The Rise of Jazz and the Crash of the Stock Market

The history of jazz begins way back in time, when slavery was all-too-common. To communicate, African slaves would call out a line of song and wait for a response from another slave. Slaves also sang "spirituals" to express religious beliefs and desires for freedom. The two are major parts of the foundation for jazz. As the 1800s rolled around, more and more Europeans and Africans immigrated to the US and as their cultures clashed, their music exploded. Mixing the uptight waltzes and quadrilles with the "rhythmic and melodic music of the black community" resulted in "ragtime." As that evolved, sometime in the 1900s it became jazz. In the 20s, it started spreading across the country from New Orleans and, in the 30s, it started changing into different music, like "big band swing." However, between World War II in the 40s and the growing popularity of television in the 50s, jazz fell out of the mainstream. It's influence did leave its mark on musical history by giving rise to rock and roll and almost all other modern music.

The stock market crash was completely unprecedented. The economy had been booming throughout the roaring 20s, and then on Thursday, October 24th of 1929, the market fell about 9%. People panicked and began selling like crazy, sending the market lower and lower. And then on Black Tuesday, hope was lost as it fell another 12%. Soon after the crash, the Great Depression arrived and many lost hope because banks had used of people's live savings to invest in the stock market and had lost it all. Although, the Great Depression wasn't only caused by the crash of 1929. Many farmers planted more wheat than was demanded on the market; President Hoover decided to take a hands-off approach to the rising problem; and factories were overproducing goods and as the monetary situation got worse, people couldn't afford them. These are just a few of the other contributions that made the Great Depression the monstrosity it was.


Jazz was the beauty of expansion and free expression; when Black Tuesday hit the pockets of every American from your average everyday Joe to the big businesses, and then World War II hit, there was less room for such freedoms.

Links:
http://www.historyjazz.com/
http://www.themoneyalert.com/stockmarketcrashof1929.html
http://www.money-zine.com/Investing/Stocks/Stock-Market-Crash-of-1929/