American men waiting to collect money from the bank
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression which lasted from 29 October 1929 to around 1939, when the start of World War II led to the boom in the war industry of several countries. The crisis began with the United States stock market crash, and countries across the world were negatively affected; in America, a quarter of the population lost their jobs, and tens of thousands lived in shanty towns. President Herbert Hoover left the people to deal with their problems in his doctrine of "rugged individualism", which many saw as abandoning the people; bank failure led to people losing their savings. The crisis was healed when President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the "New Deal", in which he put unemployed people to work by working on construction projects such as roads, dams, and trails, and much of America's infrastructure was built by his Civilian Conservation Corps. He gave inspiring messages to the people over the radio, and the Depression would end with the start of World War II in 1940.