During his 1932 election campaign, Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised that within his first 100 days in office he would pass numerous measures through Congress that would address the economic issues brought about by the Great Depression. Most of these were immediate fixes, focused on helping people's immediate economic plight. Chief among these was a measure of insurance for money held in American banks, which protected banks and allowed them to stay open while also guaranteeing that citizens would have money available to them.

The Dust Bowl was caused by farming techniques that stripped the Great Plains of their top soil. This mixed with a severe drought meant that the winds blowing across the plains cause massive dust storms that choked towns and cities, and destroyed the few crops that would still grow. This meant a mass migration of people would follow.

The massive overproduction meant that markets in America for these goods had a huge oversupply. This led to the prices of these goods to fall to incredible lows. This meant farmers could not make a profit off their harvests and many lost their farms.

FDR was voted into office for one reason, to help the nation recover from the Depression. His plan to pull the nation out of the economic hole it was in was to create a series of direct relief programs and reforms called the New Deal.

Direct Relief is an economic principle where a government attempts to help an ailing economy by giving citizens assistance in the form of money either as a handout or in the form of a job. The idea being that if an average person has a few extra dollars to spend, they will spend it, thus getting money flowing through the economy again.

Hoover ran for president on the platform that government should not spend more than it takes in. As the Great Depression was in full swing, the government was bringing in much less in taxes than it needed to spend in order to operate. This meant the government could barely afford to support itself, never mind give relief to citizens, so Hoover decided to stick to principles and allow the economy to right itself.

October of 1929 would see the start of the largest economic decline in American History. Once the stock market crashed, it started a series of events that would cause the accumulated wealth of most Americans to evaporate.

The Cartels were groups of people who sold stock in companies they knew to be worthless that way the demand for those stocks would rise. This is when they would sell their own stocks at a huge profit, but leave all the people who had bought these stocks with nothing as they figured out the company they bought into was a sham.

Hoovervilles were named after the President who many blamed for their woes. President Hoover's response to the Depression was considered slow, and when he did respond, inadequate. He generally did nothing to ease the suffering of American workers, and when he did do something it often only made matters worse.

The Stock Market Crash was not as many people think, the cause of the Great Depression, it simply signaled the start of the deep decline that was caused by a host of factors.