1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--and How It Shattered a Nation - 55

Charles Edwin Mitchell, chairman of National City Bank, in 1929.

Senator Carter Glass, Democrat from Virginia from 1920 to 1946, co-founder of the Federal Reserve Act, and co-sponsor of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1932. Pictured here in 1932.

Thomas William Lamont, partner at J.P. Morgan & Co.

Albert H. Wiggin (left), chairman and CEO of Chase National Bank; Jack Morgan (center); and Walter E. Frew (right), president of the Corn Exchange Bank, all at the Liberty Loan Parade together in 1917.

Representative Henry B. Steagall, Democrat from Alabama from 1915 to 1943, co-founder of the Federal Reserve Act, and co-sponsor of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1932. Here he is pictured in 1936 when acting as chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency.

Senator Reed Owen Smoot, Republican from Utah from 1903 to 1933, co-sponsor of the 1930 Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act.

Benjamin Strong Jr., governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1914 to 1928, pictured here in 1917.

Elizabeth Rita Rend Mitchell, second wife of banker Charles Edwin Mitchell, pictured here in her capacity as chairman of the Philharmonic Children’s Concerts in 1929.

William Crapo Durant, co-founder of General Motors and Chevrolet. One of the most influential speculators at the time of the stock market crash.

George Whitney, partner at J.P. Morgan & Co., testifying before the National Monopoly Committee in 1939.

Herbert Clark Hoover, U.S. president from 1929 to 1933. Hoover had the first telephone installed in the Oval Office—creating a direct communication line to the president.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945, on the day of his inauguration. Before he was president, he was the governor of New York State from 1929 to 1933. Here, he is flanked by his wife, Eleanor, on the left and his son Franklin on the right.

Andrew William Mellon (left), American banker, businessman, and Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932, and Ogden Mills (right), Under Secretary of the Treasury from 1927 to 1932. They are pictured here in 1927 after leaving a session of Congress.

Jesse Livermore, circa 1936.

John Jakob Raskob, executive at DuPont and General Motors.

Bernard Baruch, chief speculator.

Evangeline Adams, the astrologist known as the “stock market’s seer,” circa 1912.

Roger Babson, statistician and economist who predicted the crash, pictured here in 1918.

Irving Fisher, professor at Yale and one of the nation’s leading economists, pictured here in 1927.

On his 1929 visit to the United States, Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill visited Herbert Hoover at the White House (pictured here), as well as New York City and the Stock Exchange.

Al Smith (right), governor of New York State from 1919 to 1920 and again from 1923 to 1928, meeting with Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams about the construction of the Empire State Building in 1929.

Russell Cornell Leffingwell, partner at J.P. Morgan & Co. and former Under Secretary of the Treasury, circa 1918.

Richard Whitney (right), vice president of the New York Stock Exchange and broker for J.P. Morgan & Co., shaking hands with Senator Burton Wheeler (left) when going to Congress to testify before the Railroad Committee.

The New York Stock Exchange in 1929.

The meeting of the reparations committee in 1929—seated in the front row left to right are Jack Morgan, Secretary of State Henry Stimson, and chairman Owen D. Young; and in the back row, left to right, are Thomas W. Lamont, Thomas Nelson Perkins, Under Secretary of State Joseph P. Cotton, and Assistant Secretary of State William R. Castle.

A profile of Charles E. Mitchell in The New York Times from September 29, 1929.

The New York Times reporting on Jesse Livermore leading a bear clique against a bull clique led by Arthur Cutten.

A crowd forming outside the Brooklyn branch of the Bank of United States after it closed its doors following the crash in 1929.

Following the crash of 1929, a crowd formed outside the Sub-Treasury Building.

Following the crash of 1929, a crowd formed outside the New York Stock Exchange.

The front page of The New York Times between October 28 and November 1, 1929.

President Herbert Hoover holding a meeting with the country’s leading businessmen, including Henry Ford, Andrew Mellon, Pierre du Pont, Alfred P. Sloan Jr., Julius Rosenwald, Clarence Woolley, Walter Teagle, Owen D. Young, Matthew Sloan, E. G. Grace, Myron C. Taylor, Walter Gifford, and Samuel W. Reyburn, on November 21, 1929.

The Empire State Building in 1930 while it was still under construction.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt sits at his desk signing the Glass–Steagall Act into law. Behind him, left to right, stand Senators Alben Barkley, Thomas Gore, and Carter Glass with Comptroller of the Currency J. F. T. O’Connor, Senator William G. McAdoo, Representative Henry B. Steagall, Senator Duncan U. Fletcher, and Representatives Thomas Alan Goldsborough and Robert Luce.

Pierre du Pont and John Jakob Raskob pictured in attendance at the American Liberty League banquet shortly before being charged with tax evasion.

Senator Carter Glass and Ferdinand Pecora shaking hands at the J.P. Morgan Congressional hearing in 1933.

Jack Morgan in the moments before he was called to testify before the Securities and Exchange Commission during the investigation into the collapse of the Whitney firm.

Charles E. Mitchell in 1933 walking on Broadway after being acquitted on two counts of tax evasion following the stock market crash.

From November 29, 1940, Jesse Livermore’s obituary in The New York Times , withheld from the public for a time out of fear that it would cause market reverberations.