Myths and realities about the Crash and depression*

N ations, like families, live on myths. Who can forget the time Mother dropped Junior into the buttermilk? Who would want to forget Black Thursday on Wall Street when the Dow Jones Averages collapsed in announcement that the 1920’s boom had come to an end and the Great Depression of the 1930’s begun? Myths serve a Jungian purpose whether they be true or only well told. In my boyhood memories are Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney; Bill Tilden and Bobby Jones; Leopold and Loeb; Capone (Al) and Diamond (Legs); Scott and Zelda. So how can I forget helping my high school algebra teacher make her selection between Hupp Motors and RCA? My Aunt Sophie’s loss in Ford Limited of Canada is part of the economic history of our times.