Texas & the Great depression

Chapter 23

Stock

• Many people who made money in the 1920s invested heavily in stock.

• Stock: Ownership in a corporation, divided into shares & represented by a certificate

Stockholders

• If the company does well, the stockholders get money back from their investments.• Stockholder: Owner of stock

Speculation

• In the 1920s, people began to speculate on the stock market (where stocks are bought & sold).

• Speculate: People risked their money hoping that prices would rise quickly so they could sell their stock for a quick profit.

Stock market crash

•Thursday, October 24, 1929: Investors sold 13 million stocks, which dropped prices sharply.

•Friday & Saturday (Oct. 25-26): Bankers bought stocks to balance the stock market.

•Monday (Oct. 28): Prices fell again

Black Tuesday

• On Tuesday, October 29, 1929, investors sold over 16 million stocks, causing a $26 billion loss.• So much money was

lost that the day became known as “Black Tuesday”.

Effects of black tuesday

•Many people were left with debts they couldn’t pay.• Banks ran out of

money since they couldn’t collect the money they were owed.

• Factories & stores closed and ¼ of all workers lost their jobs.

• The Great Depression began.

The great depression

• The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to the beginning of World War II in 1939.

• People roamed from place to place looking for work or built shacks to live in.

Impact on texas

•The Great Depression spread worldwide, affecting European markets for Texas goods.

•Texas’s crop prices dropped 50% between 1929 & 1933.

•About 13% of Texans had to ask for government help.

Drought

•In the mid-1930s, a terrible drought hit Texas & other states in the Great Plains.

•This caused the millions of acres of grassland that had been plowed to produce fierce dust storms called “black blizzards”.

Dust bowl

•Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado & New Mexico were affected by the drought & constant dust storms.

•People called this region the “Dust Bowl”.