Stock market crash triggered worldwide economic collapse causing mass unemployment, bank failures, and agricultural price collapses that devastated farmers and rural communities globally. Governments struggled to respond, with some implementing New Deal programs providing relief while others turned to authoritarian solutions, as economic desperation fueled political extremism and undermined faith in liberal democratic institutions and free market capitalism.

Great Depression profoundly influenced 1930s literature, with John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath depicting displaced Oklahoma farmers and W.H. Auden's poetry addressing economic crisis and political responsibility. Documentary poetry and proletarian literature emerged celebrating working-class solidarity while critiquing capitalist exploitation, creating enduring literary models for representing economic hardship, migration, and the search for dignity amid systemic failure.