Stock Market Crash Of 1929

The Stock Market Crash of 1929
“I have no fear for the future of our country”(Washington, page 1), that is what President Herbert Hoover said during his inaugural speech to ensure brightness and hope for the country after the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929. The Stock market crash of 1929 had a huge impact on American society by putting out businesses and causing hundreds of people to lose their jobs and homes, it led to the point where people committed suicide rather than living in a depressed society.
After World War I, America experienced a time of tranquility and opulence during the 1920’s. The war had ended and there was an economic and cultural boom during America’s “roaring twenties”(Colombo, page 1), it was fueled by favorable
technologies like radio, automobiles and even the access of air flight was becoming popular.
The popularity grew so investors invested huge parts of their money to purchase shares thinking that stocks were extremely safe. Shortly after, investors bought stocks on margin meaning that one borrows stock for the reasoning of leverage financially. By doing that, if the worth of stock increases, the investor will get more in return, and if the worth of stock decreases, the investor would lose his investment. If it decreases too much, they may owe money to the broker. For example, Dow Jones increased from 60 to 400, which made many people wealthy. That became the reason as to why stock trading was considered America’s favorite past time, investors would mortgage their homes and invest their life savings so that way it can be invested into stocks like Ford and RCA. In the investor’s minds the stock market “always went
up”(Colombo, page 2). Investors would blindly invest without studying the market value at all, when it crashed on October 29, 1929, they lost everything, leaving them homeless and jobless. Banks lost $140 billion of depositor because they invested all of it into the stock market, because of that, people would try to withdraw their money at the same time leaving 10,000 banks out of business. This changed the lives of Americans by changing their way of living and how they will look at the world for the rest of their lives.
All people wanted was assurance in this time of despair because what had happened to them changed their lives forever. It only turned out to be wishful thinking when Republican presidential nominee Herbert Hoover shared hopeful words with Americans in 1928 saying “when poverty will be banished from this nation”(Arnesen, page 1). He thought that he could prevent America from going into a depression when he took office. When the stock market crashed and banks closed and people lost their deposits with the government not being able to insure it, President Hoover wanted to solve the issue. But Hoover and his advisors failed to figure out the causes of the so called “vicious, downward spiral”(Arnesen page 1) also called the Great depression and solutions for it and restore the nation’s economy, so the once liked president saw his popularity fall. In 1932, a Democratic candidate won presidency whose name is Franklin D. Roosevelt. He created a “New Deal” which gave millions of Americans emergency funding and jobs that helped them avoid despair. Like Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt could not find a solution for the Depression. This New Deal gave many people more hope because at this time, they struggled day by day to find a next meal. This gave them the opportunity to provide for their families.
“My life was definitely affected,”(Panepento, page 1) said Eleanor Davies, who is now an 85-year old widow who lives in Meadville.
She was part of a generation of Americans who lived through the Depression and the hardships of World War II. Her father, Benjamin Hinig, built houses for a living in the early 20th century. Davie’s lived in the Hinig family home at Fairmount Boulevard in the late 1920’s. When the crash came and shuttered banks, shantytowns and suicides happened, Davie’s father became known for building mansions, was now part of that legend(Panepento, page 1). In 1933, her father was depressed from what was going on with the demise of the real estate market and his family’s financial problems, he jumped out of the National City Bank building in downtown cleveland. Davie’s was only 13 years old when this happened and it changed her life forever. It affected her so much to where she could recite every verse of a song symbolized toward the pain suffered from the crash and the subsequent Depression. With unemployment down 24.9 percent across the nation, it was hard for Americans to get a job. It led to begging for food and investors leaping to their death. Even once rich families cuddled together during the winter for warmth because they could not afford heat. Children were nonetheless aware that something had changed. Dorothy Cristof of Erie would go home every day at about noon and get a penny from her father so she could buy some candy, after the crash, there were
“no more pennies”(Panepento, page 2). This shows how lifestyles changed for many people what happened to them personally that changed their perspective on the world.
The aftermath of the crash led to suicides. Bankers who lost everything leaped from the wall street office windows. Adolf merckle who was formerly one of the richest men in Germany, committed suicide by jumping in front of a train after losing all of his fortune. Then two weeks after, a man named Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet slit his wrists in his office in New York after he had lost $1.4 billion U.S dollars.
The stock market crash of 1929 was a hard and emotional time for the American people. They had lost everything and suffered so much. They struggled to provide day by day, people would commit suicide because of their losses. The stories of the people were saddening , and so was that era.