The 1929 Stock Market Crash Explained

Economic historians usually attribute the start of the Great Depression to the sudden devastating

collapse of U.S. stock market prices on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday.

However, some dispute this conclusion and see the stock crash as a symptom rather

than a cause of the Great Depression. The Roaring Twenties, the decade that followed World War

I and led to the crash, was a time of wealth and excess. Building on post-war

optimism, rural Americans migrated to the cities in vast numbers throughout the decade

with the hopes of finding a more prosperous life in the ever-growing expansion of America’s industrial sector.

While the American cities prospered, the overproduction of agricultural produce created