Market Crash 80th Anniversary

October 30, 2009

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Profile America — Friday, October 30th. The events of the last year in the stock market have reminded many of the great crash of 1929. Newspaper headlines on this date 80 years ago told of the great Wall Street disaster the day before. That event ushered in the Great Depression and ended the boom days of the 1920s. Nine-thousand banks failed and some stocks took 25 years to regain their value. By 1932, one of every four Americans was out of work. Today, the structures put in place to prevent another Depression are under severe test, led by the mortgage crisis, a big drop in stock prices and increased unemployment. Now, one-in-four U.S. households own shares of stock and more than four-out-of-10 invest in mutual funds. Profile America is a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau, now preparing for the 2010 Census.

Sources: Chase's Calendar of Events 2009, p. 527
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2009, t. 1171
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2009edition.html