The Forgotten Depression Share Trending Of course everyone is aware of the Great Depression of 1920 – no wait, virtually no one knows of it. Why would virtually no American know about the worst recession of the 20 th century? The answer is certainly speculation. But what is not speculation is how the majority of Americans are unaware of what really happened during this time period. “To this day, the [stock market] index has yet to show a more precipitous drop in such a short time [as it did on 1920].”[1] To put the Depression of 1920 into perspective, economist James Grant compares it to the Great Recession of 2009. “From 1920 to 1921, the Federal Reserve’s index of industrial production fell by 31.6 percent; in 2007-09, it declined by 16.9 percent.” Grant continues with comparisons to the depression of the 1930s; “Over the course of 12 months, wholesale prices plunged by 36.8 percent, consumer prices by 10.8 percent and farm prices by 41.3 percent (for speed of decline, not even the Great Depression would match the break of 1920-21.”[2] Also devastating, as reported by Dr. Patrick Newman, was that “from May 1920 to March 1921 producer prices fell by an enormous 38.54%, which bottomed out in June 1921 for a total decline of 44.09%.”[3]