Beginning in 1929,
the United States saw one of the most dramatic upheavals in its
history, in just a few short years the nation crashed precipitously
from the prosperity and glamour of the Roaring Twenties
to the desperate hardship and poverty of the Great Depression. Never
had the highs been higher or the lows been lower. The Great Depression—the worst
economic crisis in the country’s history—left an indelible scar on
American society and culture, causing millions of people to languish
in joblessness, homelessness, and starvation for nearly a decade.
In an American culture that measured self-worth by success, many
breadwinners from the Roaring Twenties felt deep humiliation when
they found themselves unable even to put food on their families’
tables. Even today, nearly every survivor of the Great Depression
can still recall the feelings of hunger and desperation.
The Great Depression in the United States also caused
a major worldwide depression, as virtually every industrialized
economy—Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and others—was brought
to its knees in the 1930s. The fiscally conservative
U.S. government, led by then-president Herbert Hoover, refused to
provide any direct relief to the masses. Britain and France took
out their economic woes on Germany and demanded payment of exorbitantly
large World War I reparations. In this sense, Germany was perhaps
hit the hardest, as its economy had already experienced the devastating effects
of hyperinflation before the U.S. stock market crashed in 1929.
The German economy was saved from complete collapse—only temporarily—by
the United States’ offer of the 1924 Dawes Plan
to reschedule reparation payments. Even with the aid, the emerging
German leader, Adolf Hitler, could only make vague promises to strengthen
and revitalize the country’s failing economy.
Not until the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
did the United States begin its long, slow recovery process. FDR’s
New Deal policies and programs not only provided relief, recovery,
and reform but also drastically changed the federal government’s
role in politics and society. During FDR’s terms in office in the 1930s,
the federal government had unprecedented control over and direct involvement
in the daily lives of American people. Many critics denounced the
New Deal, saying that the policies were transforming the United
States into a welfare state. Indeed, the budget deficit skyrocketed
every year and the national debt more than doubled in just ten years.
Roosevelt applied the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes
to his new domestic policies, and the positive results were so widespread
that even long after the Great Depression was over, Democrats continued
to fight for more government intervention in the economy, greater
redistribution of wealth, and increased aid for the neediest.
Despite the criticism that the New Deal attracted, its
policies and legislation must be considered a success simply by
virtue of the fact that they enabled millions of Americans to survive
the Great Depression. Unlike his Republican predecessor, Hoover,
Roosevelt’s goal was to help as many Americans as possible, regardless
of Congress’s or the Supreme Court’s disapproval. Whereas Hoover’s perspective
had been to wait for the storm to pass and let the economy correct
itself, Roosevelt took immediate action, passing legislation that
created new jobs, constructed houses and shelters, and handed out
food to the hungry. Roosevelt did not stop with the average American:
he helped inflate agricultural commodity prices in order to assist
farmers, he helped banks return to solid ground, and he greatly
improved the national infrastructure through public works programs.
Despite these numerous benefits, however, the New Deal
ultimately failed to end the Great Depression. More than ten years
after the Crash of 1929,
millions of Americans were still hungry, homeless, and unemployed.
Some historians argue that Roosevelt could have ended the depression
completely if he had put more federal dollars into the economy,
but this conclusion is debatable. The depression ended only after
the United States entered World War II in 1941,
when the increased demand for wartime commodities such as ships,
tanks, and munitions gave the U.S. economy the jump start it needed.
