Immediately after the frightening Great Crash of 1929, many Americans swore they would -never- or -never again- become involved in the stock market. Yet hordes of Americans eventually did come to embrace equity investing, to an extent actually far greater than the level of popular involvement in the market during the Roaring 1920s. A Nation of Small Shareholders explores how marketers at the New York Stock Exchange during the mid twentieth century deliberately cultivated new individual shareholders.

Janice M. Traflet examines the energy with which NYSE leaders tried to expand...