When Did the Great Depression Start? Civics Question 104

The Great Depression started with the stock market crash of 1929.

Question 104 asks when the Great Depression started. Two answers count: “the Great Crash” and “the stock market crash of 1929.” Both point to the same event in the fall of 1929. Name the event, since the year on its own is not one of the listed answers.

What Happened in 1929

Stock prices climbed through the 1920s, and many people borrowed money to buy shares while prices were rising. In October 1929 prices fell fast over several days, and the worst of them, October 29, is remembered as Black Tuesday.

People who had borrowed could not pay the money back, so banks that had made those loans began to fail, and ordinary savings went down with them. Spending dropped, factories cut work, and the hard years of the 1930s followed.

The crash was not the only cause of the Depression, but it is the event the test marks as the start.

Why the Officer Asks This

The Great Depression gets three questions in a row. Question 103 asks what it was, question 104 asks when it started, and question 105 asks who was president during it.

The three answers come from the same stretch of years, so they hold each other in place.

How to Remember It

Say it as a pair of numbers: crash in 29, hard times through the 30s.

The count goes forward, 1929 and then the 1930s, which is also the order of cause and effect. The market fell first, and the long recession followed it.

For the word “crash,” picture the graph line dropping off a cliff in a single week. That is the picture the name comes from.

Common Ways People Get This Wrong

Some applicants answer “the 1930s.” That decade is when the Depression ran, not when it started, and the listed answers both point to 1929.

Others give the answer to question 103 instead, describing what the Depression was. This question asks for the event that began it.

What to Say on Test Day

Say “the stock market crash of 1929.” Then stop.

You do not need Black Tuesday, the banks, or the reasons prices fell. The event and the year are the answer.