1929-stock Books

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

AN EXCELLENT BOOK.A MUST FOR ANY TRADER AND ANYBODY INETRESTED IN UNDERSTANDING GANNS METHODS & TECHNIQUES FOR FORECASTING STOCK PRICES

In my opinion, this is probably the most important book written
by W.D. Gann. I usually listen many comments from other Gann
student who consider '45 years in Wall Street' as the best book
of this author, but this is better. I think that if you read many times 'New stock trend detector' you will find hidden some very important trading techniques that will help you to keep a good track record in your future operations. Naturally, the work for 'decode' this techniques among the examples made by Gann,is hard but if you 'love' the stock market and you need a real help in your trading, this is the book for you.

This is a great book for understanding the causes and effects of the 1929 Stock Market Crash. This book not only answered all my questions about the crash, but it supplied me with a detailed account of the events that led up to the market crash and the aftermath that followed. It illustrates how greed, fear, ignorance, and deceit fueled the market crash. In addition, it dispels the myth that the 1929 Stock Market Crash caused the Great Depression. Because these same elements continue to influence the market today, it would be to one's advantage to learn about the crash before investing in the market. This book is for ages 12 and above.

This was a great book that I loved reading. I am into history and this book gave lots of details about the stock market crash that made it easy to understand. I think lots of kids will like this book if they give it a chance.

Frederick Lewis Allen's book on the 1920's was first published in 1931. His informal history of this time period has withstood the test of time. He identified and described the major events and trends in that decade, without the benefit of what historians like to call a "decent interval." His writing style is lively, with a keen ability to capture the essence of broad historical trends. Once again, as Faulkner so eloquently said: "The past is not dead; it is not even the past." So many elements of the `20's have parallels today, certainly the economic bubble that burst into the Great Depression, but also the use of foreign "threats" to reduce the constitutional liberties of Americans.

Allen commences his book with the end of the "War to End All Wars," prior to the adding of a "I" after the "World War." Wilson lacked the support of the broad American people for his post-war initiatives, as they had a strong desire to return to "normalcy." Allen's chapter on "The Big Red Scare" is most illuminating, showing how readily government officials could use "fear" to void the Constitution. "It was an era of lawless and disorderly defense of law and order, of unconstitutional defense of the Constitution, of suspicion and civil conflict- in a very real sense, a reign of terror." (p39). "In Hartford, while the suspects were in jail the authorities took the further precaution of arresting and incarcerating all visitors who came to see them, a friendly call being regarded as prima facie evidence of affiliation with the Communist party." (p48). "Innumerable patriotic societies had sprung up... and must conjure up new and ever greater menaces. Innumerable other gentlemen now discovered that they could defeat whatever they wanted to defeat by tarring it conspicuously with the Bolshevist brush..." (p49).

The author is equally strong examining the changes in morals. He relies heavily on the Lynn's excellent sociological work, "Middletown." Hemlines were shortened, and numerous state legislatures tried to pass laws specifying, by inches, how much female flesh could be exposed. It was also an era of endless political scandals, and much corruption, epitomized by the Tea Pot Dome scandal. Concerning the President of the United States, Allen says: "His liabilities were not at first so apparent, yet they were disastrously real. Beyond the limited scope of his political experience he was `almost unbelievably ill-informed,'.... His mind was vague and fuzzy. Its quality was revealed in the clogged style of his public addresses, in his choice of turgid and maladroit language.... It was revealed even more clearly in his helplessness when confronted by questions of policy to which mere good nature could not find the answer." He could easily be describing George W Bush, but is actually describing Warren G Harding. Although America's Imperial reach was just in its infancy, still: "Only occasionally did the United States have to intervene by force of arms in other countries. The Marines ruled Haiti and restored order in Nicaragua; but in general the country extended its empire not by military conquest or political dictation, but by financial penetration. (p146). It was also another era that pitted fundamentalist religion against science, and Allen does a good job of describing the forces behind the Scopes trial.

