The Great Depression Begins
The longest and deepest downturn in the history of the modern industrial economy, lasting more than a decade
Quick facts
- Began
- August 1929
- Bottom
- March 1933, national banking holiday
- Ended
- During World War II, 1941
- Length
- More than a decade
What happened
The Great Depression began in August 1929, when the expansion of the Roaring Twenties ended, and it lasted more than a decade, ending during the Second World War in 1941. A series of financial crises punctuated the contraction: the stock market crash of 1929, regional banking panics in 1930 and 1931, and national and international financial crises from 1931 through 1933. The downturn hit bottom in March 1933, when the commercial banking system collapsed and President Roosevelt declared a national banking holiday. Industrial production plummeted, marriage rates fell, and the contraction that began in the United States spread around the globe. Ben Bernanke, later Federal Reserve chairman, called it the worst economic disaster in American history.
Why it matters
The Depression reshaped American government, economic thinking, and daily life for a generation. It produced the New Deal, deposit insurance, Social Security, and a modern central bank, and it left a lasting question at the center of economics: how a wealthy industrial society could fall so far and stay down so long. The scale of the collapse is why later policymakers, including Bernanke during the 2008 crisis, studied it so closely to avoid repeating it.
How we know
The business cycle dates come from the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the sequence of crises is documented across the Federal Reserve History essays written by economists using Federal Reserve records and contemporary data.
Sources
- Federal Reserve History (Gary Richardson). The Great Depression · Reputable sourcefederalreservehistory.org · The domain "federalreservehistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Great Depression Facts · Reputable sourcefdrlibrary.org · The domain "fdrlibrary.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- History of the United States → · The Depression and New Deal within the wider arc of U.S. history