The Great Depression of the thirties began in the United States with "Black Tuesday." On that day, October 29, 1929, the stock market crashed. 16 million shares were dumped in a panic wave of selling. Corporate stocks lost $14 billion of their value in one day. The period preceding October 29th had been one of speculative excess, a very "irrational exuberance," to use the former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's favorite phrase to describe the late 1990's. It fits the late 1920's even better.
Not everyone of course was invested in stocks and not everyone who was, failed to see the signs of a bubble about to burst. There is a story about JFK's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, quite a speculator himself, who, when his "shoeshine boy tried to peddle" him stocks, knew it was time to sell. He did. …show more content…
National income dropped from eighty-one billion to thirty-nine billion dollars a year between 1929 and 1932. Nearly a third of the established labor force roamed the streets in search of work, and one out of every six families had no income at all. In the print No Help Wanted, Mathew Daniels expressed the fear and uncertainty of the job seeker. He did this by placing a large man in the foreground, arms crossed, staring down at the small interviewee who twists his hat in his hands, looking nervous, scared, and uncertain. The relationship between the two is highlighted by the physical contrast of the forms, the one, powerful, solid, dominant, the other, meek, victimized, hearing "No help
Not everyone of course was invested in stocks and not everyone who was, failed to see the signs of a bubble about to burst. There is a story about JFK's father, Joseph P. Kennedy, quite a speculator himself, who, when his "shoeshine boy tried to peddle" him stocks, knew it was time to sell. He did. …show more content…
National income dropped from eighty-one billion to thirty-nine billion dollars a year between 1929 and 1932. Nearly a third of the established labor force roamed the streets in search of work, and one out of every six families had no income at all. In the print No Help Wanted, Mathew Daniels expressed the fear and uncertainty of the job seeker. He did this by placing a large man in the foreground, arms crossed, staring down at the small interviewee who twists his hat in his hands, looking nervous, scared, and uncertain. The relationship between the two is highlighted by the physical contrast of the forms, the one, powerful, solid, dominant, the other, meek, victimized, hearing "No help