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21 “Historians will put a little red mark against 1929. it broke a lot of records and a lot of people.” —Business Week (December 1929) 1929: “like sheep over a fence, the people leaped into the stock market.” —Cyrenus Cole, Iowa through the Years (1940) he Wolf of Wall Street played only for a friday and saturday night, october 11 and 12, at the iowa theatre on winterset’s town square, but the movie certainly advertised itself well. “a story of terrific power!” the ad in the local newspaper proclaimed. “watch out, wolf, you know how to handle men, but you’re not so clever with women. smashing! tearing! ruthlessly crashing to wealth and power. wall street lived by men who battle there. the great money mart has a corner on the thrill market.”1 How did the stock market crash of 1929 echo across the country and into the next decade? the crash seemed dramatic and memorable, but was it a traumatic historical moment for other regions across the nation? what were its particular echoes in iowa?2 many americans considered the 1920s not only as the roaring twenties but as a new era, one of confidence and endless optimism. the three republican presidents had supported business expansion throughout the decade, especially during president Calvin Coolidge’s term, and the “Coolidge market” seemed to be moving seamlessly in 1929 to a “Hoover market.” Dr. Charles a. Dice, an economist, published a book early that C H A P T E R O N E october 1929: the stock market Plummets Echoes during the Fall Plowing: Iowa’s Reactions to the Wall Street Crash T the depression dilemmas of rural Iowa, 1929–1933 22 year titled New Levels in the Stock Market, and in words that would later haunt his career, described “a mighty revolution” that seemed to be occurring in industry, trade, and finance. Dice called this new prosperity “the stock market extraordinary.” only the sky appeared to be the limit.3 the new era did appear to be a decade of unbelievable prosperity when the united states emerged as the richest nation in the world following the great war. the rise of the new York stock exchange by the late 1920s seemed remarkable as well, capturing london’s previous role as center of the economic world, and wall street experienced its first day in which eight million shares were traded in 1929. During the 1920s, americans played the stock market like “get-rich-quick games,” replacing frontier land speculation and gold rushes since they no longer applied in the twentieth century.4 not everyone shared in this new prosperity, however. midwestern farmers had already suffered through a decade of agricultural depression resulting from overproduction and land speculation after the great war. “Hogs were selling for three cents a pound,” as writer Julie mcDonald describes the year 1929 for iowa farmers, “corn was bringing twelve cents a bushel, and farms were being lost when there was no money for taxes or mortgage payments.”5 still, farmers were becoming more optimistic, believing that they must eventually share in this new urban prosperity. the year 1929 appeared to be a reasonably good business year in iowa. Buying power showed gains along with an increase of $2 million in bank deposits from June to october. Deposits were up, and bankruptcies were down, reaching their the lowest point in seven years with only 163 business failures in iowa during the first ten months of 1929. as a national success story, the maytag Company in newton had accomplished new sales records of its washing machines for each successive month in 1929.6 Des moines, as the state’s largest city, displayed a significant and further emerging industrial sector of 400 factories, which employed 13,000 people (10 to 15 percent more than in 1928) and a payroll of about $18 million. industrial production in Des moines amounted to $120 million that year. in fact, twenty-four manufacturing and distributing organizations had opened in recent months; one example was the flint Brick and tile Company, employing 85 to 90 men. also, an estimated 50,000 people had gathered in the capital city for conventions in 1929, and one hundred gatherings were scheduled for 1930.7 iowa ranked fourth in automobile ownership by 1929; only texas, ohio, and illinois residents owned more automobiles, trucks, and tractors. as a result of this motorized prosperity, iowa witnessed a $1 million gain in autolicense revenue, and the state had...

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