A Look Back on the Great Depression of 1936


     The Great Depression was a time of tremendous poverty and depravation.
It put many hard-working men and women out of their jobs and sources of income.
It left many wholesome, decent, families out on the street, homeless; their
pride and dignity stripped of them. Many people would be left to starve,
without money to buy food or pay for shelter. Some people even turned against
their own friends so that they could support their families. Many became
oblivious to the needs of others and thought only of how they themselves could
benefit.
As the days went by, the number of people with illness and disease
increased, and with little money for food or medicine to treat their needs, they
had to suffer or die because they could not afford the treatment necessary for
them to get better. Because of the Great Depression, the cost of many items
went up to an extreme amount if money, thus, even more people could not afford
simple everyday things.
     Though there were many factors that helped cause the Great Depression,
the main cause of it was the huge stock market crash that occurred in 1929.
Many people lost a lot of money when the market crashed.
Herbert Clark Hoover was president at that time and many people blamed
him, and were very upset about his decisions involving the economy. They dealt
with their anger by not reelecting Hoover, but instead, electing Franklin Delano
Roosevelt for president the next time around. He was the one who helped get
the economy back in shape by creating a program called the "Big Deal." The Big
Deal was a government funded program that gave jobs to the jobless, and homes to
the homeless. In return for getting the economy back in shape, FDR was elected
again for another term and yet another four years.