There were
many hardships associated with the Great Depression. Several hardships were centered around
financial issues. Many people had invested their life savings in the stock market. They had
bought stocks at inflated prices because they believed the stock prices would continue to rise.
When the stock market crashed, many people lost all or almost all of their savings and
investments. At the same time, many banks failed. Because banks had invested the money of
customers in the stock market, the banks were not able to meet the demand for funds when people
wanted to take money from their accounts after the stock market crashed. Since there was no
insurance on savings accounts, people lost their savings when their bank failed.
Other hardships also existed. Many people lost their jobs during the Great Depression.
At the height of the Great Depression, about twenty-five percent of the American people were out
of work. Many of these people lost their homes or their farms because they could not pay their
mortgage. People were not able to afford food and had to turn to soup kitchens in order to get
fed. Some farm families left their homes in the Midwest, which had been ravaged by drought and
by dust storms, and moved westward to try to find some kind of work to do.
The American people faced many hardships during the Great Depression. While the
government stepped in to try to ease these hardships, many Americans continued to suffer in
varying degrees during the Great Depression.
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