How Did The Stock Market Crash Contribute To The Great Depression

Roaring Twenties, Jazz Age, Age of Intolerance, Age of Wonderful Nonsense, the decade following World War 1 had multiple to names to signify the economic empowerment that the U.S. was experiencing. With such an amazing economic boom, no one could have predicted the disastrous chain of events that would follow when 1929 came knocking on the door. Though 1929 did not necessarily start off as a horrible year, it did not end off that way. On October 29, 1929, the Stock Market crashed. After the Stock Market crashed, people went to get their money out of the banks in order to withdraw their investments, but they were too late. The Stock Market crash had caused the banks to fail, all of the money that banks had invested in the Stock Market was now

The Stock Market crash of 1929 was the result of the New York Stock Market losing all the gains it had made in one year in just a few hours, virtually wiping out thousands of investors. This day was labeled as Black Tuesday for being the worst day of Stock Market history. The Roaring Twenties were a decade of rapid expansion, inflating the prices and creating a rapid need of many which often led to excessive borrowing and taking out large bank loans. Eventually stock prices started falling in September 1929. With the slow but steady fall of stock prices, investors began to worry. The Thursday before Black Tuesday, over 12 million share were traded in order to stabilize the market. The strategy only worked for the weekend, so when the following Tuesday came, more than 16 million shares were traded . With such a huge amount of shares being traded, stock tickers were unable to keep up with the large volume and ended up running behind by hours. Just two months after the crash, most stockholders had already accumulatively lost more than $40 billion dollars. The events that followed the crash were all strong leaders in the cause of the depression but all deriving from the crash

Because of this drought, many farmers were unable to grow any food and all of their already grown crops also died, which made them lose their stream of many and were unable to pay their bills, taxes or debts. This caused the farmers to sell off their farmers while earning no real profit in the deals. This area of drought earned a named for itself, it was called “The Dust Bowl”. Dust Bowl because when the wind went through this area, it would pick up a large amount of sand and deposit all the dirt in its surrounding. These accumulations of dirt often ended up on houses, suffocated animals and would often travel through the states, reaching as far Washington DC. In response to this, several New Deal agencies, principally the Soil Conservation Service formed in 1935 to promote farm rehabilitation. This program instructed farmers to plant trees and grass to anchor the soil, to plow and terrace in contour patterns to hold rainwater. The government also purchased11.3 million acres of sub marginal land to keep it out of production. This is the only partial cause of the Great Depression that is not directly tied to the Stock Market