A worldwide economic downturn that began in the United States in 1929, and ended during different parts of the 1930s in different countries. In the United States, the Great Depression led to widespread unemployment and an enormous shortage in housing, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal policies were designed to address. This led to the advent of both public housing and government-backed mortgages for single-family homes in the United States.
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Great Depression Term Timeline in The Color of Law
The timeline below shows where the term Great Depression appears in The Color of Law. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: Public Housing, Black Ghettos
...1930s-1950s, the United States “faced a serious housing shortage,” largely because housing construction froze during the Great Depression and the military took “all construction material” during World War II.
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Chapter 4: “Own Your Own Home”
...were too stringent for anyone but the wealthy to afford homes. Conditions only worsened during the Great Depression , but the New Deal created the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), a government lender...
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