The Stock Market Crashed on October 29,1929 also known as "Black Tuesday." The main cause of the stock market crash is when stocks started falling rapidly on Wall St. as people started selling large numbers of stocks and no one was buying. People could not meet their margin calls and wanted out before they lost everything. Panic hit the country and the stock market collapsed when over 16.4 million shares were sold. It became the worst day in stock market history.
The day the stock market crashed was the official beginning of the Great Depression. Consumer spending and investment dropped causing companies to lay off workers so business slowed down production and construction. Many of these people were heavily in debt due to buying on credit, and a number of Americans homes were foreclosed. Another major cause of the Depression was bank failure. Over 9,000 banks failed and many people lost their savings.
During the 20's the farmers had been in a economic depression of their own due to drought and falling food prices. They couldn't afford to harvest their crops and left them in the fields to rot.
Women Struggled greatly during the depression. Women helped their families by sewing and canning food. Men were angry at women who worked outside their homes because they believed those jobs belonged to unemployed men. Some areas thought women had it better than men and refused to hire married women when in fact many were starving but were too proud to stand in a bread lines.
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