How Did It Get This Bad After World War I Ended - 974 Words

Since 1929 our country has been ravished by a depression. Millions have been out of work. Millions have lost their livelihoods. How did it get this bad? After World War I ended America had to readjust to peace time conditions. The war had boosted the economy as it pumped out weapons and lent aid to our allies. When it ended America demanded that the loans be repaid. We also enacted tariffs which caused other countries to not be able to afford our products. This led to even more crippling debt among those we had called our friends. Unfortunately our prosperity was short lived. As the gap between the wealthy and middle class widened we began to see the downfall. Production slowed, workers got laid off, and then the banks failed. On October†¦show more content†¦The New Deal helped us out of the depression by setting up relief programs that aided the unemployed, the hungry, and the impoverished. Roosevelt started with what hurt us the most: the banks. Roosevelt declared a national bank holiday to allow for time to devise a plan that would work in the short and long term. He then set up the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to give the people confidence in the new banking system. The FDIC insured that the government would reimburse a customer should their bank fail. The next step was for relief to the â€Å"forgotten man†. Harry Hopkins, a New Dealer, supported the Federal Emergency Relief Administrations (FERA). FERA gave four to five million households $20-$30 a month, created jobs, and paid laborers to renovate schools, dig sewers, and fix roads and building. Another relief program was Civilian Conservation Corps, which offered young men who were unemployed a chance to work to preserve natural resources. The CCC saw to water erosion, rivers, and planted millions of trees. They also finished the Hoover Dam. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) gave mil lions of jobless citizens a chance to earn wages by working on government sponsored jobs. The jobs created by the WPA not only helped those without jobs, but also improved our roads, buildings, and cities as a whole. The New Deal also provided rural communities with electricity through the Tennessee Valley Authority by building