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7. The Great Depression and the Americas: essay planning

  • /
  • Paper 3/
  • Option 2: History of the Americas/
  • Topic 12: The Great Depression and the Americas/
  • 7. The Great Depression and the Americas: essay planning

This page contains a variety of essay writing exercises and essay plans for this topic.

1. Causes of the The Great Depression in the US

Task One: Essay planning

In pairs, plan the following essay. Click on the eye for hints to help you with your planning.

Discuss the economic and political reasons for the Great Depression of 1929

You could start with the Wall Street crash as a trigger for the depression and then go back to look at the longer term factors that allowed this crash to develop into a depression.

The Depression was triggered by the Wall Street Crash of October 1929...

  • Massive losses in the stock market meant less money for investment and loss of confidence in spending
  • Collapse of banks
  • Bankruptcies/loss of confidence also meant a collapse in demand for goods

However, several economic factors had already weakened the economy before the crash ..

(Note the quote from Donald McCoy which is on the ATL page: 'The stock-market crash did play an important role [in causing the Depression], but its larger significance was as a trigger and as a dramatic symptom of deeper and more complicated national and international causes of the depression'.)

  • Overproduction and the consequences of this …
  • The poverty of certain groups in the 1920s such as farmers 
  • Impact of speculation

There were also several political factors that contributed to the development of a Depression following the crash...

  • Lack of regulation on businesses and speculation
  • Tariffs
  • Hoover’s policies following the actual crash


2. The impact of Hoover's and Roosevelt's policies

Task One: Essay planning

In pairs draft a detailed essay plan for the following question:

To what extent did President Roosevelt effectively address the economic crises in the United States?    

Start by identifying your point points for and against and then find evidence to support each point.

3. Opposition to Roosevelt's policies

Task One: Essay planning

Analyse the impact of opposition to the New Deal, 1932 to 1941

Note that the focus of this question is ‘the impact’ of opposition; this means that you need to be careful not to spend time describing the nature of the opposition.

Use the following grid to help you organise your information for this question.

Grid on opposition to Roosevelt

4. Impact of the Depression across the Americas

Task One: Group essay planning

Work in groups. Each group should plan one of the following essays. Write a full introduction, opening sentences for each paragraph and then bullet point the key evidence for each paragraph. Each group should type up and present its plan to the rest of the class - ideally on the whiteboard so that the class as a whole can discuss the plan and give feedback. Each group should then amend its plan in the light of the feedback.

1. Evaluate the impact of the Depression on the social and cultural life of one country in the Americas.

2. To what extent was the political effect of Roosevelt's New Deal more significant than the economic impact?

3. To what extent did Canada effectively deal with the Depression?

4. Examine the political and economic impact of the Great Depression on one Latin American country.

5. How effectively did Latin America deal with the effects of the Depression (use one country as a case study for this answer)