causes of the Depression." para 5).

To conclude this section on the Great Depression, the economic hardship in the United States in the 1920s and 30s, also greatly effected the European countries that were in alliance with because the trade we had with them was almost completely cut of because of lack of material to trade ("The Great Depression." para 4). One of the countries that suffered greatest because of this was Germany. They had inflation of their currency, making it harder to exchange money for another currency and also making it harder to buy almost anything ("The Great Depression." para 3).

Works Cited

Click Here to go to "Works Cited -- Steinbeck Research Project"

Migrant Farmers Depression Era -- Life of a MIgrant Farmer during the Great Depression

A day in the life of a migrant farmer (a poor farmer that did not have a stable, reliable job) was pretty close to being the same everyday. The would wake up from the job yesterday and stand on street corners and looked for new jobs that a farmer might need help with doing and hopefully would hire them from that day. Many of these migrant workers were given this name because they were like migratory workers and looked for new jobs everyday. After finding a job, they would assist the farmer in whatever job they needed extra help in. At the end of each day, the migrant workers were paid for minimum wage doing manual labor in agricultural fields (Allen, Glenn. "A Day in the Life of a Migrant Farm Worker." para 1) There was no "pay check" like there is now-a-days. It was hard for these people to find work because during the Great Depression, Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmers were the prime targets to be racially discriminated and removed from from the areas they lived in California ("Dorothea Lange Photos." The History Place). The Mexican and Mexican American migrant workers in the United States were supposedly stealing jobs of the white American citizens ("Picture This: Depression Era." Oakland Museum of California. para 5). Another thing that these migrant workers had problems with other than having to find work is the quality of their housing. According to a California minister's report of a labor camp in Imperial Valley, he said that the "shelters were made of almost every conceivable thing - burlap, canvas, palm branches" ("Picture This: Depression Era." Oakland Museum of California). The walls and roofs were just pieced together with many different types of materials, just enough to hold the shack roofs together. The life of many migrant farmers in the Great Depression is that was very difficult just to make sure they had someplace to sleep and food to eat.

The Life of John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

In 1902 John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California. When John was growing up, his parents encouraged him to be a writer, just for the fun of it. At the time, he does begin to write just for fun. In 1919, Steinbeck graduated to from Salinas High School and then attended Stanford University. Although, he did not graduate from Stanford University with a degree, he dropped out about every month or so and when he was out of college, he worked various jobs. After he finally decides to stay dropped out of college, Steinbeck then moves to New York in 1925 to attempted to get some of his pieces of writing while working many jobs to keep himself on his feet while the books were he was writing, but none of his writing pieces were published and he returned to his home of California ("The Life and Times of John Steinbeck - Oprah.com."). In 1929, Steinbeck published his first novel Cup of Gold, but it was not very well known. On the plus side for Steinbeck, the next year he got married to Carol Henning. He ended up moving to Los Angles with her but ended up getting a divorce in 1941 ("The Life and Times of John Steinbeck - Oprah.com."). At this time of his life in 1935, his writing career really kicked off with novels that he wrote like Tortilla Flat(1935), In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), The Long Valley (1938), and The Grapes of Wrath (1939) which was considered one of his best writing piece ever ("John Steinbeck - Biography". Nobelprize.org). These books showed aspects of his life like about a migrant worker and being alive during the Great Depression. Steinbeck was also in World War II as a correspondent and wrote pieces of government propaganda that helped aid the U.S. in the war. After Another great novel that Steinbeck wrote during his writing years was The Pearl (1947) ("Biography of John Steinbeck" Gradesaver.com para 3). The real awarding years of Steinbeck's life was 1962 through 1964. In 1962, accepted the award of Nobel Prize of Literature, 1963 is accepted in to the Library of Congress as an honorary consultant in American Literature, and 1964 he is presented a United States Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson ("The Life and Times of John Steinbeck - Oprah.com."). After his successful life of writing, Steinbeck passed away in New York, New York because of arteriosclerosis in 1968.