This is an article about the 1929 stock market crash - it was that one major cataclysmic event that ushered in the Great Depression (1929 - 1940). It all came crashing down on October 24, 1929 - the stocks offered at the New York Stock Exchange had lost 80% of their value; the day was immediately dubbed "Black Thursday" by all those who experienced it. When the sun rose that morning, the U.S. unemployment estimate stood at 3%; shortly afterward it soared to a staggering 24%.
"In every town families had dropped from affluence into debt...Americans were soon to find themselves in an altered world which called for new adjustments, new ideas, new habits of thought, a new order of values. The Post-War Decade had come to its close. An era had ended." The era that followed was was the polar opposite of the one that had just gone down in flames: if the Twenties are remembered for confidence and prosperity, the Thirties was a decade of insecurity and want. The attached essay was penned by a popular author who knew the era well.
Yet, regardless of the horrors of The Crash, the United States was still an enormously wealthy nation...
With the arrival of the Great Depression came an increase in American suicides. When this article appeared on the newsstands the Depression was just three and a half years old - with many more years yet to come. As the Americans saw 1932 come to a close, the records showed that 3,088 more acts of self-immolation had taken place than had been recorded the year before.
Read about the the mood of the Great Depression and how it was reflected in the election of 1932 - click here...
An editorial by two American feminists who insisted that the economic depression of the Thirties had knocked the wind right out of the Women's Movement. They argued that some of the high ground that was earned in the preceding decades had been lost and needed to be taken back; their points are backed up by figures from the U.S. Census Bureau as well as other agencies. Much column space is devoted to the employment discrimination practiced by both state and Federal governments in favor of single women at the expense of the married. It is grievously made clear that even the sainted FDR Administration was one of the cruel practitioners of wage inequality.
CLICK HERE to read about the pay disparity that existed between men and women during the 1930s.
The columnist whose opinions are attached angrily pointed out that the first year of FDR's administration had marginalized the Congress - and further opined that Roosevelt's rhetoric clearly implied his arrogant conviction that his administration alone was the only alternative to out right revolution, and should therefore to be seen as a mandate of the people. The article lists the numerous failings of FDR's "New Deal".
CLICK HERE to read more criticism from FDR's loyal opposition...
When W.W. II began and the factories reopened, the reality of having money and full-time employment made so many people giddy with excitement it proved to be too much for them - click here to read about that...
When economic opportunity disappeared from the American landscape during the Great Depression, it was replaced by numerous unheard-of options that would have been judged unthinkable in previous decades. Among these was the scheme to burn your own house down in order to collect the insurance premium check(s). We were interested to learn that two of the most semi-popular queries on Google are, "1930s wedding theme decorations" and "1930 wedding dress styles" - yet to read the attached article is to learn that the most accurate step that any contemporary wedding planner assigned this theme can recommend is that the happy couple forego the nuptial ceremony entirely and simply move in together. During the Great Depression very few couples could afford to get married, much less divorced.
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