HIST 701

The Great Depression remains one of the most profound economic and psychological crises in American history. Between 1929 and 1941, the United States experienced a catastrophic collapse of output, employment, and confidence that reshaped both public policy and economic thought. Among the competing explanations for the Depression’s causes and resolution, the Keynesian framework—emphasizing insufficient aggregate demand and the need for active fiscal intervention—stands as one of the most influential. This analysis applies Keynesian theory to explore both the underlying causes of the Depression and the mechanisms through which recovery was achieved, particularly through the policies of the New Deal. By integrating primary sources such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speeches and economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics with secondary interpretations from scholars like Christina Romer, Michael Bernstein, Fred Foldvary, and Robert Samuelson, this blog traces how the Keynesian revolutio...

  Economic Foundations and the Politics of Entrepreneurship in Modern America William Levitt, often called the father of modern suburbia, reshaped American housing and entrepreneurship in the twentieth century. Yet the foundations of his success were not born in the postwar boom but in the speculative real-estate culture of the 1920s. Levitt’s early life and apprenticeship under his father, Abraham Levitt—a Long Island builder and investor—reflect how the entrepreneurial spirit of the interwar years shaped new ideas about housing, credit, and community development. During this period, the American housing market underwent a structural transformation driven by urban expansion, mortgage innovation, and the spread of consumer credit. These forces laid the groundwork for Levitt’s later innovations in mass-housing construction and suburban design. By studying Levitt’s formative years, we can better understand how early-twentieth-century economic and cultural trends forged the entreprene...