The Great Depression

The Great Depression
The value of the US stock market nearly doubled in a frenzy(疯狂的) of speculative buying in the eighteen months before the crash began on “Black Thursday,” October 24, 1929. On that day, and on “Black Tuesday,” October 29, panic set in as millions of shares of stock(股票) traded at ever-falling prices.
The October 1929 downturn was only the beginning of the market collapse. By mid-November the stock market had lost a third of its September value, and by 1932—when the market hit bottom—stocks had lost ninety percent of their value. A share of US Steel which had sold for $262 before the crash sold in 1932 for $22.
The stock market crash signaled the beginning of the Great Depression, but it was only one factor among many root causes of the Depression. A weak banking system, further collapse in already-low farm prices, and industrial overproduction each contributed to the economic downturn.
As the effects of the Depression cascaded across the US economy, millions of people lost their jobs. By 1930 there were 4.3 million unemployed; by 1931, 8 million; and in 1932 the number had risen to 12 million. By early 1933, almost 13 million were out of work and the unemployment rate stood at an astonishing 25 percent. Those who managed to retain their jobs often took pay cuts(减薪) of a third or more.
Out of work Americans filled long breadlines, begged for food, or sold apples on street corners. A Chicago social worker wrote that “We saw Want and Despair walking the streets, and our friends, sensible, thrifty(节俭的) families, reduced to poverty.More than a third of the nation’s banks failed in the three years following 1929. Long lines of desperate and despairing people outside banks hoping to retrieve their savings were common. Many ordinary citizens lost their life savings when banks failed.
Farmers were hit particularly hard by the crisis. On top of falling prices for crops, a devastating drought in Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas brought on a series of dust storms known as the Dust Bowl. In the South, sharecroppers(佃农)—both white and black—endured crushing poverty and almost unimaginable degradation. African Americans suffered significantly higher levels of unemployment than whites due to pervasive racism.
The financial crisis was not limited to the United States. Countries in Europe and around the world experienced the depression. Hitler’s rise to power in Germany was fueled in part by the economic slowdown, and throughout the 1930s international tensions increased as the global economy declined.

Vocabulary
speculative adj.投机的
panic n.恐慌
collapse v.崩溃
cascade v.奔流，卷席
poverty n.贫困
degradation n.降解，免职
pervasive adj.无处不在的
racism n.歧视