The Great Depression and World War II: A Comprehensive Overview

Posted on Apr 13, 2024 in History

The Great Depression

Causes

  • Easy credit and excessive investment
  • Stock market crash of 1929
  • Overproduction and trade war
  • The Dust Bowl

Hoover’s New Deal

  • Emergency Relief & Construction Act (1932)
  • Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (1930)

First New Deal (1933-1934)

  • Bank reform
  • Job creation
  • Economic regulation

Second New Deal (1935-1936)

  • Social Security Act (1935)
  • Wagner Act/National Labor Relations Act (1935)
  • Works Progress Administration (WPA)
  • Fair Labor Standards Act (1938)

World War II

Isolationism and Neutrality Acts

  • Isolationism: Policy of avoiding political or economic relations with other countries
  • Neutrality Acts: Series of acts passed by the US Congress in the 1930s to avoid involvement in foreign wars

Roosevelt’s Move Away from Isolationism

  • Japan’s invasion of China (1937)
  • Germany’s invasion of Poland (1939)
  • Cash-and-carry policy (1939)
  • Lend-Lease Act (1940)

US Entry into the War

  • Atlantic Charter (1941)
  • Victory Program (1941)
  • Pearl Harbor (1941)

The War in Europe and the Pacific

  • Two theaters: Europe and the Pacific
  • 16 million American soldiers
  • Franklin Roosevelt as Commander-in-Chief
  • FDR and Churchill’s conferences
  • General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz’s island hopping strategy
  • Japanese surrender (1945)

The New World Order

Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms

  • Freedom of speech
  • Freedom of religion
  • Freedom from want
  • Freedom from fear

Reshaping the World

  • Tehrān Conference (1943)
  • Yalta Conference (1945)
  • Creation of the United Nations
  • Bretton Woods Conference (1944)