Download The Great Depression. .The Great Deprssion was a severe

The Great Depression.
.The Great Deprssion was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade
preceding World War II.
.The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started
in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s.
.It was the longest, most widespread, and deepest
depression
.Countries started to recover by the mid-1930s, but in
many countries the negative effects of the Great
Depression lasted until the start of World War II.
.Unemployed men march in Toronto Ontario, Canada.
toronto Ontario.
.when the stock market in the United States dropped rapidly.
.Thousands of investors lost large sums of money and many
were wiped out, lost everything.
.Banks, stores, and factories were closed and left millions of Americans jobless, homeless, and
penniless. Many people came to depend on the government or charity to provide them with food.
.The economy continued to slump almost every month.
.The Great Depression ended as nations increased their
production of war materials at the start of World War II.
This increased production provided jobs and put large
amounts of money back into circulation.
American Dust Bowl.
.A farmer and his two sons during a dust storm in Cimarron,
Oklahoma 1936. Photo: Arthur Rotstein.
Darcie Seward
.A dust storm approaches Stratford, Texas, in 1935.
.The Dust Bowl or the Dirty Thirties was a period of severe
Dust Storm causing major ecological damage to American and Canadian prairie lands
from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940).
.The lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas.
.Finally, farmers used agricultural practices that encouraged erosion. For example, Cotton
farmers left fields bare over winter months, when winds in the High Plains are highest, and
burned the stubble (as a form of weeding prior to planting), which deprived the soil of
organic nutrients and increased exposure to erosion.
.This increased exposure to erosion was revealed when a severe drought struck the Great
Plains in 1934.
.The unusually wet period, which encouraged increased settlement and cultivation in the
Great Plains, ended in 1930
.This was the year in which an extended and severe drought began which caused crops to
fail, leaving the plowed fields exposed to wind erosion.
Darcie Seward