Following the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the American economy went into a free fall that lasted for an entire decade. This economic collapse, which eventually grew to include every economy in the world, was known as the Great Depression (1929–41). Across the economy, the market for American goods dried up. America had become the most powerful economy in the world on the strength of its industrial manufacturing, but by the 1930s demand for rail products, steel, and textiles had virtually disappeared. The nation's leading industry, the automobile industry, shrank during the decade as several small, independent carmakers were forced to close. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler were the largest automobile manufacturers, supplying nearly 75 percent of the automobiles sold at the beginning of the decade and about 90 percent by the end. In the automobile industry as well as in other manufacturing industries, more and...