Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Starvation, hopelessness, and unemployment are just a few words that describe the hardships of the Great Depression. Americans were desperate for a change, as they were drained from Hoover’s unsuccessful administration. Ed Paulsen, a dayworker during the Depression who was interviewed by Studs Terkel, describes an experience he had one day waiting outside a gate for a job opportunity. He was in a crowd of many men. He said, “a thousand men would fight like a pack of Alaskan dogs to get through…

as vulnerable when they were crashing. “Tonight, I come for the second time to tell you about what we have been doing and what we are planning to do…”(Kantor's Website Sources). Roosevelt hoped to stimulate the economy by helping people put their money back in the banks, but he basically put the banks back in an unstable situation. The banks could not grow very much or change their way of business. So, the banks were unsound in this and the economy did not recover. The banks also could only go…

is a day forever known as “Black Tuesday”. It was a day when the American stock market crashed causing the United States to plunge into a severe economic downturn. It was the Great Depression. People lost their shirts, banks failed, the nation’s money supply diminished and companies went bankrupt causing workers to be fired in droves. The then president, Herbert Hoover, said the crisis was just “a passing incident in our national lives” but by 1932, one-quarter of the American workforce was…

“The Great Depression is an event that will never be forgotten by any generation.”(Temin) From 1929 to 1939 the United States experienced several events that impacted every member of the nation. In 1929 the stock market crashed which caused panic in Wall Street and affected millions of investors. Over the time of several years, the industrial output declined steeply, as a result of a combination of consumer spending and the dropping of investing. The decline in industrial output caused many…

On a cold mountain morning in the early 1930’s, a young American school girl did not look fittingly. Her teacher approached her desk and implored her to go home to get food in her system. “I can’t,” implied the little, “It’s my sister’s turn to eat.” This demonstrates the dark side of America in the 1930s. Between 1929-1940’s were the years that the U.S. experienced its longest and deepest fall.What caused the Great Depression? Although there were several factors that came together to cause the…

In the 1930s, something terrible happened, it was called the Great Depression. During the Great Depression people lost their jobs and homes. The most terrible thing was probably the start of Hoovervilles. Hoovervilles were created because of Herbert Hoover’s poor conditions with the economy. Hoovervilles are a very important part of history; the important topics of Hoovervilles are knowing what they are, where they were located, and how life was like living in them. The first thing that is…

1920’s, many people had lots of money and were able to live well. Because people had all this money, they spent it buying stocks on margin. Money was gained out of buying and selling stock but one of the negatives of investing was that if they go down, the buyer won’t have enough money to pay the bank back. On October 24, 1929 stock prices began to fall and thousands began trying to sell stocks, causing a panic. The people who didn’t sell their stock had no money and were not able to pay back…

October 29, 1929, more than 16 million shares of stock were sold. The Stock market had lost over 30 billion dollars. This mass sale of stock collapsed and is known as Black Tuesday. In addition, another reason was Bank Failures. Banks had loaned the money to to people to buy stocks. When the market crashed, people could not afford to pay back the bank. The banks ended up with…

As the growing bubble of the stock market suddenly stopped some of the wealthiest people in our country instantly became paupers. Of coarse as a direct result of the crash, the economy weakened and unemployment skyrocketed. Now as to whether the crash was the case of the great depression is still strongly debatable. Since the great depression happened after the 1929 stock market crash, many people blamed it for the economic collapse. Some held President Hoover responsible, others targeted the…

and consumption of alcohol illegal. People thought alcohol was to blame for crime, poverty, divorce, and many other problems (Farshtey). Prohibition was supposed to end many social problems in our country, but instead increased organized crime and never really ended the social problems. Alcohol was available because bootleggers would smuggle alcohol into the United States from Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas. The illegal alcohol would be taken to speakeasies which were illegal saloons. They were…