1929-1941: The Great Depression

The video offers a history of the Great Depression in the United States. The economic boom of the early 1920’s, built on speculation and deferred borrowings, ended with the stock market crash of 1929. One quarter of American working people became unemployed in a time where government health care and unemployment assistance was non-existent. The video examines the causes of the global depression; the rise of militancy in the U.S. labour movement; the depression on the land; and looks at President Roosevelt’s New Deal and some of the programs his administration initiated to assist the poor. The final end to the depression only came with the rise of Nazism in Europe and the increase in global production geared towards the war effort.