The+Depression

The Depression The Great Depression was a severe economic downfall for the United States. By 1932, unemployment had surged to twenty-five percent, while stock prices plummeted by over eighty percent. Over eighty-five thousand businesses had declared bankruptcy. Banks could not collect debt from bankrupt businesses and began to close, causing the loss of the savings of millions of Americans. This led President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to create the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which provides a hedge againts this sort of loss.What is more important is that the farmers living in the Southcentral cities of the United States suffered almost all the kind of hardships since the first day the depression came into life. They traveled to the West, especially to California, and hope to find better opportunities in life. In 1930, a confluence of bad weather and poor agricultural practices known as the //Dust Bowl// compounded the Depression's effects on farmers. Sustained drought and continued planting and harvesting over poor seasons led to the destruction of ground cover that held soil in place, hence //Dust Bowl//. This, along with other economic factors, reduced farm revenue by 50 percent. Many farmers were forced to move to the cities in order to survive.
 * Video:** [|**The Depression**]