Righto just a big lie that keeps getting repeated. Crash 1929, Smoot-Hawley June 1930.
The idiotic French revenge ( which Wilson helped to facillitate ) on Germany, the rise of Labor / Unionism in England , The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the maddness of the bubble / then the CRASH / Hoover's lame attempts ( which FDR expanded upon ), and YES, Smoot-Hawley, did , indeed, along with forces of nature, such as the " Dust Bowel ", all made for the Great Depression here, as well as world wide.
What few know, here, or anywhere, for that matter, is that not EVERYONE, during the Depression, were as bad off, ( and I don't mean " millionaires, dear. ) as most have been led to believe. The massive exaggerations, in documentaries, T.V. show, movies, books, and school history classes, was / is tripe. Far fewer people lost money, in the Crash of '29, than have recently lost money in the '87 debackle, and these past two BULL MARKET years, on Wall Street.
That the rest of the world, mpore or less, was suffering through their own Depression, long BEFORE we got into it, was more than 1/2 of what dragged this country down. BTW, the Fed did NOT, routinely, " pump money " into this nation's economy, back then.