Certainly one of the largest parallels was the increase in financial speculation that, as we know now, left at least a 10 year "hangover," and was only finally resolved by another "Great War." Allen devotes an entire chapter to the less well remembered real estate rush, and speculation in Florida. He also devoted a chapter to the more familiar stock market bubble and bust. "The market, as Max Winkler said, was discounting not only the future but the hereafter." And for those currently contemplating the sorry state of their "301k's", "It seems probable... that stocks have been passing not so much from the strong to the weak as from the smart to the dumb." (p269). And in his chapter entitled "Crash," another thought for our times: "Prosperity is more than an economic condition; it is a state of mind. The Big Bull Market had been more than the climax of a business cycle; it had been the climax of a cycle in American mass thinking and mass emotion." (p281)

Overall, an excellent book for our times, now that we might have more time for the simpler pleasures, like reading.

I remember reading this book some 30 years ago. I don't know where I got it from and I no longer have it but it has coloured my thinking about finance, morals, the markets, everything about modern day life in the late 20th and early 21st century ever since. It has all come around again but thankfully and hopefully economists now know more about the way that the financial world works and the present difficulties will not last as long as the previous one - it took WW2 to get the Western world back on its feet!

I read this for the first time when I was in sixth grade and it continues to be one of my favorite books on the 1920's.

I will agree that maybe it's not the best place to start for a complete Jazz Age neophyte because it requires the reader to get over his/her modern-day attitudes, but after a little starter research, it's fascinating.

Obviously, since it was first published in 1931, it lacks long-term analysis, which some people might find frustrating. Personally, I think that the fact that it was written when these events and views were still so fresh, and that it does not have modern ideas projected onto it, makes it a valuable and interesting comparison to later perspectives on the decade.

This book is a wonderful source of information about the 1920s in the USA. It has lots of facts and makes them personal with anecdotes and the sort of details about daily life that textbooks omit. It was written shortly after the decade and still holds as one of the best sources of information about the decade.

This is an excellent historical book, on the zeitgeist of the 1920's.It reflects upon all the major people,places,and things that define the epoch of American 1920's.If you had to read one book about that excessive time period of vanity,i would definately recommend this one.It's the best of the genre.Not all aspects of the 20s are covered here.Yet,it would be too cumbersome and boring to read if any longer.The parallels of the 20s to the later 1980's is quite amazing.The same beliefs developed,yet with different characters playing the parts.Time has not whithered the potent veracity of the book. If you're doing a history class project,Frederick Allen's respective on the 1920's,is the ideal quick reference from the era.

The market could only go up. Margin requirements were minimal. Investment in equities, seemingly ANY equities was a risk-less, rock solid path to fortune. Why buy one of the new electronic phonographs, or a refrigerator, on "time" (credit) when for the same amount of money, one could buy equities on margin, gain immense leverage, and be "guaranteed" to make the money back many times over, and be able to buy many more luxuries.

According to Mr. Sobel, this was, in a nutshell, the mentality of the average investor. Investment houses and financial institutions fueled the fire by making margin cheap and easy. Ultimately, stock prices were held up by nothing. Tremors of instability began to ripple through the market as the impending crash approached, often dismissed as buying opportunities. Ultimately, reality set in, and the unthinkable happened.

Are things different today? Yes and No. More safeguards would seem to be in place, however valuations of today make those of the 20's look miniscule. While a direct comparison is difficult to make between the period covered in the book, and the market of 2000, there are lessons to be learned. "The Great Bull Market" provides a fascinating account of the crash and the events that led up to it. A must read for anyone feeling a little jittery about the climate on Wall Street today!

This book is one of the best I have read on the Bull Market. He takes Galbraith as his foil and expresses his profound discontent with Galbraith's unilinear formulation of govt. inactivity and outright stupidity. As Sobel argues, the The Great Bull Market was a product of a particular world view that grew up in the easy-money days of the 1920s. Parts of this world view were:
1) A notion that everyone should and could get rich
2) that hard work and risk as a pre-requisite for gaining wealth was a thing of the past -- indeed, inside the large brokerages it was loudly spoken that such older ethos' were not part of modern Wall Street.
3) supplanting risk and hard work was an ethos of power elites that scrathed each other's back. And that was assumed to be part of the normal healthy business processes.
4) There was a general overall lack of attention to detail and people working through the risks of financial euphoria.

