Themes in American History

The Great Depression began with the crash of the New York Stock Exchange of October, 1929 and it rapidly spread worldwide.  The market crash manifest the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, deflation, diminishing farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth. In the Great Depression the American dream had become a nightmare. What was once the land of opportunity became the land of desperation. Unemployment rose and wages fell for those who continued to work. Thousands of banks and businesses failed and millions were homeless.

In Virginia the economic impact of the Great Depression was less harsh. While the state suffered industrial reverses, unusual unemployment, and much hardship, Virginians did not experience, in the same degree, the extensive hardship that the rest of the nation endured. Virginia had a delayed reaction to the financial catastrophe. The state’s manufacturing did not include the heavy production of steel and automobiles that sustained huge national losses. A major part of Virginia’s industry was consumer oriented; producing the sort of necessities that even a poor person could not do without, such as food and clothing. While these buffers eventually broke down, they minimized the depression’s effect on Virginia and contributed to its more rapid recovery by 1935. Virginia was fairly better off than most other states during the depression, with industrial production and employment rising in the last 10 years.

Depression: Breadlines: long line of people waiting to be fed: New York City

(Picture from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.)

Depression: Breadlines: long line of people waiting to be fed: New York City: in the absence of substantial government relief programs during 1932, free food was distributed with private funds in some urban centers to large numbers of the unemployed. (Circa February 1932)

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