The Early Effects

Depression: 'Runs on Banks.'

Just before the Great Depression, the economy was performing notably well, with most people seeing rapid growth in their wealth during a time referred to as “The Roaring Twenties”. As a result of this, many people were able to build their savings significantly by putting their extra money into banks. To them, the banks were seen as safehouses for their money, and as long as it was there they had nothing to worry about. However, this assurance would not last forever.

In the fall of 1929, on a day referred to as “Black Thursday” the stock market crashed, as Americans hurried to pull their money out of the stocks which only further accelerated the collapse [3]. All of a sudden, millions of Americans saw the money they put in the stock market drop, and not only that but the banks lost much of their money as well. This meant that there was not enough money to go around for everyone, and since their deposits were not insured by the government, it was first come first serve. 

This image perfectly encapsulates the hectic and frightened environment that quickly swept America. At the time, everyone rushed to the banks to get their money out before there was no money left, and in this image specifically a large crowd of worried people formed outside one of New York’s more prominent banks, in an attempt to empty their bank accounts before someone else did. Particularly, if you look at the usual window that tellers could use to assist customers to the left of the door, you notice that the shutters are down and the blinds are drawn. These adjustments made by the bank show that the demand for people to withdraw their money was so high and the availability of cash on hand was so low that it required the bank to exclusively interact with customers inside the establishment, so that they could carefully distribute what they had. Looking at all of this in the image, this artifact reveals just how impactful the early stages of the Great Depression were, as it forced people to wait in long lines to withdraw whatever they could, while also stressing out the employees in this establishment as they work to meet the needs of so many desperate people. These early days of the Depression were filled with stress and anxiety for the working class, as they desperately tried their best to manage the extreme losses that they were suffering in an economic depression that the country had never seen before [2]. The consequences of this were catastrophic, and only made the conditions the people had to live through worse, as "the nation's money supply- basically, bank deposits plus currency in circulation- shrank by a third." [3].