Jon D. Wiseman And The Great Depression

The Great Depression of 1929 is the one people know well, at least in the United States, but what cannot be agreed on is how it happened. Many historians turn to the Stock Market Crash that happened prior to explain it, which smoothly transitioned into the Great Depression, making it a viable option. Not all historians stopped there however, and dug further, fully analyzing and discovering less obvious factors that could have catalyzed the Great Depression. Such factors besides the Stock Market Crash that may have prompted the Great Depression were difficulties in wage adjustment, the overall failure of banks and monetary policies, and the Smoot-Hawley tariff controversy.
In Jon D. Wiseman’s article, “The Financial Crisis of 1929 Reexamined: The Role of Soaring Inequality”, Wiseman claims that a lack of wage increase, and the rising inequality among different social classes are to be blamed for the Great Depression. During the 1920s, America went through a dynamic shift. More skilled workers were desired over the usual low-skilled workers (375). Since most workers were lesser skilled, that meant the majority of people received low

Calomiris’s “Financial Factors in the Great Depression”, the subject of interest is the stock market crash preceding the Depression. This is often looked to when attempting to explaining the Great Depression, and for a good reason. The Stock Market crash was an immediate crisis, and happened right before the Great Depression supposedly began; most believe it was the beginning, and it honestly could be looked at that way. Many small, consecutive bank failures occurred following and preceding the stock market crash (62). This theme had Calomiris conclude that the stock market crash was a continuation of the pattern of banking crises that were occurring back then (65). The timing of these failures, the bank’s lack of dealing with them effectively, and the brevity of the Stock Market Crash caused the economy to suffer