What caused the Depression of 1837?

Answer 1

Oh, the huge manatee....

While the previous poster has it right about the Species Circular, there's a whole bunch of other stuff to consider. The economy had been sailing along for a while, buoyed especially by the large purchases of cotton from England and also the large scale canal building in the North, which was also mostly underwritten by England also. However, there wasn't any need for any more canal building in the mid 1830s, which meant a lot of people were now out of work, and the English also were getting cotton from elsewhere, so that also hurt the American economy. Throw in the general unpredictableness of the bank situation (no FDIC back then, so you periodically had bank runs, which meant everyone went to the bank to get their money out and then the bank would go bankrupt because it had no cash to give), especially with the end of the Bank of the US, which was the main central bank that Andrew Jackson had killed, and things were not looking good.

The Species Circular was meant to be a savior, but only sped up the economic collapse. Basically, what it said was that the US government would only allow people to buy land if they paid for it with gold or silver. This destroyed peoples' faith in paper money, and meant that people started hoarding gold and silver, or going to the bank to get as much gold and silver as they could. All told, this was a recipe for disaster, and sure enough, in 1837 the economy collapsed. As in 1929, there wasn't one cause, but many.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

The depression of 1837 was a direct result of the 1836 Florida gold rush, when thousands of workers from the New England factories gave up their jobs and headed for the gold fields. Most died of fever in the Florida swamps. Without a sufficient labor force, the New England economy collapsed, causing the entire country to fall into depression. What if I'm lying about this and you turn in this answer as your own work?

Answer 3

HERE is the real answer:
In June of 1836 Congress passed the Distribution Act which called for the distribution of the accumulated treasury surplus be distributed to the states on January 1 of 1837. The surplus was to be transferred to state banks which were to make payment to the states in specie (gold and silver). After Congress adjourned President Andrew Jackson issued his Specie Circular that required that after August 15, 1836 that only specie be accepted in payment for government land sales. Jackson's purpose in issuing the Specie Circular was to curb speculation in land. The effect was to reduce the money supply by depreciating the value of banknotes which constituted a major part of the money supply. The Specie Circular did not make the bank notes valueless, it simply made their value relative to specie substantially less than it had been before. This effective reduction in the money supply brought about a deflation which in turn resulted in the failure of many enterprises, including farmers, who had paid high prices for resources such as land with borrowed funds expecting to pay off the loans with production selling at a higher price level.

Answer 4

Grandpas is right. It was GW Bush. He's a busy guy for someone they claim is such an idiot. I wish he was as smart as Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, now there's a genius.

Answer 5

GW Bush

Answer 6

thr non depression of 1836

maybe not enough EMO's arround yet

Answer 7

pro hibition

Answer 8

the banks losing people's money

Answer 9

Little girls cheating on their homework. It broke their parents' hearts.

Answer 10

lack of nudity