Few Americans in the first months of 1929 saw any reason to question the strength
and stability of the nation's economy. Most agreed with their new president that the
booming prosperity of the years just past would not only continue but increase, and that
dramatic social progress would follow in its wake. 'We in America today,' Herbert
Hoover had proclaimed in August 1928, 'are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than
ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us.'1
In mid-October, 1929, the average middle-class American saw ahead of him an
illimita…
