“♫ It’s raining men! ♫” That phrase had a very different meaning on October 29, 1929, when it rained stockbroker suicides from the gleaming towers of Wall Street, making today
NATIONAL BLACK TUESDAY DAY!
Can you say “naked greed,” boys and girls? I knew that you could.
One of the reasons the 1920’s were so roaring, other than all the bootleg hooch, was the seemingly endless supply of air money produced out of nothing by investors cashing checks they had not yet earned against their investments in a booming stock market that one day stopped booming.
All of a sudden, everyone wondered where the money went, and creditors called in their debts.
Only rub was, the swells had already blown all the dough on speakeasies, raccoon coats and Flora-Dora Girls, so banks and brokerages collapsed like so many houses of cards, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929 plunged the entire world into a dozen years of dire poverty called the Great Depression.
All the jobs went away seemingly overnight, and America became a nation of bread lines and embittered transients in search of a day’s pay. Not much to celebrate here, save for that shining moment when greedy tycoons were taking swans dives onto Broadway.
•Suggested Activities: Singing “Brother Can You Spare a Dime.”