IGCSE History

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• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
    • The impact of the First World War
    • Immigration
    • Henry Ford and mass production
    • Farming in the 1920s
    • The Stock Market Boom
  • 1929 - 1941
    • The Wall Street Crash
    • The Depression
    • The policies of Hoover
    • Roosevelt and the New Deal
    • Reactions to the New Deal
• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
    • The Versailles Settlement
    • The Foundation of the League of Nations
    • Strengths and weaknesses of the League of Nations
    • Successes and failures of the League of Nations
    • Locarno and the Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • Appeasement
    • Manchuria
    • The Disarmament Conference
    • Abyssinia
    • Hitler and the League
    • Appeasement in action
• Revolution in China 1949 - 1996 (A14)
  • 1949 - 1976
    • China under Mao
    • Reform under Liu and Deng
    • The reasons for the Cultural Revolution
    • The impact of the Cultural Revolution
    • China 1971 - 1976
  • 1976 - 1996
    • The defeat of the Gang of Four
    • China under Deng Xiaoping
    • Reforms of the economy
    • The Democracy Movement
    • China in the 1990s
• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
  • Indo-China
    • The end of the French Empire
    • Vietnam 1954 - 1965
    • US involvement in Vietnam
    • The unification of Vietnam
    • Laos and Cambodia
  • South-East Asia
    • The struggle for control of Malaya
    • The creation of Malaysia
    • Singapore
    • Suharto and Indonesia
    • Sukarno and Pancasila
• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
    • The Palestinian Liberation Organisation
    • Lebanon and the occupied territories
    • Successes and failures from Camp David to Oslo
• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
  • The War at Sea
  • The defeat of Germany
• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
  • Advertising and consumerism
  • New forms of entertainment
  • Prohibition
  • Gangsterism
  • Hollywood
• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
• Links

The Wall Street Crash

From 1923 until 1929 share prices on Wall Street rose almost continuously. The biggest rises too place from 1928 to the middle of 1929 and from September 1929 prices began to slow down. By then some shrewd investors had realised that an over-production crisis was nearing and sold their shares. Confidence dipped and no one would buy shares.

The real problem was that there had been no attempts to control the buying and selling of shares or the way that companies were set up and run. The presidents in the 1920s had believed that here was no need for the federal government to intervene and so had allowed companies to do what they liked in an effort to sell their products. The over-production crisis simply tipped the balance and in October 1929 this led to the crash.

On Black Tuesday, 24 October 1929, selling began in earnest. But this was not taken seriously, because some shares actually rose in value and the banks decided that nothing needed to be done and even began to buy shares. Over the weekend the situation appeared to improve, but a further big collapse took place on Tuesday 29 and this time there was no mistake. Share prices continued to fall until 1932 and lost 80 percent of their value.

Easily the most important effect on the Crash was the collapse of 5000 banks in the next few years. This not only wiped out the savings of millions of Americans, but it also destroyed thousands of companies that could not finance their debts. With banking in ruins, borrowing became impossible, so no new companies could be started. Sales of manufactured goods fell by 80 percent and with no new investment and falling demand, workers were laid off. Unemployment reached 13 million by 1933. In some areas of the country it reached 30 percent of the workforce. 'Hoboes' travelled around looking for work, often riding illegally in railway freight cars.

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