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The prosperity achieved throughout the Roaring Twenties would reach its peak before beginning to downfall. This was as a result of numerous factors that came before the Wall Street Crash. When things started to look a bit bleak, the discount rate was increased from 5% to 6% by the Federal Reserve in order to support the gold standard and stop inflation. -
The Stock Market crashed and everyone ran to get what money was left before it was gone. This event caused the beginning of the Great Depression. -
Man made disaster caused by deep plowing of the virgin top soil of the Great Plain. The great plains are the broad expanse of prairie land that lies east of the Rocky Mountains. Covers; parts of the U.S. Of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, and parts of Canada.
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With the grass destroyed and the soil dried, turned to dust, and blew away eastwards and southwards in large dark clouds. At times dark ended the sky and reached all the way to the East coast to cities such as; NY, Washington D.C. Much of the soil ends up in the Atlantic Ocean. -
In the United States, unemployment rose to 25% at its highest level during the Great Depression. Literally, a quarter of the country's workforce was out of work. This number translated to 15 million unemployed Americans. As the Depression spread worldwide, it rose as high as 33% in some countries. -
Franklin D. Roosevelt, a 1932 presidential candidate, gives his “New Deal” speech to the public to reveal his plans for economic recovery. -
President Roosevelt begins his “first hundred days” in office and 15 laws are introduced rapidly to begin tackling the Great Depression. -
It seemed as if it could get no worse, but on Sunday, the 14th of April 1935, it got worse. The day is known in history as “Black Sunday,” when a mountain of blackness swept across the High Plains and instantly turned a warm, sunny afternoon into a horrible blackness that was darker than the darkest night -
President Roosevelt had the difficult task of having to manage the debt, but also try to keep the economy out of the depression. In an attempt to relieve the country’s debt, he cut back spending on the New Deal programs, which ultimately pushed the economy back into the depression. In the end, after a $5 billion relief program was enacted by Congress, the economy grew by 5.1%. -
Rain falls, but the damage is done. Although it seemed like the drought would never end too many, it finally did. In the fall of 1939, rain finally returned in significant amounts to many areas of the Great Plains, signaling the end of the Dust Bowl
