Black Tuesday and The Great Depression
Black Tuesday, the Day the World became Depressed.
October 29, 1929, started just like any other day. The “Flappers” of the day were stumbling home, most oblivious as to what was about to happen in just a few short hours.
Yes, it would be a day like no other. For some, it would be a day when fortunes would be lost. For others, however, the lucky few, it would be a day when they would once again feel the touch of both silver and gold. This day would be a day of extremes. Extremes are never before seen in the annals of American history.
Join us along with our hosts, America’s favorite place to shop online, BargainBrute.Com, as we explore what was “The Great Depression” of October 29, 1929.
The Great Depression would last until the beginning of World War II; Construction virtually halted, farming communities disappeared, leading many farmers, along with their families, to move into already disease-riddled cities. It most definitely was not the American dream many immigrants had searched for.
So significant was its impact, not only in the United States but also around the world, that even today, both its social impact and economic fallout are still taught in most universities worldwide.
Yes, these were bleak times, and to add to everyone’s misery, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of both the USA and Canada, creating a period known as the “Dust Bowl,” a phenomenon that would last eight long years, devastating the crops of the now city-bound farmers.
What caused this devastating event is still today a hotly debated subject. However, most historians, especially economists, agree that due to a sudden collapse of American stock values, a cause was duplicated between 2008 – 2009, although with much lesser consequences.
Just like in 2008 – 2009, politicians, bankers, and industry leaders were optimistically pitifully slow to react. One such business magnate, philanthropist, John D Rockefeller Sr, is a prime example of just how wrong they all were, proudly stating that in the 93 years of his life, depressions had come and gone; going on to add “but prosperity had always returned, so will again.”
The Depression seemed to take on the look and feel of a self-propelled juggernaut, a juggernaut that seemed to thwart all attempts to restart the economy.
Even the great American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, more commonly known as “FDR,” dabbled in various programs to halt the advance of inevitable calamity. Both farm subsidies and public works were at the top of his list, a list that would grow with every passing day.
Unfortunately, like most politicians of the time, “FDR” spent too much of his time attempting to balance a non-existent budget to make any visible difference. It would indeed, as mentioned above, take a worldwide war to halt the ever speeding juggernaut.
Yes, it was quite a depressing time: However, it was not all bad, some people, as they do in times of disaster, created their fun or family get-togethers, some even went into inventing, and perhaps one of the strangest was designed and made for the New York’s World’s Fair, the worlds first celebrity robot, a first for the then hard-up “Westinghouse Electric Corporation.”
Going by the name of “Elektro the Moto-Man,” he was a strikingly colossal hit. He could enthrall the crowds with more than 20 different activities, which included, among others, the smoking of cigarettes, something which certainly would not be allowed to take place today.
Another party trick of this now futuristic robot also included blowing up balloons and being the naughty invention he was, thought nothing. He felt no one was looking, even flirted with girls, which he did with zest.
Although perhaps today a bit lame, for the 1930s he was, way ahead of his time, even occasionally responding to voice commands given to him via an ever-growing audience, who at times, stretched the 700-word vocabulary he boasted, all of which had been recorded earlier on a 75rpm record.
So successful was he that, unlike many impoverished Americans, he would survive the “Great Depression” and would go on to enthrall his audiences with his apparent Stoney attitude right through into the 1950s.
Then, of course, you have the man himself “President Herbert Hoover.” This man had the distinction of having towns named after him called. Yes, you guessed it, “Hoovervilles,” shanty towns set up on the outskirts of cities and villages, all frequently seen adjacent to the railway tracks, which usually spread throughout the country.
Of course, most of us know of President Herbert Hoover simply because of his connection, although small, with the “Hoover Dam,” sometimes known as the “Boulder Dam,” a project created especially for the “Great Depression,” by the then-president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
For his part, however, most people, when asked about President Hoover, state that he, like many others not do enough to drag America out of the Depression; Furthermore many had an acute dislike of the man, some of who went as far as blaming him for the deaths of 100s of workers all of whom he had put to work on his pet project, the mighty “Hoover Dam” located near Boulder City, Nevada, perhaps the only arch-gravity dam to be found anywhere within the USA.
Well, folks, once again, we have come to the end of another short narrative, so all that’s left for me to do is to thank you all for your support and, of course, for taking the time to read. It is most appreciated.
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