In addition, unlike Galbraith, Sobel says that the powers that be actually made good choices, that the falls were really not as bad as they were made to look at the time.

It is a well written and cogent analysis of this exciting time.

While many stock market books have lots to say about parallels in financial history, this one is very different. The Great Bull Market is not really about the stock market at all. It's about the factors that led to the market mania of the late 1920s. Changes in social patterns, dramatic changes in the economy and living standards and a liberalisation of financial laws all led to the belief that life had really changed for everyone for the better.

Of course, there are wider things to consider than the rather simplistic and sometimes left-wing views put forward here. Even so, The Great Bull Market does take you away from the now perfunctory trawl through margin statistics and takes you into the heads of those who were actually parting with cash. For that it's a great read.

Even though out of print, this is simply the best book on the subject. It is wonderfully written. A movie script could not be more gripping. The authors have done a terrific job in juxtaposing the stories of the ultra rich speculators ( the portrayal of the powerful Morgan bank and its partners alone is worth the price of the book) against those of the ordinary people caught up in the frenzy. The book sweeps you along from Wall Street to Main Street to foreign lands. You won't put it down. The research is top notch with a rich bibliography. Buy it !!

In the waning months of the year 1929, the New York Stock Exchange was going strong. Millions of small and large investors poured their life savings into the pool of speculative issues, hoping for a big return on their gamble. On Black Tuesday, October 29th, the dream came to a crashing halt. This is the heart wrenching tale of that fateful day: the giddy years that preceded it, and the miserable decade that followed in it's wake. Sterling drama, with many poignant stories of the principal movers and shakers of Wall Street...before the Bubble burst.

Gailbraith's book is an insightful and witty history of the Great Crash of 1929. Though written years ago it seems as if it could have been written yestereday and there are many parallels of course with the economic "meltdown" that is going on around us. I can't really fault the book as it is about the Great Crash, but I wish there were more about the long depression that followed and the path to recovery.

Very interesting book, and well written.
There are some sad truths reveled, herein.
Scary to understand the similarities between then and now (1999 to 2008).

Author John Gailbreath's extraordinary book on The Great Depression is a fascinating read for both the occasional reader who simply wants to know more about a period in which Americans struggled mightily to lift themselves from an extremely difficult economic collapse - and for the professional in any economic/financial field (who should consider it required reading!) Lucid, brilliant, sometimes wryly funny, always accurate, it is one of Nobel Prize-winning Gailbreath's finest works. DO GET IT -- you won't be sorry, and you will get more than a glimpse on economic bubbles-and-bursts (and their sad aftermaths) -- as well as why these are apt to keep occuring as long as men choose to speculate in markets...! YES, I'll read it again, before shelving it carefully for later browsing. A great buy from a superb vendor!

The Great Crash 1929
By John Kenneth Galbraith
The writing is surprisingly charming and readable; one senses that the author would be a gracious person. His 200-page description of the Wall Street crash is clear and as interesting as a story about financial history can be; much of it is necessarily a simple chronicle of the rise and fall of the various big stocks in that period. He describes the principal actors of the time--recognizable names like Mellon and Astor and JP Morgan--and goes into the human motives, mainly greed, that led to the crash.
Not until the final chapters does he begin to sum up the reasons for the Depression, claiming that the crash by itself would not have been enough to cause it. Had we had sound banking policies, more honest (i.e., less greedy) investors and better laws, a more equitable income distribution, and a better balance of trade, it could have been avoided.
The book is instructive and easy to read--although occasionally tedious--even for one not versed in finance and economics. One interesting aspect of the crash is the way the market would plummet one day, causing widespread panic, and then go back up the next day, forestalling the conclusion that all was lost, even though, in fact, it was. There were many dives and recoveries during the crash; even the worst day saw a later recovery. This seemed to lead to a state of suspended disbelief; even though some people committed suicide or otherwise acknowledged ruin, others kept investing. We learn that prominent bankers bought their own stock and manipulated the market in order to bolster public confidence, then covertly got out of the market. The most common theme--and the one on which the author ends the book--is that people seem to be unable to learn, long-term, by past mistakes, and that we continue to hear that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong." Americans seem to believe the illusion that everyone can get rich, and that a boom, in spite of all past experience to the contrary, will be permanent.

