Stock Market Crash of 1929

On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit Wall Street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. Shown: the interior of the New York Stock Exchange on Black Friday, October 25, 1929.

The U.S. stock market underwent rapid expansion after a period of wild speculation during the roaring twenties. By then, production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stocks in great excess of their real value.Messengers from brokerage houses crowd around a hard-to-obtain newspaper after the first Wall Street stock market crash on October 24, 1929. READ MORE: What Caused the Stock Market Crash of 1929?

The front page of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle with the headline “Wall St. in Panic as Stocks Crash,” published on the day of the initial 1929 Wall Street crash.

A World headline on October 25, 1929.

Right after October 29, 1929, stock prices had nowhere to go but up. Overall, however, prices continued to drop as the country slumped into the Great Depression. Shown here, millions of dollars in securities and records are transported on October 25, 1929 on Wall Street.

The Sub-Treasury Building (now Federal Hall National Memorial) opposite the Wall Street Stock Exchange in Manhattan, New York, at the time of the Wall Street Crash.

A stock broker at the New York Stock Exchange at one o’clock in the night, November 1929READ MORE: Warning Signs Investors Missed Before the 1929 Crash

New York stock brokers and their clerks worked until early October 30, 1929, checking up transactions. This photo shows some of the clerks catching up on their sleep in a gym.

In a London club, members watch fluctuations in the New York stock market on October 31, 1929 as changes are chalked up by telephone operators in direct contact with New York.

By 1933, nearly half of America’s banks had failed. Here, investors rush to withdraw their savings during a stock market crash, circa 1929.

An office force clears up the order room of the Carlisle, Mellick & Company, one the biggest brokers, in the Wall Street section at 50 Broadway on November 1, 1929.

A Wall Street investor tries to sell his car after losing all of his money in the stock market crash.

Apple sales were an organized attempt to get unemployed men back to work during the Great Depression.READ MORE: How Apples Became a Weapon Against the Great Depression

A man making his own protest against unemployment. The sign on his back reads: “I know 3 trades, I speak 3 languages, fought 3 years, have 3 children and no work for 3 months, but I only want one job.”

Notorious gangster Al Capone attempts to help unemployed men with his soup kitchen “Big Al’s Kitchen for the Needy.” The kitchen provided three meals a day consisting of soup with meat, bread, coffee and doughnuts, feeding about 3,500 people daily at a cost of $300 per day.READ MORE: Mobster Al Capone Ran a Soup Kitchen During the Great Depression

Unemployed squatters at the Hard Luck Camp at the foot of 9th and 10th Streets and the East River in New York City, waiting for eviction by the police on May 9, 1933.

Two Dust Bowl refugees in 1937 walk along a highway towards Los Angeles, passing by a billboard saying, “Next Time Try the Train—Relax.” READ MORE: How the Dust Bowl Made American Refugee’s in Their Own Country