Origins

About the lecture

In this module, we think about the origins of the Great Depression, focusing in particular on: (i) the strength of the US economy in the 1920s, and the sources of that strength; (ii) the high profitability of the consumer durables and construction industries, and the extent to which this fed into the stock market; (iii) the attempts by the Federal Reserve to prevent speculation on the stock market, including the increase in interest rates; (iv) the unforeseen consequences of the Federal Reserve's actions: the diversion of money from overseas markets into the domestic stock exchange; (v) the extent to which different regions relied on investment from the United States, either directly (e.g. Germany) or indirectly (e.g. the UK and France, via Germany); and (vi) the reasons that the American economy began to slow down by mid-1929, and the reasons why this led to a collapse in stock prices in October of the year – the Wall Street crash.

About the lecturer

Professor Peter Fearon is Emeritus Professor of Modern Economic and Social History at the University of Leicester. His research interests centre on economic change in the United States in the 20th century, agricultural history of the mid-West in the 1920s and 1930s and the New Deal economic and social policies.