1933. These dire economic conditions created the need for breadlines, quite literally, hungry people who
waited in line at charitable and government organizations for loaves of bread, and shanty towns, or areas
where families who had lost their homes lived in cloistered tents on the outskirts of cities. Farmers could not
even afford to harvest their crops.
Figure 14.3
Florence Owens Thompson and her children were living on frozen vegetables and birds they
killed in this famous photograph taken in 1936 in California. (Credit: Dorothea Lange/ wikimedia/ License:
Public Domain)
It was amid this social and economic unrest that Congress passed the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Signed
by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 recognized that the stock market crash
of 1929 was caused by wild speculation, large and sudden fluctuations, and manipulations involving securities.
An article in the 1934 California Law Review described the condition of the market at the time by writing,
Chapter 14 Securities Regulation
155