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LITERATURE ACTIVITY
The Stock Market Crash
In the passage below, Frederick Lewis Allen offers this dramatic account of
“Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929.
As you read, imagine youi-self as a stockbroker on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
on that fateful day.
T
he big gong had hardly sounded in the great
hail of the Exchange at ten o’clock Tuesday
morning before the storm broke in full force.
Huge blocks of stock were thrown upon the mar
ket for what they would bring. Five thousand
shares, ten thousand shares appeared at a time on
the laboring ticker at fearful recessions in price.
Not only were innumerable small traders being
sold out, but big ones, too,. To give one single
example: during the bull market the common
stock of the White Sewing Machine Company had
gone as high as 48: on Monday, October 28th, it
had closed at 11 1/8 On that black Tuesday, some
body—a clever messenger boy for the Exchange,
it was rumored—had the bright idea
of putting in an order to buy at 1—and in the
temporarily complete absence of other bids he
actually got his stock for a dollar a share!
The scene on the floor was chaotic. Despite
the jamming of the communication system, orders
to buy and sell—mostly to sell—came in faster
than human beings could possibly handle them: it
was on that day that an exhausted broker, at the
close of the session, found a large waste-basket
which he had stuffed with orders to be executed
and had carefully set aside for safe-keeping—and
then had completely forgotten. Within half an
hour of the opening the volume of trading had
passed three million shares, by twelve o’clock it
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had passed eight million, by half-past one it had
passed twelve million, and when the closing gong
brought the day’s madness to an end the gigantic
record of 16,410,030 shares had been set. Toward
the close there was a rally, but by that time the
average prices of fifty leading stocks, as compiled
by The New York Times, had fallen nearly forty
points. Meanwhile there was a near-panic in other
markets—the foreign stock exchanges, the lesser
American exchanges, the grain market.
So complete was the demoralization of the
stock market and so exhausted were the brokers
and their staffs and the Stock Exchange employees,
that at noon that day, when the panic was at its
worst, the Governing Committee met quietly to
decide whether or not to close the Exchange.
To quote from an address made some months
later by Richard Whitney: “In order not to give
occasion for alarming rumors. the forty gover
nors came to the meeting in groups of two and
three as unobtrusively as possible... As the
meeting progressed. the panic was raging over
head on the floor.. The feeling of those present
was revealed by their habit of continually lighting
cigarettes, taking a puff or two, putting them out
and lighting new ones—a practice which soon
made the narrow room blue with smoke
After some deliberation, the governors finally
decided not to close the exchange.
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From ONLY YESTERDAY: AN INFORMAL HISTORY OF THE NINETEEN-TWENTIES by Frederick L. Allen. Copyright © 1931
by Frederick Lewis Allen, renewed 1959 by Agnes Rogers Allen. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
I Questions toThrnk About I
1. Based on this account, how would you describe the mood on the floor of the
New York Stock Exchange on October 29, 1929?
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2. Would the effects of Black Tuesday have been different if the Governing
Committee had decided to close the New York Stock Exchange? Explain.
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Chapter 12 Modern American History Edition
Literature Activity
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(continued)
The Psychological Effects of the Depression
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In 1929, James T. Farrell started writing a novel about the “making and the
education of an ordinary American boy.” The result was Studs Lonigan, a trilogy
chronicling the life and times of a young man and his Irish Catholic family from
1916 to 1933. The excerpt below is from Judgment, the last book of the three.
As you read the passage about Studs’s father, Paddy Lonigan, think about how the
Depression affected people both economically and psychologically.
is knees tired, he sat back in the pew.
Bewildered, he tried to force himself to
understand what was happening to him, what
was happening in the world, why so many things
should be crushing down on the shoulders of
Paddy Lonigan who had once been so confident,
so well equipped to deal with his difficulties.
Vaguely, he remembered an afternoon in
October, 1929, when he had come home around a
quarter to five as usual. In the newspaper deliv
ered at his door he had read the account of a
break in the stock market. Now he saw that that
was the beginning of this depression, this depres
sion that was robbing him of everything he had
acquired through the long years of work.
H
“This depression that was robbing him
of everything he had acquired.
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It was neither right nor fair. He could not see
why these troubles must all come to him. What
had he done? He wanted to know. Here he was, a
man who had always done his duties. Hadn’t he
earned his place in the world by hard work?
Hadn’t he always provided for his family to the
best of his abilities, tried to be a good husband
and a good father, a true Catholic, and a real
American? Hadn’t he always made his Easter
duty, contributed to the support of his pastor?
And hadn’t he done all in his power to bring his
children up the right way? He had wanted them
to be a comfort to himself and Mary in their old
age. And now, Bill, his favorite, was dying. And
he and Mary, after all their work and struggle,
must come to such misery in their old age, be
reduced almost to the state of paupers. It wasn’t
right. It wasn’t fair. He had done nothing to merit
this punishment. Why, why was it?...
