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End of the American Steel Strike
The union of American Steel, Iron, and Tin Workers went on a massive strike in an attempt to organize the entire countries metal workers, but the strike ultimately collapsed, but disrupted the businesses they worked at for months. -
Prohibition Goes Into Effect
Prohibition had a large impact on the economy. The first of which was removing a very popular good from the market, thus ending ts ability to be taxed and profited off of. Breweries and distilleries also went out of business as it would be more than a decade until the 18th amendment was taken out of effect. Prohibition also gave rise to organized crime, making cities more dangerous and forcing governments to spend more on law enforcement. -
The 19th Amendment
While not a particularly economic event, the ratification of this amendment allowed women to have a say in how the country was run, which means they had a say in who or what affected businesses on a federal level. So it definitely had an impact on the future of the economy. -
Red Scare
After the labor strike collapsed, the radical nature of the unions was blamed on communist ideologies sweeping the nation. Federal agencies used this excuse to decimate activist groups and anyone fighting for radical change. Due to the usual targets of this, the free market was booming as little was there to impose restrictions. -
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Post WWI Recession
After World War One military spending was reduced to peacetime levels, and factories that were being used and employing people to make military equipment had to be repurposed to manufacture other goods. Wages at these factories were also reduced so that factories could employ the large number of returning veterans who had no jobs waiting for them back home. -
Emergency Immigration Act
Congress passed the Emergency Immigration Act in order to limit he number of immigrants (What they considered "undesirables") that could enter the country. This of course prevented workers, business owners, and any other form of employment the immigrants could hold from doing so. -
Ford Motor Company Market Value Exceeds $1 Billion
Ford was the largest auto manufacturer of the time, and employed thousands, and this marked what the people of the time already knew, that it would be a large company, not going anywhere for a while. -
Mellon Tax Cuts
Andrew Mellon believed that excessive taxes wouldn't be paid, and would encourage the wealthy to hoard money instead of spending and reinvesting it. Believing this, he lowered the tax rates for businesses and the top brackets by a large margin, and an economic boost in investments ensued. -
Black Tuesday 1929
Major stock market crash lasting about five days and ending when the shares of the New York Stock Exchange collapsed. This event was made even larger since many people had taken out loans in order to buy stock, and given the stock as collateral. So when people could no longer afford loan payments and defaulted, banks received useless stocks to repay the value of the loans. -
Beginning of the Great Depression
The stock market crash only really affected investing Americans, which was not a majority of the population. The aftermath, businesses cutting production, wages, and workers, is what truly started the Great Depression. The economic pit only lifted back to surface level by a world war.
