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Searching... Woodburn Public Library | 332.64 BLUMENTHAL | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Over six terrifying, desperate days in October 1929, the fabulous fortune that Americans had built in stocks plunged with a fervor never seen before. At first, the drop seemed like a mistake, a mere glitch in the system. But as the decline gathered steam, so did the destruction. Over twenty-five billion dollars in individual wealth was lost, vanished gone. People watched their dreams fade before their very eyes. Investing in the stock market would never be the same.
Here, Wall Street Journal bureau chief Karen Blumenthal chronicles the six-day period that brought the country to its knees, from fascinating tales of key stock-market players, like Michael J. Meehan, an immigrant who started his career hustling cigars outside theaters and helped convince thousands to gamble their hard-earned money as never before, to riveting accounts of the power struggles between Wall Street and Washington, to poignant stories from those who lost their savings -- and more -- to the allure of stocks and the power of greed.
For young readers living in an era of stock-market fascination, this engrossing account explains stock-market fundamentals while bringing to life the darkest days of the mammoth crash of 1929.
Author Notes
Karen Blumenthal (1959-2020) was a financial journalist and editor whose career included five years with The Dallas Morning News and twenty-five with The Wall Street Journal before becoming an award-winning children's nonfiction book writer. Three of her books were finalists for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award, and she was the author of Sibert Honor Book Six Days in October: The Stock Market Crash of 1929.
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This fast-paced, gripping (and all-too-timely) account of the market crash of October 1929 puts a human face on the crisis. Blumenthal, the Dallas bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, sets the scene in the affluent post-Great War society: she reproduces the famous January 1929 cartoon from Forbes magazine (a frenetic crowd grasping at a ticker tape) and her statement "Executives who had spent their lives building solid reputations cut secret deals in pursuit of their own stock-market riches" may send a shiver down the spines of older readers aware of recent corporate scandals. The author deciphers market terms such as bull and bear, stock and bond in lucidly worded sidebars and describes the convergence of speculation, optimism and greed that primed the market for failure. Throughout, Blumenthal relates the impact of historical developments on everyday citizens. Supported by archival photographs, cartoons and documents, the text is rife with atmospheric detail about the customs of the stock exchange (from buttonhole flowers to the opening and closing gongs). Other asides, such as the first appearance of women on the exchange floor, or the rise (and fall) of immigrant Michael J. Meehan, who championed the stock of Radio Corporation, continue to keep the focus on the human element. Blumenthal ably chronicles the six-day descent and exposes the personalities, backroom machinations and scandals while debunking several popular myths about the crash (e.g., that it caused mass suicide and the Great Depression). A compelling portrait of a defining moment in American history. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(Middle School, High School) By shedding light on just six days in history, this book helps illuminate an entire era. The introduction sets the scene, describing the post-World War I years as a golden age when ""the fascination with wealth drew many more people than had ever before gambled their savings in such a risky and unpredictable place as the stock market."" October 24, 1929-Black Thursday-proved how risky and unpredictable the market really was. Blumenthal traces the trajectory of the crash across the next five days, providing a vividly drawn picture of Wall Street pandemonium, introducing key players in the financial world, and explaining often complex concepts-the difference between a bull and bear market, what it means to buy on a margin-in fact boxes. Supplemented by well-chosen black-and-white photographs and reproductions (including editorial cartoons, corporate balance sheets, and newspaper ads), the clear text also contains colorful details that enhance the overarching story: exhausted workers fainting beside their adding machines (""when possible, they were revived and put back to work""); stock market tickers clicking out fifty thousand miles of ticker tape across the nation; a suddenly bankrupt Groucho Marx too depressed to perform on stage. The book also refutes some historical lore (there weren't nearly as many stock market suicides as legend would have us believe) and makes the claim that the crash did not cause the Great Depression, although it marked the turning point ""when good times gave way to bad.... American life would never be the same."" Bibliography and index. