Name__________________________
Date_________________
The Great Depression
Instructions: Read the passage below. While you read, underline or highlight key words or
phrases that you think are important.
The 1920s was a decade of wealth and prosperity for many Americans.
Employment was high, and Americans had money to spend on many new items
produced by factories. Millions of families could now afford to buy the automobiles
produced by mass production lines in factories. Refrigerators were invented to help
preserve food, which contributed to improved health. Radios were widespread, and
almost every family had one in their home. The first black-and-white movies, or motion
pictures as they were called, were made in the early 1900s, and by 1927, the first sound
motion picture, The Jazz Singer, had been produced.
Life seemed to be improving in other ways too. People were relieved and happy
that the “Great War,” also called “The War to End All Wars” (what we now know as
World War I), had ended in 1918. In 1920, the states had voted to approve the
Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.
Throughout the 1920s, women expressed their enjoyment of their new rights and
freedoms by wearing knee-length dresses and by adopting freer lifestyles. More people
were becoming educated and were going to college. Although the selling, buying, and
drinking of alcohol had been outlawed, many people purchased it illegally and drank it at
parties that featured lots of music and dancing. The decade of the 1920s is often called
“The Roaring Twenties” or “The Jazz Age,” for the music that was popular during this
time.
Toward the end of 1929, however, things changed, and they would never be the
same again. Everything came crashing down on one particular day that became known
as “Black Tuesday.” To understand Black Tuesday, however, it is important to
understand the idea behind the stock market.
Not only were there more things to enjoy in the 1920s, but there were more
opportunities for people to invest their money and increase their wealth. Investment is a
way in which people earn greater wealth by putting a portion of their money into an
opportunity like a bank or business, which will eventually return to them more money as
it grows. Many people began investing their money in businesses by buying stocks,
which are small shares of a company. In theory, stock owners actually own a very small
portion of a company. Many stocks in the U.S. are traded on the New York Stock
Exchange, which is located on Wall Street in New York City. Each person who buys a
stock in a company gives money to the company with the hopes that the company will
do well and the stock price will go up, increasing the value of that person’s investment.
If the company does well, then its stocks go up, and stock owners will be able to sell
their stocks at higher prices than they bought them for.
In the 1920s people viewed the stock market as a way to get rich. Instead of
realizing that sometimes companies do poorly and that stock prices can go down as
well as up, people invested more and more money into the stock market. Often, people
Copyright 2006 Money Instructor
Name__________________________
Date_________________
had no idea what companies they were investing in. They just wanted to get rich and
get rich fast.
Toward the end of October in 1929, a sudden panic ensued among stock
owners, and many began selling their stocks. The panic became so widespread and so
many people tried to sell at the same time that stock prices took a nose-dive, many of
them falling so fast that they became worthless in a matter of hours. The day that the
stock market completely collapsed was on October 29, a day which later became known
as “Black Tuesday.”
As people began to panic, they went to their banks and attempted to withdraw
their money. Banks, however, do not keep everyone’s money in cash on hand; instead,
many banks had also invested their customers’ money in the stock market, and they lost
as well. The panic continued as people rushed to their banks to get whatever money
they could. In the end, the majority of the banks went out of business.
Over night, millionaires became poor people. As the stock market crashed and
banks closed, businesses went under, and millions of people lost their jobs and their
money. Factories stopped producing, and farmers lost their lands. Many people were
unable to afford even the most basic of living essentials, such as a house and food.
Families lost their homes, and many were forced to find food wherever they could.
People with nothing to eat waited in long “breadlines” for food handouts from charitable
organizations. By 1932, one-fourth of all Americans who were able to work could not
find a job.
This condition in which the economic condition of a country, including jobs,
prices, and living styles, becomes worsened on a widespread social scale is called a
depression. In Europe, similar economic depressions and bank collapses only made
conditions worse in the United States. This period beginning in 1929 lasted for many
years; it lasted so long, in fact, that this time has become known as “The Great
Depression.”
During this time, people naturally turned to their president to save them from this
catastrophe. The president at the time was Herbert Hoover, who had been elected in
1928. At first, Hoover and his presidential advisors assumed that, if given time, the
economy would improve on its own. As the situation became worse and greater
numbers of people lost their jobs, Hoover tried to improve the situation. Hoover
increased building projects to restore jobs and created policies to provide financial
assistance to banks and other institutions.
