Crash of 1929

The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday (October 29), the Great Crash, or the Stock Market Crash of 1929, began on October 24, 1929 ("Black Thursday"), and was the most devastating in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its after effects. The crash, which followed the crash of September, signalled the beginning of the 12-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries.

The Roaring Twenties, the decade that followed World War I and led to the crash, was a time of wealth and excess. Building on post-war optimism, rural Americans migrated to the cities in vast numbers throughout the decade with the hopes of finding a more prosperous life in the ever-growing expansion of America's industrial sector. While the American cities prospered, the overproduction of agricultural produce created widespread financial despair among American farmers throughout the decade. This would later be blamed as one of the key factors that led to the 1929 stock market crash.

Despite the dangers of speculation, many believed that the stock market would continue to rise forever. On March 25, 1929, after the Federal Reserve warned of excessive speculation, a mini crash occurred as investors started to sell stocks at a rapid pace, exposing the market's shaky foundation. Two days later, banker Charles E. Mitchell announced his company the National City Bank would provide $25 million in credit to stop the market's slide. Mitchell's move brought a temporary halt to the financial crisis and call money declined from 20 to 8 percent. However, the American economy showed ominous signs of trouble: steel production declined, construction was sluggish, automobile sales went down, and consumers were building up high debts because of easy credit. Despite all these economic trouble signs and the market breaks in March and May 1929, stocks resumed their advance in June and the gains continued almost unabated until early September 1929 (the Dow Jones average gained more than 20% between June and September). The market had been on a nine-year run that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average increase in value tenfold, peaking at 381.17 on September 3, 1929. Shortly before the crash, economist Irving Fisher famously proclaimed, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." The optimism and financial gains of the great bull market were shaken after a well publicized early September prediction from financial expert Roger Babson that "a crash was coming". The initial September decline was thus called the "Babson Break" in the press. This was the start of the Great Crash, although until the severe phase of the crash in October, many investors regarded the September "Babson Break" as a "healthy correction" and buying opportunity.

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