History Is Never As Neat As It Appears
I am always telling my students that their history books are nice neat stories. Case in point is the Depression. As this great article in the Washington Post today points out, only 2% of Americans had their stocks in the market when it "crashed." It took until Feb ruary 1929 for bread lines to appear and the famous picture above took place in Manhattan long before such lines appeared anywhere else. In fact it took until 1932 for the stock market to actually hit bottom. The Post even went as far to say "98 leading businessmen ... insisted that the engine of American capitalism was still revving. " So this would be a great article to share with students. To go along with the article, go here for a short video on the Great Depression. (photo from Associated Press)