ShmoopTube

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in 1929 the stock market crashed amidst the worst economic [The Times front page about the stock market crash]

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collapse in American history it was even worse than that time the NYSE tripped and

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did a faceplant in the middle of Wall Street somehow so embarrassing [NYSE as a person falling over]

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many say that the crash of 29 was an epic let's say fair fail even guys like

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Calvin Coolidge whose lays a fair presidency had fueled the Roaring [Calvin Coolidge sat at his desk]

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Twenties off state and a total free-market ability to pick this out the [Capitalism cracking and plasters being put on it]

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same guy we said the business of America is business was nothing stuff like well

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it has always been possible to see some things which were solid and upon which

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you could say smoke but as I look about I now see nothing to give ground folks

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nothing young man whoa if that dude was the bread and he wasn't the only one in [The US looking sad]

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fact this next period of American history is usually called a Great

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Depression not actually because everybody needed Prozac or they probably [Stop sign appears over a prozac pill]

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did but because the economy was depressed as in pressed down plain latin [A hand pressing down the word economy]

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if that's confusing for over a decade after the crash jobs were scarce pocket

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money was scarcer and thousands of Americans saying into complete and total

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poverty the nation's farms were dying it was so bad that we can't even try and [Dry field with no crops]

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make that funny but what caused the depression and how did America respond

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when it happened like okay the market crash and aren't any job and banks are

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closing like it's their new hobby but surely this isn't the start of global [List of things causing the great depression]

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decade-long economic failure right that's what President Herbert Hoover

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thought he was unlucky enough to be just eight months into his presidency when

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everything went bust and his first impulse was to look on the sunny side [Hoover signing a document]

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Hoover figured we could just wait it out with minimal government intervention but

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what actually happened was that everything continued to get worse we [Firefigters tackling a blaze]

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here gave a speech it just went like oops make matters a billion times worse

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a horrible drought struck America's heartland a plant died and their root

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systems along with them died topsoil dried off and was blown away by the wind [The topsoil flies off in the wind]

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this caused giant dust storms called black blizzards which devastated

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farmlands and caused a new type of sickness called dust pneumonia this dust [Child stood in a dust cloud]

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mageddon was called the dustbowl smell along with

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following prices of crops and transformed the swarms of farming [Farming family in the dried out farmland]

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families into homeless Wanderers scouring America for jobs in a new place

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to be the lucky made it to California with banjos on their knees amidst all [Guy playing a banjo]

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this chaos came a new president named Franklin Delano Roosevelt while FDR had

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a radical idea for how to fix America he called it the New Deal yeah it sounds [FDR smiling]

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like a used car sales it was actually sweeping legislation that gave the

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entire government a sort of socialist overhaul let's see there were massive [Picture of people going to work]

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make-work programs there were huge subsidies and price controls for farmers

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there was government regulation of stock trading at America's first public [SEC logo]

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pension programs Social Security well some people say that FDR's New Deal

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helped to halt the depression lessening its impact until World War two gave the [Hand stops the US GDP chart from falling anymore]

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US economy the jolt it needed to fire upping it others say that the New Deal

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was a sneaky left-wing takeover of the government that didn't do much good and

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saddled America with social programs that are holding us back even until [Guy protesting about welfare in front of the Capitol]

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today well the one thing everybody can agree on is that the Great Depression

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made a permanent dent in America it's the reason why so many things today are [A car labelled the depression drives into the US and causes a dent]

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like they are it's also the reason why every American over 90 keeps their money

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in their mattress [Old man lifts up his mattress to show loads of cash under it]

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