The Great Depression and the Shaping of Modern America

The Great Depression was the most serious economic crisis in American history. Americans coped with it in traditional ways, but in the process they developed new expectations in regards to what government should be and what they should do. By the end of the 1930s the federal government had developed a new set of relationships with states and localities, business, agriculture, finance, and labor, blurring the lines between private and public enterprise, and had created the basic safety net for citizens that remains in place to this day. In short, the Great Depression was the most consequential event in the history of the United States in the twentieth century.