History of the United States II / Unit 10 USH2 1357 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Why the Crash Spread
The idea
The crash reached far beyond the ten percent of households that owned stock. Most families had no savings to fall back on, and wealth was concentrated in very few hands. Banks were exposed as well: the Yawp says one thousand three hundred fifty-two banks failed in nineteen thirty and nearly two thousand three hundred in nineteen thirty-two, taking deposits and credit with them. Digital History adds that in nineteen twenty-nine more than sixty percent of families earned less than the two thousand dollars needed for basic necessities.
In practice
A family with no shares and no savings, losing its deposits when the town bank closes.
Where people slip
The answer to how a crash that touched one household in ten ruined everyone lies in the savings figure and the distribution figure, not the stock figure. When banks failed, the losses reached people who had never bought a share. The anchor puts the three figures together, and so does this entry.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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