Ninety years since stock market crash

Ninety years ago yesterday is known as “Black Tuesday,” that day on October 29, 1929, when the New York Stock Exchange crashed and The Great Depression began.

The stock market actually began to slide downward on September 4, 1929. Then, 90 years ago yesterday, the market crashed, sending the world into a downward spiral that lasted around 10 years until the late 1930s.

President Herbert Hoover was blamed for The Great Depression, but he had just taken over the Presidency a few months before. Hoover took the brunt of the blame and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) swept into office in the next election in 1932, serving an unprecedented four terms before dying in office in April, 1945.

Several famous novels were set during The Great Depression, including John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” (a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner), his “Of Mice and Men,” and Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Ninety years ago today, men, women, and children all over the world began a decade of poverty. The US only rebounded after the various FDR employment programs of the 1930s and the rebuilding after World War II.

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