Heather

Writing

October 13, 2005

The Great Depression

I’m going to tell you about the Great Depression and what happen to the people. I’m going to tell you things like when it first started, and how hard the times were during Great Depression ended and how the people felt about the Great Depression.

The Great Depression began in 1929. Right before the Great Depression people were buying shares of stocks. On October 29, 1929 the stocks started to go downhill and no one wanted to buy stocks because they were not worth anything anymore. A lot of people lost millions of dollars in stocks. So many people become poor when the stock market crashed because they lost their money that they had in the banks.

There were three other reason the Great Depression started. The factories were making way too many products and could not sell them all. The workers were not earning enough money to buy things that they needed. Finally the farmers were growing too many crops and could not sell them.

Once people started losing their money and not making enough, they had no way of paying their rent so they lost their homes. When they lost their homes they had nowhere to live and they had to live on the streets. Some people made shacks to sleep in for their families with the stuff they found. Then they lost their money and had no way of getting food for their families to eat. So they would go to places where people would give them food, but they needed to be the first to get there because sometimes they would run out of food. Then they would not have anything to eat. People even thought about breaking into stores or others houses to get food for their families so they could eat. They would pray that this would end soon so that could make a better life for their families.

What ended the Great Depression was World War II which began in 1939 There were a lot more new jobs because of the war. Men and women started working in factories making weapons, ships, and airplanes to help out the war. When they got jobs a lot of people were happy because they did not have to fight to get food to feed their families anymore. Once they started working they were able to get their houses back and were able to put their kids in school. When the Great Depression ended, people were better off. They could get a lot more stuff that they needed now that the Great Depression had stopped.

After the Great Depression people were so much happier because they did not have to worry anymore about where they were living and if they were going to have food for their families to eat. They made it through, and that was one of things they really wanted to do was make a better life for their families.