History 7: The Great Depression, the New Deal and how it changed our economy
Planet Money Summer SchoolShow Notes
Find all the episodes from this season here. And past seasons here. And follow along on TikTok here for video Summer School.
When we last left the United States of America in our economic telling of history, it was the early 1900s and the country's leaders were starting to feel like they had the economic situation all figured out. Flash forward a decade or so, and the financial picture was still looking pretty good as America emerged from the first World War.
But then, everything came crashing down with the stock market collapse of 1929. Businesses closed, banks collapsed, one in four people was unemployed, families couldn't make rent, the economy was broken. And this was happening all over the world. Today we'll look at how leaders around the globe intervened to turn the international economy around, and in the process, how the Great Depression rapidly transformed the relationship between government and business forever.
This series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.
Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.
Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.
Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
More from Planet Money Summer School
This episode is packed with your best economic ideas from around the world and a penguin interview. It all comes together in this final session of Summer School 2026.
This week’s stop on our world tour - Korea. A country divided into two very different power structures since the end of WWII. Today South Korea is the maker of some of the world’s favorite exports – from Samsung TV’s to BTS. But 75 years ago it was a much different story. How the textile industry and a partnership with Bangladesh lifted the country out of poverty and paved the way for rapid economic growth.
Just about everyone in Argentina is an expert in inflation and whether they like it or not, economic flexibility. Can we learn from them?
Imagine a nation where, for the residents, land is for the claiming. You walk down the street, pick out a nice looking plot of land, and just plop down a marker. No rent, no taxes, no deed – just free land. That’s the communal system of property rights that governed a small Caribbean island for over a century.
Let’s call it the luxury of restraint. This is what enabled Norway to avoid the fate of so many other countries when they discovered oil and it changed the mix of their economy overnight.