I keep this book around to read occasionally. My edition has a printing history going back to 1954. The stock market crash is a point in history that I've tried to understand. mmm...the bankers kept pumping money into the system...until they couldn't do it anymore. Who were these people and how did this happen? Well, today I picked it up again.

According to Galbraith, the US economy was already in a Depression by October 1929 as the stock market reacts to the economy and never the reverse. It became fashionable for working people to get into the stock market. Before the crash, there were some signs of economic downturn, but no one expected the disaster it became. It was a bubble that had to be pricked. This sounds so familiar now.

In John Kenneth Galbraith's able hands, the story is revealed. Galbraith was, along with other talents, an excellent writer and storyteller. Not a huge book full of dry details but a story brought to life. Recommended reading.

I have to admit I am a bit biased since I am interested in the Stock Market and especially the present market's similarity to that of the time referred to in the book. But, it's a lot more than that! It is very well written and though it probably is written for those 11th grade and higher, it is easy to read. It is loaded with real-life history. My wife has already completed it and I am part done. We plan on having our oldest four children read it. The prologue on the 1929 summer seemed to place you right there--even though I never visited New York City itself. My wife mentioned it made the stock market easy to understand especially margins and short selling. I think she also mentioned puts and calls, which is the one area of the stock market I would like more practice with. If you are into history or want to really learn about the market, this is the best place to start. Highly recommended!

Tom from Michigan

At Rainbow's End provides a succinct yet through look at the Great Depression and how it changed life in America. By tracking the prosperities of the 1920s and the rise of consumer culture the reader gets a clear picture of the investment frenzy that gripped the nation. The over valuation of stocks and the financial crisis is clearly laid out in laymen's terms with an overview for those who want the technical financial explanation. It tracks interesting vignettes and mini biographies of major players and how they affected and were changed by the depression. It does not look at the solutions to the depression, only the causes. This is an average entry into the Pivotal Moments in American history. The problem is that this is such a no brainier event for the series that it does not take much convincing and this book does not try to do so. Instead it tries to give a social perspective which while new and different may not excite all readers. It is still a great book and one that provides a new perspective. For those interested in the roaring twenties it is a great book to look at.

Rainbow's End, by Maury Klein could have been a good book. In fact, it should have been a great historical read about America during the Roaring Twenties, leading up to and precipitating the Crash and the Depression. But Klein falls far short and disappoints with this entry into the "Pivotal Moments in American History" published by the Oxford University Press. This volume seemingly couldn't decide whether to be decidedly research based or, as with others in this series, to be a narrative form "that can be read for pleasure and instruction by anyone with an interest in its subject", according to it editors, David Hackett Fischer and James M. McPherson.

The book's prologue "The Summer of Fun, 1929" is clearly its highlight, certainly a dubious distinction. "In the summer of 1929 much of America was on an artificial high. It was a high born not of drugs but of an illusion that the prosperity and the good times then being enjoyed were made of new miracle ingredients that would last forever." Klein paints a vivid portrait of life in America in his early pages but sadly does not follow along in that form.

Throughout the book the reader cannot help but think that this is more of a reporter giving much more detail than needed, literally day by day of the Dow and the New York Times Index, often in the absolute and without percentages so one gets a relative idea of what was going on. Additionally, and quite strangely, Klein doesn't weave into his writing the many causes of the Crash and also poorly differentiates between the Crash and the Depression. One gets the idea that if he were to take out long and seemingly unrelated passages such as one on Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson and much of the above mentioned ticker tape readings he would have had ample room to discuss not only the causes and effects of the Crash but also would have been able to maintain the narrative style in the beginning of Rainbow's End.

To Klein's credit he does a very good job with the Coolidge and Hoover administrations and in his discussions on the nascent stages of the Federal Reserve. He also drives home the point of a much smaller federal government role in the years prior to FDR and its lack of ability to "rescue" a calamitous market and the resultant depressed economy, "Federal purchase of goods and services totaled about 1.3 percent of GNP and federal construction a tiny 2 percent, hardly enough to serve as a prime stimulant".

