Great Depression in the United States/Timelines
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1921-23
- Post-war recession [1].
1923
1924
- Start of 1924-26 upturn [2]
1925
1926
1927
- Long Island meeting of central bankers to discuss UK plea to help the £ by raising the US discount rate [3].
- Federal Reserve Bank cuts its discount rate cut from 4% to 3.5% and makes large purchases US government securities [4].
- Renewed economic upturn
1928
- Federal Reserve Bank raises its discount rate to 5%
1929 August
- Start of a downturn in economic activity [5]
- Federal Reserve Bank raises discount rate to 6%.
October
- The stock market crash of 1929.
- 24 Black Thursday DJIA falls by 13%
- 28 Black Monday DJIA falls by 12.8%
- 29 Black Tuesday DJIA falls by 11.7%
1930-33
- The "Great Contraction"
- Banking crises
- Three waves of panic create a progressive collapse of the United States banking system, with the failure of nearly half of the banks and heavy. losses by the others.
1930
- Failure of the Bank of United States [6].
- Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act [7][8]
- GNP drops 9.4% from the previous year. The unemployment rate climbs from 3.2 to 8.7%. By the end of the year, 1,350 banks have closed.
.
1931
- Banking crisis, with the failure of over 1800 banks.
1932
- Chicago Banking Panic [9].
- Revenue Act: income tax rates increased and allowances reduced [10].
- Reconstruction Finance Corporation [11] created
- Federal Home Loan Act [12]
- Recorded unemployment reaches 25 percent.
1933
- Trough of depression and start of recovery [13]
- March
- Inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt
- 4-day banking holiday (temporarily closes all U.S. banks using the Emergency Banking Act) 1933[14].
- Reforestation Relief Act
- April
- The National Recovery Administration and the Public Works Administration created by the National Recovery Act 1933 [15]
- Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [16] created
- Federal Emergency Relief Administration [17] created
- Money supply is 40 percent lower than 1929.
- Approximately 4,000 commercial banks fail.
- 1,700 "Savings and Loans" fail
1934
- Social Security Act: unemployment compensation introduced [18].
- GNP rises 7.7 percent, and unemployment falls to 21.7 percent.
1935
- GNP grows another 8.1 percent, and unemployment falls to 20.1 percent.
1936
1937
- Recession of 1937 [19]: industrial production down 40 percent; unemployment rises by 4 million; stock market drops by 48 percent.
1938
- Start of upturn