The Depression which began in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929 ushered in a decade of severe economic and social dislocation for Americans throughout the land.
Statistics convey some idea of the severity of the crisis.
Such statistics, though, often hide the human costs of the Depression, masking the suffering that people went through during these years. From the erection of the Hooverville shantytowns to the rising incidence of pellagra and malnutrition among children to the declining school enrollments, the Depression exacted a severe toll on ordinary Americans, disrupting, often forever, heretofore patterns of life. The Depression also profoundly altered the nation's political landscape. As well, Roosevelt's aggressive efforts to halt the Depression differentiated him from nearly all of his predecessors. While the Depression, and the political, social, and economic changes it wrought, affected all Americans, most scholars have downplayed its impact on the Commonwealth.