The document summarizes the key events of the Great Depression in the United States beginning in 1929. It describes how agricultural and industrial problems in the late 1920s led to a stock market crash in October 1929. This crash signaled the beginning of the Great Depression, a period from 1929 to 1940 when the economy plummeted and unemployment skyrocketed to 25%. As a result of the crash and ensuing Depression, banks collapsed, homelessness increased, and soup kitchens and makeshift shantytowns appeared across the country as millions lost their jobs and homes. Hardest hit were farmers in the Midwest who faced the additional crisis of the Dust Bowl drought.

1. THE GREAT DEPRESSION BEGINS Photos by photographer Dorothea Lange

10. By mid-November, investors had lost about $30 billion

20. Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas - 1934

21. Storm approaching Elkhart, Kansas in 1937

22. Dust buried cars and wagons in South Dakota in 1936