The Great Depression caused many suicides, massive unemployment, disrupted lives and destroyed fortunes . Knowledgeable people have debated these issues ever since the Great Depression.
Some economists conclude that wild stock market speculation contributed to the nightmare.
President Hoover thought the depression was caused by the disruptions of World War I, the poor structure of American banks, and the failure of Congress to act on many of his proposals. Still others blamed Hoover himself, and the policies of his administration. At the time, people throughout the world cared more about finding ways to survive than they cared about finding reasons for the cause of the economic decline . Not until World War II, when millions of men were drafted and millions of women went to work in factories to support the war effort, did the United States emerge from its darkest economic downturn.