1. The Causes of the
Great Depression
From Boom to Bust in under an hour
Mr. Danowski

2. Class Overview
• The Essential things in life
• Transition from 1920s
• Change of Leaders: King to Bennett
• Significance
• The Stock Market
• Black Tuesday, October 29th, 1929
• The Causes
• R.B. Bennett
• Worksheets!
• Simulation tomorrow!

3. The Little Things
• Make a list of materials in your life that you like
• Let’s now deconstruct this
• Narrow down your list to show what you need and what you
don’t need
• Debrief and discuss with partners, what is the most important
material that you cannot live without?

4. Transition from the 1920s
• In the 20 years between the end of WWI and the beginning of
WWII, Canadians experienced both unprecedented wealth in the
roaring twenties and dreadful poverty during the Great Depression.
• Let’s find out why there was such a severe disparity
• The roaring 20s are remembered for easy money and high living,
short skirts and raccoon coats, jazz music and the Charleston,
American gangsters and Canadian rum-runners
• The bubble of prosperity burst in 1929 and the good times gave way
to hard times.
• The 1930’s were sometimes called the “Dirty Thirties” or the
“Hungry Thirties.”
• For many Canadians it was a time of soup kitchens and panhandlers,
hobo camps and drifters, drought and dust storms.

5. The Change of Leaders: King
to Bennett
• William Lyon Mackenzie King
• 10th PM of Canada
• Liberal, served for 22 years as PM, longest serving PM in
Canadian history
• “Help those that cannot help themselves”
• Lacked charisma, no commanding presence or speaking skills,
had no friends
• But had a diary, wrote everything in it
• Stayed in contact with his dead mother with séances and
routinely talked to his dog about political issues

6. King’s Significance
• Significance: Slow reaction to the start of the Great
Depression
• He argued: This was a swing of the business cycle and would
correct itself quickly, no need for government intervention, out
of touch with the times, then lost the PM job to R.B. Bennett

7. The Stock Market
• Many people played the stock market in the hope of getting
rich quick
• Investors bough stocks at low prices and sold them when
prices were high
• People also bought stocks on credit, putting 10% down and
borrowing the rest from a broker
• When the stocks increased in value, the investors sold them,
paid back their broker, and kept the profits
• Then, in 1929, the stock market crashed

8. Black Tuesday – October 29,
1929
• As value of stocks plummeted investors panicked as they
scrambled to sell their stocks
• The more stocks they sold, the lower prices fell
• In a couple of hours the value of stocks on the world’s major
stock exchanges dropped 50%
• Millions of dollars were lost, thousands of investors went
broke

9. The Causes (pg. 82-83)
• Easy Credit
• Lack of financial regulation
• Shrinking Demand
• Economic Ties
• Protective Tariffs

10. The Result of the Stock
Market Crash
• 30% of workers were unemployed
• People bartered for goods and services
• Families were unable to pay their rents and mortgages
• Lost their homes
• No unemployment insurance, family allowances, or universal
health care to help people get through
• Turn to families or to churches and private charities