How The Stock Market Crash Led Up To The Great Depression

The Stock Market Crash was the most notorious event of the twentieth century in the economic world. With a decade before filled with parties and prosperity, the crash was shocking to say the least, or was it? During the year of 1929, there were clues that most ignored, due to the fact that the financial sector of America was on a high from the recent victory out of World War I. On March 25, 1929, the New York Stock Market suffered from a mini crash. Following that event, steel production went down, house construction slowed, and car sales waned. However, most people ignored or didn’t know about these settle clues. As the summer came the market was back at the top and reached its peak on September 3, 1929 (“United States of America:History--The Roaring Twenties: Boom and Crash”).

Seconds after the crash, banks were swarmed by tens of thousands of clients, worried that they would leave the building penniless. The aftermath of the crash was so devastating to each citizen of the United States, and eventually to the rest of the world. “The National GDP, at the end of 1929, dropped to 1/3 of its point during the early twenties” (Galbraith). America’s largest and most infamous companies began to tumble down, and eventually went bankrupt. At least half of banks in America were closed down by 1933, and thirteen to fifteen million people became unemployed. America had arguably entered the most depressing time of its life, The Great Depression ("The Stock Market Fell to Its Lowest Point During the