Another factor that may have caused the Great Depression was what is commonly known as ‘the stock market crash of 1929.’ The stock market crash of 1929 was when the stock value went down for 4 days. Over 14 billion was lost in one day. The stock market crash was caused by the belief that stocks where an easy way to make money, so people even sold and mortgaged their homes and property to be able to buy stock, investing their all into shares. However, when the value of stocks drastically decreased, nearly everyone became poor. Many businesses went bankrupt and many people were forced to sell their homes. This is especially shown in "the crash wiped out 40 percent of the paper value of common stock" (Caused 9). This was probably the most prominent cause to the Great Depression.

     An additional factor that contributed to the cause of the Great Depression was the founding of the Federal Reserve. In an attempt to stop Wall Street speculation, the Federal Reserve made interest rates become greater. However, "economist Brad DeLong believes the Fed "overdid it" and brought on a recession" (Caused 7).

Another effect was the increase of the federal government. Around the 1920’s, the federal government had about 500,000 civilians working for them. However, “by 1939 there were 953,891 paid civilian employees, and there were 1,042,420 in 1940” (Smiley 2). As shown, the government was expanded rapidly during the Great Depression. It was believed that by doing so, the bad crisis would improve over time. They thought that the government would help the unemployed people and pass more laws, ensuring fair labor negotiation contracts.