Black Tuesday: The Great Depression

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“The content of the motion picture still was designed for escape, the majority reflecting the tastes of tired or jaded adults seeking a never-never land of luxury and melodrama, sex and sentiment.” -- Dixton Wector, Historian October 29th, 1929 is known as “Black Tuesday” for one main reason-- “Black Tuesday” was the start of a very dark time in American history, which we now know as “The Great Depression”. The Great Depression was a great decline in the economy within Europe, North America and other parts of the world that started in 1929 and lasted until around 1939. The Great Depression has been described as being the worst depression that has ever been witnessed by the West. Most people believe that the stock market crash of 1929 greatly…show more content…
As millions of Americans were out of work and with the economy in a straight decline, most Americans were depressed; leaving them to wish that they could just take their minds off of the current problems of the real world. With Hollywood being in-between two worlds of real life and fantasy, this became the best hope for people to finally let their minds drift off and forget about everything for a few hours at a time; even if they did have to pay 15 cents to see a film, while being unemployed. Throughout one of America’s hardest times, Hollywood implemented a valuable ethical and psychological role, which in turn provided comfort and hope to an otherwise demoralized nation. Even in the midst of hard, dire, moments in The Great Depression, roughly 60 to 80 million Americans attended the movies every week. While doubt and despair struck millions, Hollywood and its films helped sustain the national morale. Hollywood and the movie industry thought itself to be on the opposite side of the Depression while having the idea that it was untouchable and depression-proof. But just like every other company, person and thing during The Great Depression, the movie industry was not immune from the Depression’s impact. In order to manage the amount of money that it cost to purchase a movie theater

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