1929: The Year of the Great Crash

This was a very readable and interesting account of the events leading up to the great crash. Weaving together the stories of diverse people, from Hollywood to Wall Street, the author gives a vivid picture of this chaotic time and its aftermath. The many anecdotes are fascinating as well as poignant; Winston Churchill himself was present at the New York stock exchange on that fateful day in October when he came to the U.S. to visit William Randolph Hearst, and had no idea he had lost his own fortune until he returned to England. Churchill watched the commotion on the trading floor below from a balcony, not realizing his own fortune, which was heavily invested in U.S. stocks, was vanishing. A famous, wealthy trader (whose name escapes me), courageously but foolishly walks around to the major trading stations on the floor, expending his own fortune to buy what he thinks are bargain-priced stocks while the other traders cheer in approval. His heroic gesture was fruitless, however, and he was wiped out minutes later. Groucho Marx was an avid trader and continually interrupted the filming of "Duck Soup" to call his stock broker.* Marx lost everything in the crash. A few, such as Will Rogers, pulled their money out in time and saved their fortunes. Set against the turbulent backdrop of the 1920s with its labor upheavals, gangland activities (the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which was never proved but attributed to Al Capone, occurred in 1929), and frenetic stock market, as the country enjoyed a fin-de-siecle but soon to vanish prosperity, this book provides an informative, readable, and entertaining account of that fateful year. *Note: Not sure it was Duck Soup at this point, but anyway, it was whatever movie the Marx brothers were filming at that time.

A very good presentation of the social and economic events occurring around the 1929 stock market crash. Klingaman always has an excellent way of organizing various aspects of history during a certain time period. In this book you get a slice of what is occurring in the White House, Hollywood, organized crime and the some of the average person economic happenings. Klingaman presents the before crash event(with all the optimism), what occurs during with all the hopeful speculation, and the afterward follow-up. He highlights the ineffectiveness of Hoover and touches upon the emerging FDR and talks of how Joe Kennedy enjoyed taking others money while people fell poor. This book was a great read about social and economic history of this time. I recommend reading this, along with a "Once in Golconda" by John Brooks.

I read this book because I so enjoyed reading the author's 1941: Our Lives in a World on the Edge, which I finished reading 29 Nov 1997. This book is just as good. This is not academic history, but Klingaman weaves from other books and contemporary sources an account of the time from Election Day in 1928 till mid-1930, and does a superlative job. He does not tell what happens in the future but tells the events as they unfold. The only way that the future is involved is in the selection of the events to be related. And he does not discuss only the stock market, but brings in things such as the St. Valentine's Day massacre on Feb 14, 1929, and the events when Hoover was inaugurated--supposedly Hoover and Coolidge as they rode to the Inauguration said not a word to each other! The book is just filled with interesting items of information. One wonders how different it would be written after the bubble burst of 2000-2001. I have read at least two other books on the Crash of 1929 (The Day America Crashed, by Tom Schactman--read 3 July 1979--and The Day the Bubble Burst, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts--read 25 Mar 2000)and this book is a better book than either of those.

Had I read this book 10 years ago (it's now 2003), I would have passed it off as an interesting story and a good account of a time long past. When reading it today, I have to constantly look at the title to remind myself that it is referring to 1929 and not 1999!

Like his "1919" and "1941", Klingaman holds your interest with the story of a single year. Reads as compelling as a novel. Colorful (and real) characters wander in and out of the narrative, many of their stories intersecting at the stock market collapse in October. I enjoyed it.