The
100
Most
Important American
Financial
Crises
An Encyclopedia of the
Lowest Points in American
Economic History
Quentin R. Skrabec Jr.
Q GREENWOOD
AN IMPRINT OF ABC-CLIO, LLC
Santa Barbara, California • Denver, Colorado • Oxford, England
Contents
Preface
xiii
Acknowledgments
xv
Introduction
xvii
1676—Bacon's Rebellion
1
1703—Tobacco Depression
4
1719—Mississippi Bubble
6
1733—Molasses Act
9
1749—Colonial Hyperinflation and Currency Deflation
12
1750—IronAct
15
1762—Colonial Recession
17
1764-1765—Sugar Act, Currency Act, and Stamp Act Boycotts
19
1772—Credit Crisis
22
1776—War Financing Crisis
24
1781—Currency Deflation and Inflation
28
1790—Debt Assumption, Debt Retirement, and Expanding the Economy
31
1792—Panic
33
1794—Whiskey Tax Rebellion
37
1796-1797—Panic
40
1800—Trade Interference by Barbary Coast Pirates
43
1807—Economic Embargo and Depression
45
1812—War of 1812
48
vii
viii | Contents
1816-1819—Economic Warfare and Dumping by Great Britain
51
1819—Panic
53
1820s—Cotton Recession
56
1825—British Panic and Its American Impact
58
1828—Tariff of Abominations
60
1833—Andrew Jackson Closes the Bank of the United States and
Lowers Tariffs
63
1837—Panic and Six-Year Depression
66
1847—Panic
69
1848—Gold Rush Boom and Bust
71
1850—Whale Oil Shortage: The First Energy Crisis
73
1854—Panic
76
1854—Deel ine of American Canals
78
1857—Panic
81
1861—Civil War Economics, Shortages, and Inflation
83
1862—Union Blockade and Inflation
85
1869—Grant's Recession
88
1873—Panic and Global Depression
90
1877—Great National Railroad Strike
93
1880s—New England Energy Crisis
96
1882—Bessemer Process and the Labor Crisis
98
1882—Recession
101
1884—Panic
103
1890—British Panic
105
1893—Panic
107
1894—National Labor Unrest
110
1896—Gold Crisis
113
1899—Ohio Gas Industry Collapse
115
1901—Rieh Man's Panic
117
Contents | ix
1902—National Anthracite Coal Strike
119
1907—Panic
122
1910—Rubber Shortage and Price Explosion
125
1914-1918—War Shortages
127
1914—Crisis
129
1917—Boll Weevil Cotton Crisis
132
1918—Flu Pandemic
134
1919—National Steel Strike
136
1921 —Automotive Recession
139
1921—British Rubber Embargo and Monopoly Control
142
1922—Peanut Import Crisis
144
1929—Wall Street Crash and Great Depression
146
1930s—Agricultural Depression and the Dust Bowl
150
1936-1939—Labor Uprisings
153
1937-1938—Recession
155
1940s—World War II Rationing and Shortages
158
1941 —Rubber Crisis and Shortage
161
1943—Steel, Metal, and Alloy Shortage Crisis
164
1947—Economic Restructuring of America: Taft-Hartley Act
166
1947—Mont Pelerin: A Crisis in Economic Thought and Academia
169
1959—National Steel Strike
171
1965—Auto Import Challenge and the Fall of the American
Auto Industry
173
1969—Technological Tire Crisis: Radial Tire Production Ends
U.S. Rubber Dominance
175
1971 —Wage and Price Controls
178
1973—Arab Oil Embargo Crisis
181
1974—Double-Digit Inflation
184
1975—Rapid Deindustrialization
186
x | Contents
1977—Natural Gas Shortage Crisis
189
1979—Nuclear Energy Crisis: Three Mile Island
191
1979—First Chrysler Bankruptcy
194
1980s—The Rust Belt
196
1981—Air Traffic Controllers' Strike
199
1982—Collapse of the Steel Industry
201
1982—Recession
203
1986—Savings and Loan Crisis
206
1987—Black Monday
209
1992—Hurricane Andrew
211
1992-1994—North American Free Trade Agreement
214
1994—Mexican Peso Crisis
217
1996—Decline of Southern Textile and Furniture Industries
219
1997—Asian Financial Crisis
221
1998—Russian Financial Crisis
224
2000—The Y2K Crisis
226
2000—Dot.Com Bubble
229
2001 —September 11 Terrorist Attack and Recession
231
2005—Hurricane Katrina
234
2008—Banking and Subprime Mortgage Crisis
237
2009—Great Recession
239
2009—General Motors Bankruptcy
242
2010—GulfOil Spill
244
2012—European Sovereign Debt Crisis: U.S. Exports and
Banking Impacts
247
2012—San Bernardino, California, Bankruptcy
249
2012—Hurricane Sandy
251
2013—Detroit Bankruptcy
254
Contents | xi
Appendix: Primary Documents
1676—Bacon's Declaration in the Name of the People
257
Ca. 1750-Petition to Parliament on Repeal of the Iron Prohibition
Act of1750
259
1764—-Boston Merchants' Appeals to Repeal the Sugar Act
260
1790—Hamilton's Report on Manufactures
262
1807—Embargo Act
269
1819—Transcript of McCulloch v. Maryland
272
1828—South Carolina's Exposition and Protest Against the Tariff of
1828 by John C. Calhoun (Anonymously)
282
1893—President Cleveland's Address on the Repeal of the Sherman
Silver Act
290
1913—Federal Reserve Act Article One
293
1947—Outline of 29 U.S.C. 186 (Taft-Hartley Act See. 302)
294
1948—Article I of GATT Treaty
304
1971—Nixon's Address to the Nation Announcing Price
Control Measures
311
1993—NAFTA Partial Text
316
Bibliography
317
Index
327