1. The Great Depression
By: Maddy Siebold, Emily Shearman, Megan Ryan, John Onorati,
Jens Peterson, Jane Gross, and Robyn Clifford-Howard

2. Brief Summary
The Great Depression was said to have begun with
the stock market crash in October 1929. Two months
after the crash, stockholders had lost over 40 billion
dollars. Throughout the 1930s, people lived in
poverty. People throughout the country were in need
of food, clothing and shelter. It was a time of dept,
unemployment, poverty, and hunger. It is one of the
lowest points in American history, and will never be
forgotten.

3. Causes of The Great Depression
• Problems in Industry
• Problems in Farming
• Drought conditions
• Consumer spending
• No need for goods
• Distribution of wealth
• Stock market crash of 1926
• Bank Failures

4. Effects of The Great Depression
• Over thirty-four million Americans
unemployed
• Massive poverty
• Homelessness
• Devastation on American Farms
• Only food being imported and exported
• People not able to care for their families
• Death caused by starvation

5. Dept
• Very easy to fall into debt during the Great
Depression
• Farms had to be sold. Therefore taking away
family incomes
• No personal profit for the seller
• High pricing on housing and living expenses
brought several people into dept
• Dept caused people to owe their employers
money

6. The Dust Bowl
• Violent dust storms
• common occurance in the panhandle region
• Over cultivation and drought caused millions
of tons of topsoil to be blown into the air
• The dust reaching as far as New York
• These dust storms gave the “dust bowl” its
name.

7. Children and Teenagers
• Most children who had working parents had an everyday life
• In some households, when parents became employed, the children
took over the working role.
• Began work at a very young age
• Played board games such as “Scrabble”, “Monopoly”, or cards
• When the weather got better, most children left school to maintain
their family’s fields
• On these farms, children had to do things such as hauling water,
gathering eggs, tending the gardens, and finding useful wood
• 250,000 young people were homeless during the depression. Most of
these homeless teens became Nomads and traveled on highways and
rail roads
• A quarter of the nations homeless people were young children or
teens