Perhaps the saddest part of this writing is that, in its current form, much could be done to improve it. Little to no additional research is needed. Just a rewrite and more color and less droning on and on about redundant economic and market statistics. This book, in its research and obvious talents of its author, fails to make an interesting topic captivating to the reader. Clearly a laggard in this fabulous series.

Klein's retelling of the story of the stock market crash of 1929 is just too little and much too late. Other books, notably Only Yesterday by F.L. Allen for anecdotal material and The Great Crash of 1929 by J. K. Galbraith for analysis, go over the same material and do a better job. Klein's book does have some strong points: wonderful vignettes of some of the people, big and small, who were caught up in the crash; a good analysis of why Herbert Hoover, "the great engineer," couldn't engineer his way out of this one; some interesting anecdotal material I haven't seen anywher else. But all of that could have been done in less than half the space. Nice try, but no cigar.

Maury Klein, in his book Rainbow's End: The crash of 1929, has given us a blend of a newer style of historiography with the traditional sense of examining historical events. He has given us a look at the Stock Market Crash of 1929 through the eyes of the people that participated, rather than looking at it strictly from an economic or political historical viewpoint.

Klein starts his book with a description of American society in the 1920's and explains to us why the society of excess and speculation led to the crash moreso than a failing of the general American economy. By dotting the landscape with characters, some familiar and some unfamiliar, Klein gives us a good portrayal of the times.

There is, unfortunately, only a short section of the book that actually deals with the events of the crash itself. This section focuses the days between Black Thursday and Bloody Tuesday, which culminated in a horrific period of losses in the market.

Klein does a good job of staying on task during the sections of the book in explaining the economic factors and the behind-the-scenes actions that took place during these few hectic days. He does not, however, explain the immediate social ramifications (such as the fact that people who lost everything gave up on life) as well as might be expected; he gives this facet of the crash only peripheral coverage.

I would recommend this book to anyone that is looking for a socio-economic history of America during this 1920's. It does a very good job of covering this topic. However, if one is looking for details just on the crash itself and those few terrible days on Wall Street, that reader would be well served to find another book to read.

This is a rather dry and verbose but also careful and thorough financial and economic history.
I particularly like his explanation of why there was a banking crisis in 1933. Most other authors seem confused about this crisis, but Wigmore explains how the hints that Roosevelt planned to devalue the dollar, combined with a system under which bank deposits were tied to paper dollars but could be withdrawn as gold, made it safer to hold gold than to leave one's money in a bank.

Wigmore stresses that the Great Depression was not solely attributable to ill-advised monetary policy, but was primarily due to instabilities in the US economy. The 1929 stock market crash was the culmination of the speculative excesses of the 1920s: according to Wigmore, stock prices peaked at 30 times earnings and reached levels in excess of 400% of aggregate book value while return on equity was only about 16.5%. Wigmore studies the performance of the US banking system, and analyzes the measures the US government employed to address the crisis, such as the establishment of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the promulgation of the National Industrial Recovery Act. Exacerbating and prolonging the Depression were singularly unfortunate policy choices, such as the enactment of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which seemed tailor-made to widen the disparity between US and overseas markets. Anyone interested in the monetarist-Keynesian debate as to how the Depression began or in the emergence of bureaucratic sprawl created in the wake of the New Deal will find this volume insightful.

i LOVED this book!!!! kathleen is really exciting, and you really learn to love her! shes spunky and always has ideas. i thought this was a great book, full of lots of fun, and i like how she met her best friend. if you think you might get this book, i say get it! it was a 5/5 story and it makes you want to read the rest!

I was looking foward to reading this series because i LOVE the other four girl series books by Mission City Press--Elsie Dinsmore, Millie Keith, Violet Travilla and Laylie Cobert. But this book really disappointed me. It was just like reading an american girl book and really lost my intrest. I expected it to be more like the others since they are in the same series basically. It was easy to tell what was going to happen next, and each chapter seemed like a whole new story, instead of one story and main lesson through the whole book.