The stock market crash of 1929 brought the euphoria of the 'Roaring '20s' to a screeching halt

October 29, 1999
Web posted at: 10:25 p.m. EDT (0225 GMT)

From Correspondent Garrick Utley

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Friday marked the 70th anniversary of the great stock market crash of 1929, which sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin and ushered in the Great Depression.

The crash came at the end of a decade characterized by roaring markets, a sense of optimism, the emergence of revolutionary technologies and a blind faith in a stock market that would never come down -- in short, a decade not so unlike the 1990s.

Roy Neuberger, who was a young broker on Wall Street in the 1920s, said in 1997, "People didn't give a thought to worrying about the future because the market was going up most of the time and there was no inflation to speak of."

"They said this is the new economic era, that basically the business cycle had been terminated," says Irwin Unger of New York University. "There was no longer going to be boom followed by bust."

There are other similarities between the decades. Fascinations with movies, fashion and style. Tabloid journalism. A public more focused on the news from Wall Street than the news from Washington.

	VIDEO
Correspondent Garrick Utley looks at the similarities between the markets of 1929 and 1999 Windows Media 28K 80K

There are important differences, of course. Today, there are tighter regulations on stock markets, government insurance for bank deposits and a strong Federal Reserve system, all designed to make sure that history does not repeat itself.

And the depressing experience of the 1930s has also given Americans a healthier skepticism for the idea that things will go up and never come down.

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