The Chronicle has it all for you here.
Things turned ugly after the stock market crashed on Oct. 29, 1929. The Great Depression of the 1930s ensued. Billions of dollars were lost as banks and businesses went belly up. Millions of people were suddenly out of work, living in poverty -- or close to it -- and standing in bread lines for handouts of food to feed their families.It's worth reading the whole thing. I sure hope Condi reads it to President Bush.
By 1934, many elderly people did not have enough money to support themselves.
As the economic crisis deepened, so did the country's discontent. Calls for change seemed to come from every corner.
One popular idea borrowed from the principles of "social insurance" that had been adopted in Germany in 1889. It stressed the government's responsibility to provide for citizens' economic security.
But President Hoover, believing the situation would right itself, prescribed little more for an ailing nation than charity and voluntary relief efforts that did not quite get off the ground. Few people had anything to give.
Historic change came in 1932. Voters denied Hoover a second term and elected Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Democratic challenger appealed to the "forgotten man" by promising a "new deal" to solve the crisis. He pushed for a Social Security system in which workers would contribute toward their future economic security through taxes paid while they worked.
