A Child of the Depression

The psychological impact of the Great Depression was as profound as the economic impact of the crash and its aftermath. The Crash—Black Tuesday—occurred on October 29, 1929. But the resulting Depression lasted almost until the beginning of World War II.

The Depression meant many things to many social elements. It swept away institutions and attitudes. Perhaps the most devastating blow was the failure of nine thousand banks. It impoverished or greatly reduced the economic circumstances of an upper middle class that had prospered in the 65 years since the Civil War. It was one of the two great crises in American history—the other was the Civil War—that shattered national unity. The Depression sharpened the economic agony of the South; it brought about new relations between labor and management; it sent a shock wave through every stratum of American society. But it didn’t radicalize the American people or alter the fundamentals of our constitutional system.

AH

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Anthony H. Harrigan

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The psychological impact of the Great Depression was as profound as the economic impact of the crash and its aftermath. The Crash—Black Tuesday—occurred on October 29, 1929. But the resulting Depression lasted almost until the beginning of World War II.

The Depression meant many things to many social elements. It swept away institutions and attitudes. Perhaps the most devastating blow was the failure of nine thousand banks. It impoverished or greatly reduced the economic circumstances of an upper middle class that had prospered in the 65 years since the Civil War. It was one of the two great crises in American history—the other was the Civil War—that shattered national unity. The Depression sharpened the economic agony of the South; it brought about new relations between labor and management; it sent a shock wave through every stratum of American society. But it didn’t radicalize the American people or alter the fundamentals of our constitutional system.