At the top right hand corner there is a Latin word which says: “Dies Irae” which if translated in English it would mean: “God’s Anger”. For this cartoon God is angry towards the greedy attitude people have, as it is said in the Christian religion that it is a sin.
Thunders from the sky are falling and destroying buildings on Wall Street (where the cartoon is located). People are running from the buildings and terror is portrayed o their face. All of this facts support my thesis on the author’s opinion about the Wall Street crash.
3. Study Sources F and G. How similar are they as evidence about the Wall Street crash? Explain your answer. (8 marks)
After studying the sources I could infer from them that they were not very similar in fact they are very different. Their only similarity is that they both talk about the Wall Street crash maybe F more than G.
Some of the differences are that Source F is primary because it is a photograph taken in 1929 to a ruined shareholder and Source G is secondary because it is a piece of writing written almost 40 years later. Source F emphasizes a lot on the wall street crash not like Source G that talks about two completely different subjects.
Source F shows a man with a worried face trying to get quick money by selling an expensive car only at 100 US dollars. Source G’s author is Luigi Barzini and he writes his doubtness of reporting about the Wall Street crash or another story that involved royalty in Italy.
Concluding with this question I could say that the sources are more different than what they have in common. Throughout the answer you could notice it ha only one similarity and about 3 or 4 differences. This shows the sources are more different than similar. If I had to choose a source to use it as evidence about the wall street crash I could say source F is a better source than G; because as said before it is a primary source, no bias problems and it shows the exact consequences and the situation people were having to live through after the crash and on to the depression.
4. How far does Source B support Source K? (4 marks).
Source B is a graph which only represent values and data but not any kind of explanation and Source K does for example when it says “anybody could buy shares and they could be bought `on the margin’ ”. A way in which B supports K is when it says in K: “The economic boom in the 1920’s came to a sudden end in October” or “but in October 1929 things began to change because in source B there is a big change in the line of the graph as it goes to the other side, downwards. Concluding with this question I could say Source B supports Source K only in factual terms but not in explanation as showed before.
5. Read Sources H and J. Is one of these sources more reliable than the other about the causes of the crash? (8 marks).
Although it is understandable why H is a primary source (1928 by a business man) we can also identify that J is secondary as it was written almost 30 years later of the crash.
Despite this could make source H more reliable than J, I believe that although it could be classified as a primary source, this text (source H) is strongly biased and could give us a wrong interpretation of the real facts and situation of the moment, as he is interpreting in someway his opinions. I.e.: “These suckers speculate on tips,...”. This reflection turns the whole thing around and makes me think source J was a more reliable source than H as it gives more than one reason and it is not bias.
After studying source J we can say that although it was written some years later (less reliable), this could make the source, looking it by another perspective, a more reliable one, as it takes both sides of the story, instead of only taking one side: the bias side. Source J give us a more unbiased reasons on the causes of the crash and all if them are carefully explained, giving the reader detailed facts and coherent reasons on the causes of the crash; not only judgements or personal opinions. Some examples could be when the author starts explaining about the gap on farmers because of business, or business increased profits at twice the rate of the growth of productivity, etc.
Finally I could say source J is more reliable than source H mainly because the author wrote the article a lot of time later so he was not living the catastrophe and was completely out of heart feelings (unbiased) comparing it to the author of source H, as I strongly believe factual is more important than opinion.
6. “The Wall Street crash was mainly caused by panic.” To what extent do the sources support this view? (12 marks).
Source A supports this thesis because in the flow chart of what happened during the wall street crash that the source represents, there is a phrase that says: “...panic set in.” and this was a few days before the crash therefore sustains my point that A agrees with the panic matter.
Source B is a graph that represents data although the explosion on the middle of the graph at the end of the year 1929 does not infer panic, it shows something drastical has occurred finally when the line turns to an opposite direction I saw it as a Source that agrees with the thesis.
Source C does not agree although it is also a graph there are no drawings or something that will catch someone’s attention to infer panic, it is only data shown on a table.
D is only a table and it does not sustain or express any panic, it’s just a table exactly the same as the source before, therefore it also does not agree.
E is a source that you could say does not agree with the statement of panic above (again) because the dull dark chaotic environment infers a lot of panic and the people running from the buildings and crying because they lost their entire life savings but if you see the date when the cartoonist made it (29th October 1929) you can see that the drawing is made after the wall street crash so it is not showing it was because of panic, but because of the wall street crash, panic was everywhere.
Source F disagrees entirely because the same as before it can infer a lot of panic and preoccupation but the photograph was taken after the wall street crash.
G agrees because at the bottom of the second paragraph it says: “...leaders told the people that they should not panic” there this says that they were panicking very much.
Source H disagrees because it is an other reason besides panic. That source says it was because of the “suckers” that had no experience at all and these led to the crash.
The same happens with source J. They are saying it was because other reasons besides panic like “profits were plunged into the stock market producing a runaway speculation” although there were other reasons the main reason for source J is bad economics, therefore disagrees with the statement.
Source K affirms it was because inexperience and not because of panic, by saying: “anybody could buy shares and they could be bought on the margin” exactly the same as source H, so it also disagrees.
The opposite happens with source L because there is a part which says “In the panic many Americans lost their heads”. This shows there was panic and because of it a lot of people were doomed. (agrees).
M isn’t blaming panic as well as K but this source blames “The Coolidge Hoover “New Era” of prosperity” which is another reason besides panic so this disagrees, again, with the thesis.
N and P disagree with the thesis of panic because one talks blames depression and the other politicians and businessmen which are totally in the other way of panic.
Concluding with this question I could see there were more on the disagree side than on the agree one, because of different reasons besides panic for example sources E, J, H, K, M have completely different points about the causes of the wall street crash so if you see again the resting sources which are about four, but all of those four agree it was because of panic, therefore I think (in general) the sources support this view: “The Wall Street Crash was mainly caused by panic”.