Great Depression

The Great Depression was the worst economic disaster in American history. A variety of factors led up to it, including a dangerous amount of stock market speculation and an excessive lending of credit. Other contributing factors were a weak farm economy, lack of government regulation of business, and high tariffs. During the 1930's, the years in which most of the Great Depression occurred, unemployment rose as high as twenty-five percent of workforce and the U.S Gross National Product dropped from $104 billion to $56 billion. However, by the end of the Depression, a variety of changes, some positive, had occurred that altered the social landscape of America. The main changes that transpired were a greater economic quality, the beginnings of a welfare state, and the change to the agricultural and farming society of America.

One of the most positive effects that emerged from the Great Depression was a greater economic equality between Americans. Cause for the evening of wealth was the New Deal policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. During the Hundred Days (the first one hundred days of Roosevelt's term), a number of programs designed to help the unemployed were created. The FERA (Federal Emergency Relief Administration) gave grants of money to state and local governments so they could offer relief to the homeless and unemployed. The PWA (Public Works Administration), the CCC (Civil Conservation Corps), and the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) all paid unemployed people to work on some type of public work or project on federal land. This helped people emerge from the hole the Depression put them in and start reestablishing themselves. It also helped reduce the number of unemployed poor people and was the first step to a greater economic equality in America.

Another policy of Franklin Roosevelt's that altered the social landscape of America in the 1930's and continuing into modern times was the creation of a modern welfare state. The programs created by the New Deal legislation employing people who were jobless and/or homeless were the start to this welfare state. The programs marked the longest length the government had gone in caring for its citizens, and was a major step in creating a society in which the government takes an active role in caring for its residents. However, although the New Deal programs such as the CCC and PWA