A year ago this week, Occupy Wall Street began as a
relatively small protest in a park in New York City’s Wall St. Area. It is now
an international movement that stands against financial greed and the
“corrosive power” of major banks they feel led to our recent economic collapse.
A
place not unaccustomed to financial panic and discord, Wall Street was also one
of the earliest areas hit in the beginning of the original Great Depression in
1873. That year, the New York Stock Exchange was forced to close its doors for
the very first time on September 20 during what was known as the Panic of 1873.
Much
like our most recent economic disaster, the Panic of 1873 was sparked by the
collapse of a large financial institution: Jay Cooke & Company, a brokerage
firm and a major investor in railroad construction. Their failure led to a
chain reaction and the country suffered economic despair for years, resulting
in history’s worst financial crisis until the second Great Depression came
along in the 1930’s.
