The Great Depression was a period of perhaps the most severe economic recession recorded in the history of the United States. The enormity of that “era” may not be directly observed through outcomes on the United States as a nation, but rather the outcomes and effects of the Great Depression on our world. We find that the Great Depression, although centered in the United States, was unfortunately shared by many of the world’s countries, causing perhaps irreparable financial damage in some cases. The devastating effects of the Great Depression are perhaps most clearly observed in the United States between the years of 1929 and 1932.

One of the causes of the Great Depression was the sudden, but by no means unpredictable, crash of the stock market. This disastrous crash was due to the fact that the number of people who sold their shares in the market highly surpassed the number of people who bought shares in the market at that time. Although a viable reason, the main cause for the Great Depression is one that is not very obvious although it has led to much bloodshed and war in the past centuries. This reason is the hope of establishment of a surreal, or Utopian world. Following the horrors and abominable acts of World War I, the American people dreamed of being able to live in an abstract land of immaculate perfection and glory. Thus, the Prohibition reformers sought to build a world without the ultimate distress and various calamities caused by the consumption of alcohol. Thus, the revelers and “flappers” sought a lawless world, where nothing was impossible, and freedom was unrestrained. Thus, former industrial workers sought a world where money could be so easily obtained, where the stock market doubled each day without the simplest human effort. Thus, writers and artists sought to express their respective views, of an idealistic world. The 1920s or “post-depression era” was believed to be one of prosperity and quite in contrast with the following recession. However, it was not so. Whatever wealth was distributed among the working class of the 1920s was naught but leprechaun gold, or rather, that which is made to serve the purpose of the moment but does not last. The prodigious novelist and activist J.K. Rowling once said, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” By “dwelling on dreams” the American people slowly became prone to increasingly reckless behavior which ultimately led to the national crisis. Surely this behavior could not be a cause of prosperity, but rather a cause of a chaotic vortex which leads one into utter destruction. As writer William Leuchtenberg states in The Perils of Prosperity, “The decade (1920s) witnessed a series of speculative orgies from “get-rich-quick” schemes to. . .the Great Bull Market.” Instead of focusing on a single national goal or separate concrete goals, the American people became divided into a mass of different abstract dreams, each dream centering around a hope of a surreal world. As a result, these dreams culminated in the Great Depression.

                 The Great Depression was a period of great economic instability as well as major fiscal problems among nearly all American citizens. Hence, it is not surprising that the national and worldwide crisis resulted in low standards of living, increased unemployment rates, and various economic problems. This fact is asserted by R. R. Palmer and J. Colton, authors of A History of the Modern World, when they write, “The world price of wheat fell incredibly. Unemployment, a chronic disease ever since the war, now assumed the proportion of pestilence. In 1932, there were 30,000,000 unemployed persons. And people chronically out of work naturally turned to new and disturbing political ideas.” It may be rightly considered that the Great Depression had an overall highly negative effect on the American people. However, we must not ignore the fact that the United States was the first to rise from the rubble of the earthquake caused by the Great Depression, under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It must not be forgotten that the Great Depression was a mere test which the nation so proudly overcame. It also must not be forgotten that the abstract hopes of the 1920s terminated in the highly concrete and nationally achievable goals of the post-depression years. I believe that, difficult as it may have been, the Great Depression had a somewhat positive effect on the United States as a nation. I believe that the hardships experienced during the recession served to strengthen the bonds of unity and justice in the United States rather than sever them.

                 In conclusion, the Great Depression was a highly unfortunate event which pierced the hearts of millions and destroyed the homes of tens of thousands of Americans. As a people, we must look back on the causes of the Great Depression with caution as we seek to learn from the mistakes of our fathers. As a nation, we must be confident of our ability to overcome various economic or political hardships, such as those presented by the Great Depression. Above all, we must remain united as a nation and avoid being divided by the barriers of separate perceptions and hopes of a surreal world.

– Ayah Gouda

Note from the author:

For supplementary reading, please read my poem titled The Surreal World in my English Poetry page. Thank you!