No one, I suspect, will ever explain totally satisfactorily the Great Crash of 1929. It occurred , more or less, in late October(bad month for the market) and wiped out trillions(maybe billions?) of dollars of invested wealth. Many books have been written on this from John Kenneth Galbraith’s “The Great Crash” about 2 generations ago, to Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “1929 -Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History and How It Shattered a Nation.”(recently published and as of this date not read by me).

However, brilliant these books may be, I would think many still remember something else along with them– what they learned in history class and what their grandparents and now maybe great-grandparents said. And they will worry about their investments. If you want a short answer that has a lot of (but by no means the whole)truth in it, go with “Overproduction and underconsumption.” Nearly every economic slump involves at least some of this as a cause or a result or both. And there’s no doubt the US economy was overdoing itself by 1928 and there were signs that some saw and most didn’t that trouble lay ahead, at least for investors, maybe for the whole country.

In any event what happened happened, and Herbert Hoover, a relatively new President and supposedly an economic leader of great merit was stuck with the job of cleaning things up. He tried, but he was thwarted by a number of issues, not the least of which were his own mind set which forbade serious central government intervention in the economy, and shortsightedness and selfishness of many leaders around the world. This led to the London Economic conference, the Smoot– Hawley. Tariff and other disasters.

But while nearly everyone was concerned and some very pessimistic, it was not immediately clear what was going to happen. The roaring twenties seemed to be ending with a bang of despair. but who knew? The US economy had slowed some and unemployment was rising by the end of the year, but nothing was certain yet. Several negative things were clear–

–thousands of investors were ruined, particularly those who had bought a lot of stocks “on margin”(mostly on money borrowed from brokers) This alone had destroyed billions of dollars of wealth in a day or two–

-predictably, consumer spending plummeted-people reduced purchases of things and companies reduced their orders, particularly on big ticket items, From October to December Industrial production had already fallen about 9%.

–layoffs began so unemployment rose quickly along with the industrial production decline–from October to December it rose from 5% to 9%, a very steep increase This alone should have been a clue that something very bad for the economy might be coming. (I wonder how many noticed the irony of the 9% industrial decline coupled with the 9% unemployment rate.)

Still, nothing was clear yet. Often financial reversals came and went in a few months(though some older people must have remembered the depression of the ’90’s and shuddered). Hoover had a strong belief that American business was basically sound and would right itself. Many agreed with him.

And most people were still working, so with a bit of Christmas cheer of whatever variety and a burst of American optimism, it was possible to celebrate and hope for the future. So Christmas of 1929 was celebrated with maybe some caution, but not without cheerfulness and hope. Meantime things went on as usual–or seemed to. And, of course, there were bad things too.

The biggest story that year on Christmas Day was the Lawson Family Murders in North Carolina. On the day itself a tobacco farmer murdered his wife and six of their seven children, then took his own life in “the nearby woods.” Only his eldest son escaped, having had the good fortune to have been sent on an errand that morning. No one has ever explained why this tragedy occurred. Speculations have ranged from dark family secrets to a head injury to the perpetrator but it has never been actually explained.

Since radio and therefore near instant relay of sensational news was now possible, the story spread quickly and no doubt cast a shadow over the lives of many Americans. The nation was shocked, but likely most went on with their plans for the day as well as they could. After all, what else could they have done? But the story is not forgotten in North Carolina, and one wonders if some didn’t see it as the beginning of a run of bad times for the whole society. If so, they were right.

The other big story of the day was that a fire broke out in the West Wing of the White House. There were no serious injuries, but it too might have been seen by some as portent of things to come, at least for the relatively new President. Acting with an alacrity and a responsiveness that was not necessarily going to last, the Congress quickly appropriated funds for repairs and the reconstruction of the West Wing was finished by April 1930, while the economy continued to sputter and point downward.

The Christmas weather appears to have been fairly normal for most of the country. The big exception was Texas which was hit by a snowstorm worthy of areas miles to the north. Record breaking snowfalls of over two feet were reported by the cities of Clifton and Hillsboro with falling temperatures.

One touching attempt at the Christmas spirit and international and racial relations should be mentioned here. The city of Nogales. AZ had decided the have a large Christmas party for its area of extreme southern AZ and invited a number of other small towns to join them. They particularly wanted the children to come. Then, it occurred to people on both sides of the border that Nogales, Mexico, very nearby, and its children would be left out by being literally on the wrong side of the US-Mexican border.

The city leaders of each place “passed legislation” changing the border for one day which presumably meant the Mexican Nogales was, for that day, part of AZ. As far as I am able to tell from this on-line tidbit it worked and no one got prosecuted. It sounds to me of very doubtful legality, but very warm faith and friendship. There were hard times coming and maybe people in both cities named Nogales remembered this Christmas fondly as the Depression set in and depression spread among the people.

What the Hoovers did themselves has been recounted in some detail in by Bethany Nagle in “A Very Hoover Holiday,” a sprightly article on line. She assures us that the Hoovers took care to buy presents for their grandchildren, Ann and Peter, who lived in California and would not be joining them for the big day. Herbert and Lou, however, wanted to do right by them and she shopped at :”five and dimes” around Washington to get them gifts.

The tradition of the President’s lighting of the National Christmas tree was still fairly new, having started with Calvin Coolidge in 1923. For the first time the tree had both ornaments and lights, perhaps a portent of the increasing role of technology in the world.

What I find interesting about this is that the whole thing proceeded, for the most part, as usual. This perhaps was just as well. The economy was not on any clear path yet and it would have been unwise to reduce activities so much as to cause people to assume the government knew things were worse and that the worse would come to them too.

According to Ms Nagle, the three subsequent Hoover Christmas-in-the-White House times would show a bit more awareness of what was going on out there, and the last one, 1932, was rife with gloom The defeated President and his wife went on a fishing vacation to the south, partly, I suspect, because they wanted to and partly just to get out of town and away from FDR’s people planning what they would do when their time in power came. Meanwhile, it appears to be a fact that the first Hoover White House Christmas went fairly normally., He likely was hoping that the rest of the would do the same. It was his personal and a national tragedy that it turned out to be a forlorn hope,