The Great Depression
The Great Depression
- Erik GellmanErik GellmanHistory Department, Roosevelt University
- and Margaret RungMargaret RungHistory Department, Roosevelt University
Summary
From the late 1920s through the 1930s, countries on every inhabited continent suffered through a dramatic and wrenching economic contraction termed the Great Depression, an economic collapse that has come to represent the nadir of modern economic history. With national unemployment reaching well into double digits for over a decade, productivity levels falling by half, prices severely depressed, and millions of Americans without adequate food, shelter or clothing, the United States experienced some of the Great Depression’s severest consequences. The crisis left deep physical, psychological, political, social, and cultural impressions on the national landscape. It encouraged political reform and reaction, renewed labor activism, spurred migration, unleashed grass-roots movements, inspired cultural experimentation, and challenged family structures and gender roles.
Keywords
Subjects
- 20th Century: Pre-1945
- Urban History
- Labor and Working Class History
