2. World War I is over! Let’s celebrate!! Life in America is great!

7. Times are good! Let’s go to the ballpark and watch Babe hit a homer! Let’s go, Babe!

13. Following World War I. Following WWI, people were buying and selling stocks for high amounts of money. 1929

17. Hungry and homeless people roamed the city streets. Thousands of people lined up at soup kitchens run by charities. A bowl of hot soup and a piece of bread might be the only meal they would get in an entire day.

18. Farmers had a very difficult time during the Depression years, especially farmers in the Midwest states.

19. Before WWI, farmers, in the Great Plains, had plowed up millions of acres of grassland so they could plant wheat.

20. Before WWI, farmers, in the Great Plains, had plowed up millions of acres of grassland so they could plant wheat.

21. But, there was a huge drought in the Great Plains. This caused soil erosion (Put on your science caps!). The soil would blow all over the place and form huge clouds of dust!

24. The dust covered everything! It covered fences, houses, barns, roads, and cars!

27. Poor Farmers packed up everything they had and drove west. They hoped to find work in the farmlands of California.

29. The stock market was only one cause of the Great Depression, however. Unequal income distribution was another problem. While businesses showed great profits during the 1920s, workers got only a small portion of this wealth in their low wages. People who had small incomes therefore bought merchandise on credit. Advertisers pushed them to do so with the slogan "Buy now, pay later." Many consumers accumulated so much debt that they could no longer purchase products, leading to a slowing of manufacturing because there was a backlog of merchandise. During the 1920s American farmers in the Midwest had been suffering from drought conditions. Others had geared up for high production, but after the end of World War I (1914–18) they found that the international market was overstocked and prices fell so low that they could not make a profit on their crops. The banking industry also made mistakes in too freely lending money, especially to foreign countries trying to rebuild after the war. These countries had trouble repaying their debts. To make matters worse, the United States (and other industrialized countries) charged high import taxes on goods that other countries offered for sale. These taxes prevented countries from selling the goods they needed to earn the money to repay loans from U.S. banks. For Further Discussion - Extra information: