The United States economy has experienced short periods of depressed business activity,
but in 1929 the United States would experience a scarring event called the Great Depression. The
Great Depression crippled the United States for over a decade because the economy collapse was
so severe. Throughout all the nations the United States was the most heavily impacted; mostly
because the crash started in the U.S. and then pulled the other nations into the Great Depression
(Thorkelson). Overall the Great Depression negatively impacted many Americans because the
stock market collapsed, people lost their jobs, and trading collapsed.
Before the official stock market crash only 4 million Americans invested money. Not …show more content…
The day before, what is known as Black
Tuesday, the price of shares in the stock market started to plummet and they never stopped.
Unlike Black Thursday banks could not even out the stock market because so much was invested
already for Black Thursday (Fremon 24). The result the next day was the largest drop in the
stock market ever. On October 29, 1929 was the beginning of the Great Depression called Black
Tuesday (Nishi 13). On this day over 16 million shares were sold in one day so the price for each
share dropped dramatically (“Great Depression”). Over 30 billion dollars were lost from the
stock market in one day (Nishi 13). This drop in the market made thousands of businesses fail
causing millions of people to lose their job (“Great Depression”).
The stock market crash caused over 90,000 businesses to fail; this lead to having about 15
million people to be out of work, or one forth the labor force in the United States. “In 1932 the
U.S. industrial output has been cut in half.” The output was not the only thing cut in half, but