The Great Depression was the worst economic decline ever in U.S. history. It began in late 1929 and lasted about a decade. Throughout the 1920's, many factors played a role in bringing about the depression; the main causes were the unequal distribution of wealth and extensive stock market speculation. Money was distributed unequally between the rich and the middle-class, between industry and agriculture within the United States, and between the U.S. and Europe. This disproportion of wealth created an unstable economy. Before the Great Depression, the "roaring twenties" was an era during which the United States prospered tremendously. The nation's total income rose from $74.3 billion in 1923 to $89 billion in 1929. However, the rewards of the "Coolidge Prosperity" of the 1920's were not shared evenly among all Americans. In 1929, the top 0.1 percentage of Americans had a combined income equal to the bottom 42%. That same top 0.1 percentage of Americans in 1929 controlled 34% of all......
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