Summary Of Only Yesterday By Fredrick Lewis Allen

Fredrick Lewis Allen wrote a non-fiction historical account of the roaring twenties entitled Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s. Allen writes about Woodrow Wilson ending the war, women suffrage, Prohibition, the stock market crash and other events of the decade to answer the question that he inquires on the first page of the prelude “Since 1919 the circumstances of American life have been transformed yes but exactly how?”

Consequently, the question served as the basis of Allen’s implied thesis that the Post War decade transformed the morals or mentality of the Americans through the rejection of the ways before the war that led to more rights, such as Women’s Right to vote. Moreover, Allen argues that this transformation of the

“Stocks look dangerously high to me” Allen states as he describes the opinion of a banker, who was beginning to lose trust in stocks that were supposed to make the poor rich. The mentality of the banker spread to more Americans who eventually pulled their money out of the market, which was a major cause of the stock market crash of 1929. Before the fear of the banker reached Americans, they were hopeful for their returns from the market as their stocks were reaching their peaks. During this time the “stock market underwent rapid expansion” where the prices skyrocketed and sparked hope for some investors. The articles helped to ensure the public that the time to pull out of the market was near. In March of 1928, the stock of General Motors went from 1393/4 to 1441/4 even though the economy was unsteady, and the stock prices were dangerously high. The reason the stock market prices were steadily increasing was because people who had already gained their shares early in the Bull Market like the Fischer Brothers and W.C. Durant. They were buying more stocks at insurmountable rates because they knew that Ford and the Radio Corporation were bound to do better in the following year. Despite the returning investors that were increasing the values of stocks other investors pulled out of the bull market because of the anticipation that the

In September of 1929 Allen explains that the stock market crashes for the first time then rebounded, but by the end of October, the market was officially broken. The stock market crash made the Americans who invested into the Bull Market in left them empty-handed. The decline of the stock market caused the entire United States economy to slip into the Great Depression which lasted for approximately 10 years because many Americans lost money they initially invested. However, the during the time of the instability of the stock market Allen explains that Americans thought the market would rebut itself. In fact, the Harvard Economic Society hypothesized that the stock market would not suffer in a “business depression,” however, the Society did not realize that Great Depression was in the future. “The first day of real panic was on black Thursday on October 24 … 12.9 million shares were traded” this left the stock market in a volatile position that was near impossible to come back from. Once the economy was in shambles the nation turned to President Hoover for action and he reduced taxes to fix the economy, but Allen argues that all the fixes that Hoover proposes were temporary. Hence the issue of the economy was not fixed before the Great Depression lasted for