The prosperous decade leading up to the stock market crash of 1929, with easy access to credit and a culture that encouraged speculation and risk-taking, put into place the conditions for the country’s fall. The stock market, which had been growing for years, began to decline in the summer and early fall of 1929, precipitating a panic that led to a massive stock sell-off in late October.

In one month, the market lost close to 40 percent of its value. Although only a small percentage of Americans had invested in the stock market, the crash affected everyone.

speculation — the practice of investing in risky financial opportunities in the hopes of a fast payout due to market fluctuations. American individualism — the belief, strongly held by Herbert Hoover and others, that hard work and individual effort, absent government interference, comprised the formula for success in the U.S. bank run — the withdrawal by a large number of individuals or investors of money from a bank due to fears of the bank’s instability, with the ironic effect of increasing the bank’s…. Black Tuesday — October 29, 1929, when a mass panic caused a crash in the stock market and stockholders divested over sixteen million shares, causing the overall value of the stock market to….