Digital History (2024)

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The Great Depression in Global PerspectivePreviousNext
Digital History ID 3433
The Great Depression was a global phenomenon, unlike previous economic downturns which generally were confined to a handful of nations or specific regions. Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America all suffered from the economic collapse. International trade fell 30 percent as nations tried to protect their industries by raising tariffs on imported goods. "Beggar-thy-neighbor" trade policies were a major reason why the Depression persisted as long as it did. By 1932, an estimated 30 million people were unemployed around the world.

Also, in contrast to the relatively brief economic "panics" of the past, the Great Depression dragged on with no end in sight. As the depression deepened, it had far-reaching political consequences. One response to the depression was military dictatorship--a response that could be found in Argentina and in many countries in Central America. Western industrialized countries cut back sharply on the purchase of raw materials and other commodities. The price of coffee, cotton, rubber, tin, and other commodities dropped 40 percent. The collapse in raw material and agricultural commodity prices led to social unrest, resulting in the rise of military dictatorships that promised to maintain order.

A second response to the Depression was fascism and militarism--a response found in Germany, Italy, and Japan. In Germany, Adolph Hitler and his Nazi Party promised to restore the country's economy and to rebuild its military. After becoming chancellor in 1932, Hitler outlawed labor unions, restructured German industry into a series of cartels, and after 1935, instituted a massive program of military rearmament that ended high unemployment. In Italy, fascism arose even before the Depression's onset under the leadership of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. In Japan, militarists seized control of the government during the 1930s. In an effort to relieve the Depression, Japanese military officers conquered Manchuria, a region rich in raw materials, and coastal China in 1937.

A third response to the Depression was totalitarian communism. In the Soviet Union, the Great Depression helped solidify Joseph Stalin's grip on power. In 1928, Stalin instituted a planned economy. His First Five Year Plan called for rapid industrialization and "collectivization" of small peasant farms under government control. To crush opposition to his program, which required peasant farmers to give their products to the government at low prices, Stalin exiled millions of peasant to labor camps in Siberia and instituted a program of terror called the Great Purge. Historians estimate that as many as 20 million Soviets died during the 1930s as a result of famine and deliberate killings.

A final response to the Depression was welfare capitalism, which could be found in countries including Canada, Great Britain, and France. Under welfare capitalism, government assumed ultimate responsibility for promoting a reasonably fair distribution of wealth and power and for providing security against the risks of bankruptcy, unemployment, and destitution.

Compared to other industrialized countries, the economic decline brought on by the Depression was steeper and more protracted in the United States. The unemployment rate rose higher and remained higher longer than in any other western society. European countries significantly reduced unemployment by 1936. However, the American jobless rate still exceeded 17 percent as late as 1939, when World War II began in Europe. It did not drop below 14 percent until 1941.

The Great Depression transformed the American political and economic landscape. It produced a major political realignment, creating a coalition of big city ethnics, African Americans and Southern Democrats committed, to varying degrees, to interventionist government. The Depression strengthened the federal presence in American life, producing such innovations as national old age pensions, unemployment compensation, aid to dependent children, public housing, federally subsidized school lunches, insured bank deposits, the minimum wage, and stock market regulation. It fundamentally altered labor relations, producing a revived labor movement and a national labor policy protective of collective bargaining. It transformed the farm economy by introducing federal price supports and rural electrification. Above all, the Great Depression produced a fundamental transformation in public attitudes. It led Americans to view the federal government as the ultimate protector of public well-being.

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Digital History (2024)

FAQs

Is digital history a good source? ›

Digital History acts like an online museum of historical works, but also includes a broad collection of reference tools including original documents, teachers' tools and transcripts as well as audio of book talks given by important historians. The enormous array of resources is impressive--at first.

What do you mean by digital history? ›

Digital history is the use of digital media to further historical analysis, presentation, and research. It is a branch of the digital humanities and an extension of quantitative history, cliometrics, and computing.

What are digital sources in history? ›

Digital history involves the use of digital tools to:

Research, analyse, and visualize patterns in historical information. • Present research findings and historical narratives in an enriched content format that is both informative and entertaining.

Is digital history a database? ›

Digital history not only involves the accumulation and dissemination of historical knowledge and facts using digital tools (think of databases, online syllabi, historical search engines, digitized archives, and the like), but it can also mean producing historical narratives that use or even rely on digital technology.

Is digital history a textbook? ›

The centerpiece of Digital History is an online textbook that describes itself as “an interactive, multimedia history” of North America from the pre-Columbian period to the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

What is the most accurate source of history? ›

Most Reliable Source of History: Primary Sources

Primary sources are considered the most reliable source of history due to their direct connection to the events and people being studied. These sources provide firsthand accounts and original documents from the time period under investigation.

What are the 4 types of digital? ›

Exploring Digital Transformation: Types and Real-World Examples from Industry Giants. According to its main approach, digital transformation can be divided into 4 distinguishable types: business model transformation, business domain transformation, business process transformation, and cloud transformation.

What is digital in short answer? ›

Digital describes electronic technology that generates, stores and processes data in terms of positive and nonpositive states. Positive is expressed or represented by the number 1 and nonpositive by the number 0. Thus, data transmitted or stored with digital technology is expressed as a string of 0s and 1s.

What is digital example? ›

Everywhere you look you'll find something that is “digital.” Computers, smartphones, streaming movies, video game consoles, household appliances, cars and thousands of other gadgets use digital information.

What are examples of digital resources? ›

Some examples of digital resources include:
  • Video footage.
  • Audio recordings.
  • Music or sound recordings.
  • Blogs.
  • Websites.
  • Online forums and chatrooms.
  • Search engines.
Sep 15, 2022

What are the 4 types of sources in history? ›

Sources of information or evidence are often categorized as primary, secondary, or tertiary material. These classifications are based on the originality of the material and the proximity of the source or origin.

What is history in the digital age? ›

Digital history is an approach to examining and representing the past that takes advantage of new communication technologies such as computers and the Web. It draws on essential features of the digital realm, such as databases, hypertextualization, and networks, to create and share historical knowledge.

What are the 3 types of digital data? ›

This document discusses different types of digital data: structured, unstructured, and semi-structured.

What does digital mean in history? ›

Digital history is history scholarship and teaching that engages self-consciously with digital media and computational methods. This engagement can generally be categorized in three ways: The use of digital tools and techniques to enhance and extend historical research and teaching.

What are examples of digital data? ›

Digital data is all information that is shared using technological devices. Data includes photos, videos, text-based files, electronic books, and newspapers.

What is the best source to learn history? ›

Library of Congress. Bottom Line: The Library of Congress delivers the best of America's past and present, and with teacher support it could be a reliable research resource for students.

What is the best source of historical data? ›

Examples of primary sources include: personal journals/diaries/memoirs, letters, court proceedings, legislative debates, newspaper and magazine articles, movies, music, art, etc. Secondary Sources (i.e., historiography) – Books and articles produced by historians.

Is Digital World good or bad? ›

However, there are potentially negative effects too. Harmful activities include cyber-bullying and harassment, identity theft, and the possibility of children viewing unsuitable content.

What makes a good source in history? ›

To produce sound historical research, we need reliable primary sources. Records created at the same time as an event, or as close as possible to it, usually have a greater chance of being accurate than records created years later, especially by someone without firsthand knowledge of the event.

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