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Chapter 22 Literature Activity
Again he knelt, prayed in exalting fervor,
abjectly asking his God to spare his son from
death, to give him back just Bill. If only Bill lived,
he would take the loss of everything else with
Job’s patience. He imagined Bill recovering quick
ly, their moving into a small flat, economizing, he
and Bill fighting back to where they once had
been. He saw himself coming around to a large
building where he had a big contract, seeing Bill
in paint-stained overalls, up on a ladder like it
used to be. He saw a future of Bill and the other
children with their kids, himself and Mary as
happy grandparents, a family reunion, with him
and Bill laughing as they talked about the hard
times of 1930 and 1931, and how they had pulled
through those days of hard times....
The feeling of having nothing to do, no stone
to turn, no help in his present difficulties,
weighed upon him like something heavy. He
stood indecisive and watched a street car cut
across Michigan Avenue, followed by a succes
sion of three automobiles.. He descended the
steps, got into his Ford, and without thinking of
what he was doing drove north along Michigan
Avenue.. He halted the car in front of the build
ing he had once owned, approached it. With his
hand on the knob of the outer entrance door, he
realized with the pain of loss that it was no longer
his building and that all the life, hopes, expecta
tions lived in this building, these were all gone,
and that he was now an old man on the verge of
ruin, and when he went home tonight, he might
find his eldest son.. dead...
He lit a fresh cigar and tried to fancy himself
as the prosperous Paddy Lonigan he had been
just a couple of short years ago, walking back
through these changed scenes of his boyhood,
trying to keep his mind on the distance he had
travelled since those days. He suddenly caught
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© PrenticeHaII, Inc.
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(continued)
the odor of decay and stink from the nearby
stockyards that were just south of this section. He
smiled. Just like old times. That was something he
hadn’t thought of in years, golly, the stockyard
smell. In those days he had always lived in that
smell and gotten not to mind it. He tried again to
keep his mind on the distance he had travelled
since those days. But what did it mean now? He
cursed. They were robbing him. Goddamn it, they
couldn’t take his building. They couldn’t. He’d
get a shot-gun and defy them.
A crowd was gathered at the end of the block,
and he walked more rapidly toward it, noticing,
as he approached, that there were policemen.
Trouble. Coming up to the crowd, he saw a bailiff
and two workingmen removing an assortment of
ancient and scratched furniture from a three-story
brick tenement while three broad-shouldered
policemen stood about with surly, challenging
expressions. A lean woman in a ragged black
dress sat in a stuffed chair with a baby in her
arms. Beside her, a leathery man stood, talking
down at her. Two unwashed girls of ten or
twelve, and a small boy with holes in his stock
ings stood beside the man, crying.
“Get back,” a policeman said to a ragged kid
who ran toward the furniture.
“This can’t go on forever,” a small, nervous
man in overalls and a blue shirt said, too loudly,
and a ruddy-faced policeman walked quickly
toward him.
“What did you say?”
“Come on, break it up. Break it up,” a second
cop called, quickly joining the first.
LITERATURE A!VITJ
Lonigan stepped off the curb and aside.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Break it up.”
“Move on. Don’t block the sidewalk.”
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“He remembered the remark of the
small, nervous man. Could these
hard times go on forever?”
Their faces surly, the crowd was edged down
the sidewalk. Lonigan walked around the side
walk, toward the corner. Might be trouble, and
he didn’t want to be mixed up in any riots or
trouble... But that poor family. Losing their
home, four children, too. Poor fellow, must be
out of work. He remembered the remark of the
small, nervous man. Could these hard times go
on forever? His own building, they were taking
it away from him, the building into which he
had put all the money earned by the sweat of his
own brow. Yes, it was earned by the sweat of his
own brow. They couldn’t take it away from him.
They couldn’t.
He passed a box-like, red-brick factory, sooty,
with smokeless cylindrical chimneys. The windows
were dirty, many of them broken. He guessed
kids had done that. Closed factory. That meant
men out of work, machinery rusting, people with
money invested in it getting no return. Ah, times
were hard, and we needed a new man of the peo
ple in the White House, to end all these hard times
and unemployment.
.
From STUDS LONIGAN (A TRILOGY CONTAINING YOUNG LONIGAN/THE
YOUNG MANHOOD OF STUDS LONIGAN/JUDGMENT DAY). Reprinted by
permission of the estate of James T. Farrell.
Questions to Think About
1. How had the Depression affected Paddy Lonigan both economically and
psychologically?
2. What other personal consequences of the Depression are described in this
passage?
3. Drawing Conclusions How do you think Paddy Lonigan would answer
the question “Could these hard times go on forever?”
© Prentice-Hall, Inc.
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