The Stock Market: Boom

Suspicion of Wall Street.

Before World War I only a small fraction of Americans had had anything to do with Wall Street and the securities markets. As the 1920s began, most Americans, especially those in the South and West, thought of Wall Street with fear and loathing. Populist politicians denounced the place as the center of financial shell games thought up by the likes of Vanderbilt, Gould, Drew, Morgan, and other millionaire operators. Middle-class citizens read in the newspapers about epic struggles among the superwealthy; but these common citizens were not part of the world of high finance, and most thought they never would be.

New Interest in Wall Street.

With the conclusion of the war in 1918, however, many of them began to think again. Having been buyers of Liberty Bonds, they began to lose their fear of investing. Stockbrokers began to open offices not on Wall Street or LaSalle Street but on Main Street....

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