The Wall Street crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major stock market crash in the United States which began in October 1929 with a sharp decline in prices on the New York Stock Excha
Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash
After large market declines on October 28 and 29, The New York Times described the financial community's response to "the most disastrous trading day in the stock market's history". Margin requirements were reduced to 25%, banking leaders expressed assurance of their support, and the sentiment on Wall Street was said to be "more cheerful" after earlier declines.
Unemployed men march in Toronto.
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and in
Wall Street crash of 1929
…Stock Exchange (NYSE). It triggered a rapid erosion of confidence in the U.S. banking system and marked what would later cascade into the worldwide Great Depression that lasted until the United States entered into World War II on December 8, 1941, making it the most devastating crash in the country's history. It…
Unemployed people lined up outside a soup kitchen opened in Chicago by Al Capone, February 1931
A Lone Driller's Water Break drinking from a battered pan during the Texas oil boom in Kilgore, Texas, 1939
Willis C. Hawley (left) and Reed Smoot in April 1929, shortly before the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act passed the House of Representatives