Explain the effects of the Great Depression of 1929 on the United States.
OR
Describe any five major problems faced by new European merchants in setting up their industries in towns before the industrial revolution.
OR
Why did the population of London city expand over the 19th century ? Explain.
CBSE Class X Social Science SA ( 3 marks)
Answers
(i) With the fall in prices and the prospect of a depression, the U.S. banks also slashed domestic lending, and called back loans.
(ii) Farmers were unable to sell their harvests.
(iii) Faced with falling income, many households in the U.S. could not repay what they had borrowed, and were forced to give up their homes, cars and other consumer durables.
(iv) Industrial production registered a fall of about 35%.
(v) The number of the unemployed started rising, and in 1933, it touched 17 million. As unemployment soared, people trudged long distances looking for any work they could find. Ultimately, the U.S. banking system itself collapsed.
OR
(i) Due to the expansion of world trade, the merchants wanted to expand their production. But trade and craft guilds were very powerful.
(ii) They could create money problems for the merchants in their town.
(iii) Rulers had granted different guilds and the monopoly rights to produce and trade in specific products. So merchants were handicapped in towns.
(iv) Guilds regulated competition and prices.
(v) In the countryside, peasants and artisans were available for work.
OR
The population of London multiplied four fold in the 70 years between 1810 and 1880 increasing from 1 million to 4 millions.
(i) London was a powerful magnet for migrant population , even though it did not have large factories.
(ii) 19th century London according to historian Gareth Stedman Jones was a city of clerks and shopkeepers of small traders and skilled artisans, semi-skilled and sweated out-workers, of soldiers and servants, of casual workers, street sellers and beggars.
(iii) There was a dockyard which provided opportunities of livelihood.
(iv) There were five major types of industries such as clothing and footwear, wood and furniture, metals and engineering, printing and stationery and precious products which employed large members.
(v) During First World War, the number of large factories increased and a large number of people joined the new created jobs.