The Great Depression

Summary

The Great Depression was the most severe economic downturn in modern American history, beginning with the stock market crash of October 1929 and lasting through the 1930s. Unemployment reached 25%, thousands of banks failed, and millions of Americans lost their homes, farms, and savings. The crisis fundamentally transformed the relationship between the federal government and the economy, leading to unprecedented intervention through President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs. The Depression only fully ended with the massive industrial mobilization for World War II.