The Stock Market Crash of 1929, which began the 10-year Great Depression, is also known as Black Tuesday, as it happened on a Tuesday.

The Federal income tax is progressive for both individuals and corporations. This, essentially, means that the higher your personal income the greater percentage of that income is subject to taxation. The history of personal income tax in the United States is, perhaps, surprisingly recent. The first income tax was levied on wealthy individuals during the Civil War, but was repealed following the war’s end. Not until 1895 did the Federal government institute its first peacetime income tax. Shortly thereafter Congress passed the Sixteenth Amendment that enabled the government to levy taxes on all personal income. From that moment until now there has been a gradual trend of taxation increases and increases on the proportion of income that the wealthy are required to pay. This reflects the trends of much greater government spending and much greater social awareness in the twentieth and twenty-first Centuries.

The Underwood Tariff Act, also known as the Revenue Act of 1913, was signed into practice by President Wilson. It lowered the existing tariff rate from forty-percent to twenty-five percent, in an effort to encourage foreign trade. It also established a graduated income tax following the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment (which had established the constitutional right of the Federal government to levy income taxes).

The Taft-Hartley Act was passed to restrict the ability of American labor unions to organize for better wages and treatment. It was supported by the majority of Republicans in Congress and managed to pass despite President Truman’s veto attempt. Many historians believe that the Taft-Hartley Act was passed in response to the unprecedented level of strikes that the post-war United States witnessed in 1946. During, the war the vast majority of unions had agreed to refrain from strikes over wages and benefits to assist the war effort; however, with the war ended and wages falling across the country, strikes consistently broke out in almost all major American industries. 

The managers of The Triangle Waist Company routinely locked exit doors and doors leading to the stairwells in order to prevent thieving.  When a fire broke out at the factory, the mostly female garment workers were unable to evacuate.  146 workers died in the fire.

JFK launched an ambitious attempt to re-energize the economy and provide for greater social equality. Much of this New Frontier legislation met with opposition in Congress, as Republicans and Southern Democrats blocked a great deal of laws from passing; however, the Trade Expansion Act did pass Congress. It gave the executive branch the ability to lower existing tariffs by as much as fifty percent. The intention was to stimulate the economy.

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.