Judging from the Dow Jones Industrial average, which measures the US economy, the past 100 years looks like a long journey to prosperity. Stock market crashes, recessions and depressions, wars, pandemics and other factors that hit the economy are just bumps on the journey. Over the years, the Dow has risen by an average of 9% a year.

The actual situation is much more complicated. Millions have suffered from the recession, 500000 have died in conflicts abroad, and there are growing rifts in domestic politics, class, race and gender. However, the economy and markets continue to operate.

Looking back on the century since the founding of Barron Weekly, if you have learned anything from past reportsThat is not to underestimate the resilience of the US economy and stock market.We have seen this theme again and again in a series of retrospective articles in 2021, and the resilience of the US economy and stock market is still very obvious.

In 2020, the economy hit hard by the COVID-19 epidemic shrank, marking the 19th year-on-year decline in real GDP since 1920, nine of which occurred between 1930 and 1949, mainly affected by the Great Depression and post-World War II demobilization.

The sharp increase in GDP was also limited to the turbulent 1930s and 1940s. For most of the time, GDP in the United States has been growing steadily, from about $670 billion in 1920 to a record $21.43 trillion in 2020, a 30-fold increase, faster than the population growth over the same period: the population of the United States tripled from 106 million to 331 million between 1920 and 2020.

A hundred years ago, most Americans lived on farms with no electricity or indoor plumbing. There are more horses than cars, and business and politics are the exclusive domain of whites. Although women have the right to vote, they are still second-class citizens. The apartheid Jim Crow laws still exists.

From 1920 to 1921, the United States also fell into the Great Depression, which was the worst recession at that time. To Clarence W. Barron (Clarence W. Barron) said that it was not easy to start Barron Weekly in those difficult times, but he witnessed the transformation of the United States from an agricultural country to an industrial country, believing that the American business spirit was unstoppable.

He's right. From Henry Ford and Thomas Thomas Edison to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, entrepreneurs move quickly, breaking all the old rules and turning new technologies into new industries that change people's lives.

They have also created companies that have existed for a long time. General Electric Co, AT&T Inc, Macy's, DuPont, Xuan Wei and many other household names date back to the 19th century or earlier. These companies are the backbone of the American economy, and the resilience of the American economy comes from them.

Barron Weekly did have doubts that "the leaders of modern companies could not be compared with the giants of the last century", but it was in 1936, and after that, a large number of new giants rose to challenge the old giants.

Here are some of the people who have contributed to the continued functioning of the American economy over the past 100 years.

In the late 1920s, cars were rare and there were not many passable roads. Cars are new and toys for the rich, and few people thought that would change at that time.

Henry Ford saw a greater possibility. He perfected the technology of mass production so that he was able to build cars faster and cheaper than his handmade competitors. Barron wrote in 1924 that Ford "made a car affordable to the average working family at half the price of a horse."

At that time, most Americans still relied on horses to transport and work, the advent of Ford cars and tractors brought horses back to their pastures, and the heyday of the railroad was over.

As more people buy cars and road construction catches up, the construction of the interstate highway system is a representative, which has set off American car culture, promoted the expansion of cities and suburbs, and brought pollution.

The company Ford founded is now making a strong push into the era of electric cars, but his legacy is complex: he is an anti-Semitic who hired people to sabotage strikes. Industrial genius is "not necessarily morally great", Barron Weekly wrote in 1923.

Barron Weekly seldom reviews movies, but Walt Disney Company's Fantasia, starring a mouse, in 1940 caught our attention.

Barron Weekly wrote at the time: "since the birth of sound films, the biggest change in film art is the new sound effects in Fantasia." The audience was refreshed mainly because Walt Disney Company used eight state-of-the-art audio oscillators from newly established Hewlett-Packard.

It is well known that HP founders Bill Hewlett Hewlett and David Packard started their business in a rented garage in Palo Alto. Today, the garage has become a landmark, known as "the birthplace of Silicon Valley".

The audio oscillator is the beginning of a very productive partnership. Alan Alan Abelson, a well-known columnist and editor of Barron Weekly, once wrote that by 1976, HP had become one of the few companies with "superior technology, excellent marketing and sound finance".

HP's founder retired from management in the late 1970s, and a number of prominent successors emerged, including Carly Fiorina (Carly Fiorina). She successfully completed the merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq in 1999, making Hewlett-Packard the number one PC maker, but was forced to resign in 2005.

After a number of mergers and acquisitions, HP's English name became HP, and the company that started in Palo Alto's garage promoted the digitization of the world.

A notice published in Barron Weekly on January 8, 1968 read: "first Lady of the New York Stock Exchange!" The notice was published in the Wall Street Journal (the Wall Street Journal) four days ago.

In the 1950s, Muriel Muriel Siebert worked at Bache & Co. With a salary of $65 a week as a stock research trainee, she eventually became the first woman to head the New York Stock Exchange and one of its member companies. Siebert Financial was one of the first companies to offer discount deals and a leader in turning to online transactions.

Hibbert later became New York's first female bank executive and died in 2013, when workplaces across the country had made a lot of progress in recruiting and promoting women and people of color.

In the financial sector, the money of retail investors is called "stupid money", while the money managed by large financial institutions is called "smart money", whose resources and influence can bring greater returns.

In the process of creating index funds, Jack Jack Bogle made "stupid money" smarter. The concept he put forward is simple:Because the S & P 500 often outperforms active mutual funds, passive funds made up of S & P 500 stocks also outperform active mutual funds without charging any fees.

In 1978, two years after the launch of the predecessor of the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, Bogel told Barron Weekly: "this is a new and unique investment concept, and its time has come. "

Index investment did not begin to develop until the 1990s, but by 2019, the assets of index funds have exceeded those of actively managed funds and have "outperformed active funds for a decade". However, passive investment also has some critics who "warn of a market collapse".

Bogel, who died in 2019, made it clear that he did not want everyone to invest in the index, but he did democratize the once xenophobic Wall Street club. Barron Weekly wrote after his death: "if there is one person responsible for today's market-- for better or worse-- it's Jack Berger. "

Clarence Barron's bet on American business spirit was soon tested. The first issue of Barron Weekly was published on May 9, 1921, and the Great Depression ended just a few months later, followed by a roaring 1920s. By 1927, the circulation of Barron Weekly had reached 30,000.

Barron linked public information to the market. Wall Street used to profit from opacity, and Barron believes that the job of the financial media is to illuminate the darkness and give "thoughtful investors" an opportunity to "create wealth."

As Barron Weekly enters its second century, the US economy shows few signs of slowing down. The epidemic has killed 800000 Americans, and O'Micron has triggered a new surge in the number of infections, making it impossible to "minimize" the damage caused by the pandemic. However, the US economy does not seem to be affected, today's business leaders and workers have found a way to keep the business running, and the US economy will continue to move forward.