The Great Bull Market: Robert Sobel - 1968

Several books have been written on the crash itself but non before has dealt with events leading up to it.

The era of the 1920s was one of economic growth, and not merely tinsel and ballyhoo. For most of the period, stock market prices were not unreasonably high and investment capitalism matured and took on its present-day power. It was Wall Street's silver age.

It was also and age of time purchases and of buying stocks on margin; an age when both practices were abused, but when Wall Street was no worse than Main Street. It was a period when government would not take major steps to correct the abuses and excesses. The few decisions made by the Federal Reserve were neither timely nor wise. A head of steam was building up for which there was no safety valve.

When the great crash came it was not directly followed by an economic collapse. During the next year, government and business did nothing of importance to prevent the depression, whose severity could not be attributed to Wall Street.