High School History Textbooks and the Causes of the Great Depression: Missing the Obvious

Abstract

Years ago, it became established that the severity and length of the Great Depression were due largely to misguided Federal Reserve monetary policy and the resulting catastrophic bank failures. This result is confirmed by surveys of scholars in the area and books specifically written on economic history. Yet the leading textbooks used in high school US history fail to reflect these findings. The texts (1) tend to ignore the recognized causes of the Great Depression’s severity and (2) overstate the role of other causes rejected by the majority of economic historians. After laying out this curious disjuncture, this article presents curricular resources to help high school teachers more accurately present the Great Depression’s causes.