What Was It Like to Live in the United States During the Great Depression?

The 1929 stock market crash did not trigger the Great Depression, but it was a potent symbolic starting point for the twentieth century's greatest economic tragedy. Fortunes were lost on that terrible day in October 1929, and dread of financial insecurity spread throughout the United States and the world. At the height of the Depression in 1932, one-third of Americans were unemployed, with considerably more people unemployed in other countries. The stock market plummeted to its lowest point in history and would not recover to pre-Depression levels for nearly two decades.