Depression Essay, Research Paper

The Great Depression

October 24, 1929 saw perhaps one of the worst days in United States history. That day has ever since been entitled Black Thursday . This Thursday was different than any other Thursday in American history because on this Thursday the stock market plummeted to the very bottom and New York had become such a hysterical place that the New York Police had to close the visitor s gallery. Nearly thirteen million shares of stock were traded at lower prices. On this day alone, the New York Stock Exchange fell about twenty six billion dollars, and then continued on its downfall for the next two and a half years. When the market reopened on Monday, although the trading was less, prices fell even worse than Thursday. Everybody had been feeling the need to play the stock market, Americans had been investing all parts of their savings, and stockbrokers were now heavily in debt to the banks for the money they had given them to hold their clients stocks.

The roaring twenties was an era when our country prospered greatly. Newly elected President Warren G. Harding, who offered a return to normalcy, headed the roaring twenties. Calvin Coolidge followed Harding in the White House. On Election Day in 1928, Herbert Hoover won overwhelmingly. Two months before Election Day, Hoover said in a campaign, We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land . Americans enjoyed themselves as automobiles, the stock market, and motion pictures began to flourish. People of all ages were prospering. This was shown when our nations total income rose from 74.3 billion dollars in 1923 to 84 billion dollars in 1929, although this money was not evenly distributed. To simply say it, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. In the period between 1923 and 1929, the stock market increased only eight percent. This caused wages to slowly rise. Yet nobody was able to see what was about to happen to our country.

As the Federal Government continued to do nothing, and the Depression worsened, people became very angry. Not only did people become angry, but they became dangerously angry. So dangerous that incidents were becoming more and more popular across the country. On March 19, 1930, one thousand and one hundred men stood on a breadline in New York and stole two truckloads of bread and rolls as they were being delivered to a nearby hotel (Goldston 56).