On this day in Labor History the year was 1929.
On that Wednesday morning, people across the United States woke up to newspaper headlines informing them that something had gone horribly wrong on Wall Street the day before.
Black Tuesday, as the day came to be known had capped off a devastating drop in the market that had begun with the Great Crash the prior Thursday.
Twenty-five billion dollars was lost in the crash, which would be about three hundred billion in today’s money.
The crash helped spark the Great Depression that saw unemployment soared to twenty-five percent and nearly half of the banks in the United States fail.
But the day after the crash, the news reports were not all doom and gloom.
While Variety declared in big, bold letters “Wall St. Lays an Egg” others headlines struck a different tone.
The New York Times wordyheadline stated “Stocks collapse in 16,410,030-Share Day; But rally at close cheers brokers; bankers optimistic to continue aid.”
The Chicago Tribune went with the more concise “Stock Slump Ends in Rally.”
Newspaper reporters attempted to explain the crash.
The Denver Post blamed the downturn on “gamblers,” the Philadelphia Evening Ledger blamed “the propagandists of gloom and economic terror” and the New York Times blamed “the reckless Wall Street speculators.”
But many papers also attempted to quell panic over the badnews from New York.
The Kansas City Star assured readers “once the adjustment is completed, the country will move forward to newlevels of prosperity.”
The Nashville Banner similarly predicted “The reaction had to come, and the country will be betteroff for the lesson it has had, costly though it be.”
That costly lesson became a devastating global depression.
April 1 - The Promise of 1946
March 31 - Hospital Workers Stand United
March 30 - 15th Amendment Adopted
March 29 - West Coast Hotel v Parrish Decided
March 28 - Partial Meltdown at Three Mile Island
March 27 - FE Strikers Battle Police at Harvester
March 26 - Police Attack UE Amid ‘46 Strike Wave
March 25 - Centralia Coal Mine #5 Explodes
March 24 - Exxon Valdez Runs Aground
March 23 - Texas City Refinery Explosion Kills 15
March 22 - ERA Passes the Senate
March 21 - Truman Signs Loyalty Order
March 20 - Another Deadly Explosion
March 19 - Wartime President Pushes for Labor Peace
March 18 - Wartime Workers Betrayed
March 17 - The Hoggs Hollow Tragedy
March 16 - Big Bill Haywood Talks General Strike
March 15 - The Grapes of Wrath Opens in Theaters
March 14 - Remembering Walter Crane
March 13 - Ending Jim Crow on the Job
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