Essay On The Stock Market Crash

Right before the crash, the stock market flourished and hit levels which where never hit before. The past decade had been great; The New York Stock exchange had increased dramatically in value by $60 billion. However, the stocks ended up dropping fast. It seemed to e a minor glitch. But what was thought of to be a bump in the road by economists and leaders, turned out to be something much worse. The stock market crash in 1929 hit the United States hard, and had a dramatic affect on the employment and lives of many citizens all over the country. In 1932, the amount of unemployed Americans was more than 12 million, some of these unemployments being in the automobile industry in Detroit, Michigan. My grandmother grew up in Detroit, and she was about five or six years old.

Prior to the Stock Market Crash, Detroit and the auto industry had already started to fall, and economically, Michigan had already begun to struggle. According to Jim Lunday in ‘The Great Depression in Michigan,’ “The people of Michigan, already struggling with economic troubles, moved into a new decade defined by a tidal wave of economic troubles.” My grandma’s father, who had worked for the company General Motors, had lost his job prior to the stock market crashing. These prior economic difficulties caused her family to be hit very hard by the Depression. Detroit is easily said to be one of the hardest hit cities in America. The unemployment rate was 34%, while the national unemployment rate was 26%. Michigan relied heavily on the auto industry as the state’s source of income. When this industry goes downhill, so do the employees. GM was forced to let go half of their workers in only four years, and the amount of cars produced was down by more than 2 million in ...

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...ere lost their jobs and could no longer continue paying the rent. She remembers one family in particular. They had two small children, and the father lost his job. Instead of forcing them out of their flat and onto the streets, her grandfather let them continue living there free of charge. Her grandfather was not the only one to do this. A lot of landlords let residents stay for free, mostly due to the fact that there were supposed to get paid by the Welfare Department. However, they never did get paid, so many forced their residents to leave. My grandma talked very highly of her grandfather. She said that he did his best to help out those that had it harder than him. He did not care about the money that was supposed to be coming. He just simply wanted to help out that family. Being that kind hearted can be somewhat difficult at that time. Renting out flats was her