Concept
The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, the Crash of 29 was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended in mid-November, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) collapsed. The pivotal role of the 1920s' high-flying bull market and the subsequent catastrophic collapse of the NYSE in late 1929 is often highlighted in explanations of the causes of the worldwide Great Depression. It was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its aftereffects. The Great Crash is mostly associated with October 24, 1929, called Black Thursday, the day of the largest sell-off of shares in U.S. history, and October 29, 1929, called Black Tuesday, when investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. The crash, which followed the London Stock Exchange's crash of September, signaled the beginning of the Great Depression. The "Roaring Twenties", the decade following World War I that 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 hopes of finding a more prosperous life in the ever-growing expansion of America's industrial sector. Scholars believe that declines in the money supply caused by Federal Reserve decisions had a severely contractionary effect on output. Despite the inherent risk of speculation, it was widely believed that the stock market would continue to rise forever. On March 25, 1929, after the Federal Reserve warned of excessive speculation, a small crash occurred as investors started to sell stocks at a rapid pace, exposing the market's shaky foundation. Two days later, banker Charles E. Mitchell announced that his company, the National City Bank, would provide $25 million in credit to stop the market's slide. Mitchell's move brought a temporary halt to the financial crisis, and call money declined from 20 to 8 percent.
