Shareholders rushed to sell their stocks as quickly as possible, but they found no buyers. The 24th came to be known as "Black Thursday." Five days later there was a "Black Tuesday." That was when more than sixteen million stocks were sold at a great loss. One stock had dropped from one hundred dollars to only three dollars per share. (Kindleberger) The President and the bankers tried to assure people that there was not a crisis and that it was only a temporary situation, but they could not have been more wrong. .
When the stock market crashed, it destroyed the whole economy. The workers wage began falling at an alarming rate. By early 30's factories were shut down or slowed down by the crippling economy. As an average about 100,000 workers a week were fired in the first three years after the stock market crash. (Turner) When all of these workers lost their jobs, they could hardly afford to buy food or clothing, therefore, many of the stores were not making enough money to survive either. This caused more people to be fired and more businesses to shut down. It was a continuous cycle that caused the economy to get worse and worse. The unemployed people desperately needed money, so they all rushed to the banks to take their savings out. Unfortunately, most banks had also been hit hard by the crash of the stock market. The banks, like the people, had bought large amounts of stocks when they were doing so well. When the stocks dropped, they could not afford to give their customers the savings account money, which they demanded.
By the year 1932, there were more than fourteen million jobless people in the United States. (Turner) This equaled to one third of all workers in the country. Stocks were worth on the average only eleven percent of the price that they had reached in 1929, and about five thousand banks had shut down, due to the lack of funds. (Turner) Over all, between the stockholders and the people who had invested their money in banks, seventy-five trillion dollars had been lost by 1932.
