As i continue to delve deeper and deeper into my research paper i adjust my topic to make for a more interesting and engaging paper for all to read. As of now i am focusing on the various causes for the long depression. the long depression is not as widely known as the infamous Great Depression but it still impacted the US greatly and the entire world's economy.  The long depression was a global economic recession that lasted a couple of decade from 1873-1879/1896 (similarly to the great depression the exact ending date is uncertain do to the tremendous devastation it caused).  in my paper i am going to look at what were the major causes of this extraordinary recession and i am going to focus on the Global silver industry and the plummeting prices of silver that lead to the coinage act of 1873 which banned civilians to mint their bullion into legal US coins also the act eliminated half dimes, 2 cent and 3 cent pieces. the second major cause i will look into is the failure of the reconstruction era after the American Civil War. the reconstruction age failed to meet its goals in many ways and it led to the major travesty of the long depression. lastly i will look at the completion of the intercontinental railroad. although this was an amazing accomplishment few people look at the events that led shortly after the completion. there were hundreds of thousands of unemployed personnel stretching from unneeded railroad workers to fewer miners for the needed metals and fewer factory workers to process these metals and so on and so on. all of these unemployed people hit america hard and created an even more devastating depression and took a very long time for the american and global economy to recover from.