-
Wall Street Crash
The American stock market collapses, signaling the onset of the Great Depression. The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaks in September 1929 at 381.17—a level that it will not reach again until 1954. The Dow will bottom out at a Depression-era low of just 41.22 in 1932. -
Smoot-Hawley Tariff
Congress passes the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, steeply raising import duties in an attempt to protect American manufactures from foreign competition. The tariff increase has little impact on the American economy, but plunges Europe farther into crisis. -
Major Bank Collapse
New York's Bank of the United States collapses in the largest bank failure to date in American history. $200 million in deposits disappear, and the bank's customers are left holding the bag. -
Roosevelt Elected
Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt defeats incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover in a landslide to win the presidency. -
Radio Priest
"Radio Priest" Charles Coughlin's weekly broadcast draws an average of 30 to 45 million listeners. -
Roosevelt Inauguration
Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated into office as 32nd President of the United States. -
Townsend Proposes Pension Plan
Dr. Francis Townsend sends a letter to the Long Beach Press-Telegram proposing state-funded pensions for the elderly to boost consumption and employment. -
Upton Sinclair Publishes Treatise
Upton Sinclair publishes I, Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty: A True Story of the Future, a fictionalized political treatise that lays out the agenda of a communitarian movement Sinclair calls EPIC—End Poverty in California. -
Share Our Wealth Society Founded
Huey Long founds the Share Our Wealth society, advocating outright seizure of the "excess fortunes" of the rich to redistribute to the poor. -
Period: to
Longshoremen Strike
A West Coast longshoremen's strike, conducted with significant aid from the Communist Party, paralyzes shipping and trade in California, Oregon, and Washington. The strike ends with a victory for the longshoremen's union. Cooperation between the longshoremen and West Coast communists represent a first successful venture of the so-called "Popular Front" between communists and liberals, which won't officially be authorized by the Comintern in Moscow until 1935.
