The Great Depression was a massive global economic recession (or "depression") that ran from 1929 to approximately 1939. Its primary impact hit United States of America, the British Empire and Europe.
The depression led to striking worsening in virtually every measure of economic growth. Banks failed, unemployment was high, and there were dramatic drops in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), industrial production, and stock market share prices. The downturn is generally considered to have bottomed out in 1933, but it was well after the end of World War II before such indicators as industrial production, share prices and global GDP surpassed their 1929 levels. Cities around the world were hit hard, especially those based on heavy industry.
"Depression" had long been a term for an economic downturn. What gave this downturn the name the "Great Depression" was that it was by far the largest sustained decline in industrial production and productivity in the century and a half for which economic records have been regularly kept, and the fact that its impact was felt throughout the entire industrialized world and their trading partners in less developed nations.
The term Great Depression can refer to the economic event, but it can also refer to the cultural period, often called simply "The Depression", and to the political response to the economic events.
One possible theory is that the Depression was caused because there was a gap between production and consumption in the US. After World War I, the United States was producing at a very high rate and ambitious Americans were spending and purchasing things they hadn’t been able to afford prior to World War I. It finally came to a point where people slowed down purchasing but factories were still producing at high rates. T ...