During September of 1929, the stock market hit an all-time high. Things begin to break on October 24, 1929 as the market crashed 11%; however, investors sunk more money to get what they thought were great deals. The real crash was just around the corner on October 29th (Black Tuesday) when the index was down another 12%. This was the start of the Great Depression, and these photos capture the days leading up to, during, and after the major event.
Here we see the floor of the exchange on the morning of October 29th. At this point, trading was proceeding as normal. This would soon change...
Here we see the carnage in process as the market dropped 12%.
As news about the collapse begin to circulate around the city, people left work to come down to the stock exchange to witness it for themselves.
Thousands of people gathered as they waited to see how the day would end.
Traders and business men from all over the city gathered to exchange information. At this point, no one knew how bad the situation was.
In the days that followed, newspapers around the U.S. began to put a positive spin on the event, marking it as a buying opportunity as banks poured more money in to the market to stabilize it.
However, the American public started to panic, which sparked runs on banks all over the nation.
The bank runs depleted most of the reserves the banks had relied upon, and many banks chose to close withdrawals, leaving many without access to the cash they needed to live.
By the start of November, the press started to change its tune as they came to believe that this crash was the start of a much larger event that could cause a major recession.
By December, scenes like this one became commonplace around major U.S. cities. What would follow would be 10 years of extreme poverty, unemployment, and big decisions as families tried to figure out how to get by.