President Hoover’s efforts, however, were not enough, and people began to
blame him for not doing more to help. Many homeless and jobless people were forced
to build temporary homes, or “shanties,” out of boxes, crates, and whatever else they
could find. They expressed their bitterness toward their president by calling these
shantytowns by the name of “Hoovervilles.” Conditions in the U.S. only seemed to be
getting worse.
Copyright 2006 Money Instructor
Name__________________________
Date_________________
The Great Depression
Comprehension Questions
Instructions: Choose the letter of the correct answer.
1. The decade of the 1920s was called:
a. The Jazz Age
b. The Roaring Twenties
c. Both a and b
d. Neither a nor b
2. The 1920s was characterized by all of the following EXCEPT:
a. Many people owned televisions.
b. Many people owned radios.
c. Many people owned cars.
d. Women enjoyed more freedoms than they had in the past.
3. “Black Tuesday” became the famous label for the day when:
a. President Hoover lost the election.
b. The Jazz Singer, the first motion picture with sound, was released.
c. The stock market crashed.
d. World War I ended.
4. Ways of investing money might include all of the following EXCEPT:
a. Putting a sum of money in a bank
b. Putting coins in a piggy bank
c. Buying shares of a company’s stock
d. Putting money into a new business
5. In the term “Great Depression,” the word “great” means:
a. Wonderful
b. Unusual in degree power, or intensity
c. Of high rank
d. First-rate
6. The consequences of the Great Depression included all of the following EXCEPT:
a. At one point, one of out every four people who could work was unable to find
a job.
b. Many families had to stand in breadlines.
c. Many people who lost their homes built shanties to live in.
d. The economy quickly improved, as President Hoover predicted.
Copyright 2006 Money Instructor
Photographs from the Great Depression
The FDR Presidential Library has thousands of photographs from the Great Depression which
are available online at
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/collections/franklin/index.php?p=digitallibrary/thu
mbnails&subjectid=7
Look through the photographs, thinking about what the lives of the people living them must
have been like. Choose three (3) photographs and try to imagine the details of those people’s
lives, including their families, homes, clothing, food, work, school, friends, free time, etc. Then
complete an “Analyzing a Photograph or Illustration” worksheet for each of the three picture
you selected.
Name: ____________________________
Teacher: __________________
Analyzing a Photograph or Illustration
Part 1 – Objective Observation
Photo ID ______________
Date______________
Subject
Setting
(people, objects, gender, age, clothing, facial
expressions, posture)
(indoor/outdoor, urban/rural, time of day,
time of year, background – objects)
Action
Other Clues
(What activity/event is shown? What are people
doing? Are they working in groups or alone?
Relationship to each other?)
(What other details do you see in the photo?
Examples: tools, vehicles, animals, buildings, signs.
Is it a candid or posed photo?)
Is there a title? What information does it give you? __________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Is there a caption? What information does it give you? ________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Part 2 - Subjective Observation
1. What conclusions can you draw from the people or objects in this
photo/illustration?
2. What questions do you now have that are not answered in the
photo/illustration?
Name: ____________________________
Teacher: __________________
Analyzing a Photograph or Illustration
Part 1 – Objective Observation
Photo ID ______________
Date______________
Subject
Setting
(people, objects, gender, age, clothing, facial
expressions, posture)
(indoor/outdoor, urban/rural, time of day,
time of year, background – objects)
Action
Other Clues
(What activity/event is shown? What are people
doing? Are they working in groups or alone?
Relationship to each other?)
(What other details do you see in the photo?
Examples: tools, vehicles, animals, buildings, signs.
Is it a candid or posed photo?)
Is there a title? What information does it give you? __________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Is there a caption? What information does it give you? ________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Part 2 - Subjective Observation
1. What conclusions can you draw from the people or objects in this
photo/illustration?
2. What questions do you now have that are not answered in the
photo/illustration?
Name: ____________________________
Teacher: __________________
Analyzing a Photograph or Illustration
Part 1 – Objective Observation
Photo ID ______________
Date______________
Subject
Setting
(people, objects, gender, age, clothing, facial
expressions, posture)
(indoor/outdoor, urban/rural, time of day,
time of year, background – objects)
Action
Other Clues
(What activity/event is shown? What are people
doing? Are they working in groups or alone?
Relationship to each other?)
(What other details do you see in the photo?
Examples: tools, vehicles, animals, buildings, signs.
Is it a candid or posed photo?)
Is there a title? What information does it give you? __________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________
Is there a caption? What information does it give you? ________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________
Part 2 - Subjective Observation
1. What conclusions can you draw from the people or objects in this
photo/illustration?
2. What questions do you now have that are not answered in the
photo/illustration?