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Gr. 7^-12. A Wall Street Journal bureau chief, Blumenthal combines a fascinating overview of the infamous stock market crash in 1929 with a rare and useful primer of financial basics. The chapters follow the six days surrounding the crash, but Blumenthal deftly places the events in context with vivid accounts of the stock-market fever that preceded the crash, often showing the impact of abstract issues through individual stories--the losses of Groucho Marx and of General Motors' founder William Durant are particularly astonishing. Rapid, simply constructed sentences increase the drama and suspense while making difficult concepts easily understood. Throughout, fact boxes define financial vocabulary--stocks, bonds, bulls and bears, margins, the measure of a company's worth, and more--in clear language that is both compelling and instructive. Archival images--photos, cartoons, and reproduced documents--enhance the text, as do frequent excerpts from newspapers and political quotes from the era. Students using this for research may be frustrated by the source citations, which appear as an appended, generalized chapter-by-chapter listing of materials consulted rather than as specific notes that correspond to text passages. But this still offers a riveting history, along with the basic terminology needed to grasp the events and to draw parallels between the volatile, sometimes corrupt, market of 1929 and the market today. Gillian Engberg
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-In this thoroughly researched work, Blumenthal focuses on the days leading up to and including the crash. Her account attempts to show that the event was not the result of one very bad day on Wall Street, but a culmination of unwise decisions and rampant speculation on the part of the American public, as well as banking and financial institutions. The dense text is filled with the specifics of the stock market and how it was turned on its head. Blumenthal does not delve into the economic depression the country faced after the crash, but concludes that the crash in and of itself was not the cause of the Great Depression. Many black-and-white, period photos; political cartoons; and reproductions of pages from newspapers, letters, and advertisements complement the text, rendering more reality to the story of an almost incomprehensible loss of fortunes and life savings. Chapter notes and other source material are included. Overall, this is a solid account of an important chapter in American history that offers more detail than Nathan Aaseng's The Crash of 1929 (Lucent, 2001).-Carol Fazioli, formerly at The Brearley School, New York City (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A cogent account of the Stock Market Crash that occurred between October 24 and October 29, 1929, and ushered in the Great Depression. Blumenthal, the Dallas bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, carefully describes the many players, including Mike Meehan, the stockbroker who almost single-handedly made Radio Corporation of America the hottest property on the New York Stock Exchange; Richard Whitney, the vice-president of the Exchange, whose bold purchase of US Steel at $205 on Thursday failed to prevent the ultimate crash on Tuesday; and Albert Wiggin, the chairman of Chase National Bank, who, even as he attempted to rally the public's confidence in the market, secretly sold shares in Chase short in the expectation of a decline and reaped a profit of $4 million. Sidebars explain such concepts as buying on margin, pools, and insider trading. Liberal quotation from contemporary sources such as newspapers and from memoirs of players both big and small contextualize the events and put a human face on the enormous complexity of the Crash. The overall look of the volume is striking: well-captioned archival photographs and other material appear on nearly every spread, and a ticker tape running across the bottom of the pages charts the market's ups and downs from chapter to chapter. One major design flaw is the tendency of sidebars to interrupt the flow of the text, cutting in the middle of sentences at the page turns. The final product would also have been improved by the extension of the discussion into present-day market conditions as well as the inclusion of additional reading sources specifically for young people-the bibliography and notes consist of contemporary and adult materials. These quibbles aside, this offering is a solid exploration of an event whose importance is undisputed but which is rarely so lucidly explained for anyone, let alone young readers. (Nonfiction. 12+)
Library Journal Review
While the market crash of 1929 did not bring on the Great Depression, it stands in the minds of many as the beginning of one of the worst periods in our nation's social and economic history. Something You (Probably) Didn't Know: The Friday before the crash, steel magnate Charles M. Schwab addressed a meeting of the American Iron and Steel Institute. He began, "It would probably be quite correct for me to start my remarks to you with the words, 'Friends and former millionaires.'" The worst was still to come. Why It Is for Us: Those who ignore their history are doomed to repeat it. Blumenthal was a bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal and knows how to make economic history interesting. Unfortunately, much of the book reads like current headlines. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
Introduction |
October 24:Black Thursday |
October 24:Sell! |
October 24:White Knights to the Rescue |
October 25:President Hoover Responds |
October 26:Sold Out |
October 27:The King of the Bulls |
October 28:A Bloody Monday |
October 29:Black Tuesday |
October 30:Aftermath |
Epilogue |
Sources, Picture Credits, and Acknowledgments |
Index |