In early September 1927 share prices on the Wall Street stock market began to slip, unlike the last 7 years when they had been constantly rising. Experienced stockbrokers began to sell their shares because they saw that the prices would probably fall. Normal working class people saw the stockbrokers doing this, and suspected something was going wrong and they began to sell their shares too. Soon after everyone began to panic and were selling their shares as quickly as possible. Prices of shares plummeted and people were selling their shares for anything they could possibly get. Then on Tuesday, 29th of October 1929, 16 410 000 shares were traded in the worst day in history of the New York stock market. No one would buy the shares and everyone was panicking. All shares lost a huge amount of their value and nearly all people, wealthy or poor were hit. .
Herbert Clarke Hoover started off with nothing in life. His parents died before he was 9 and he was left to be brought up by his uncle who was a Quaker Doctor and his aunt in Oregon. He only stayed in High School till he was 14 then he left for work as an office boy. He became interested in engineering and went to university and graduated with a degree of mining and engineering. In 1908 he set up a mining consultancy company and he became rich. In 1914 Hoover chaired the American Relief Commission, which helped 150000 Americans return home safely from World War One. He was continuously helping Americans during the war, which pleased the people. Hoovers work during the war brought him to the attention of President Harding, who made him secretary of commerce. He continued to hold his position under President Coolidge. Hoover began a series of building projects including Boulder Dam which was renamed Hoover Dam in his honour. .
Hoover was the natural choice to succeed Calvin Coolidge as president. He stated that every American would have "a chicken in every pot, a car in every garage" by promising prosperity for all the people that thought that the rich period of the 1920s would last forever.