Wall Street and Later Years
In the 1920s, Durant became a major "player" on Wall Street and on Black Tuesday joined with members of the Rockefeller family and other financial giants to buy large quantities of stocks, against the advice of friends, in order to demonstrate to the public their confidence in the stock market. His effort proved costly and failed to stop the market slide. By 1936, the 75-year-old Durant was bankrupt.
After the fall of Durant Motors, Durant and his second wife lived on a small pension provided by Alfred P. Sloan on behalf of General Motors. He suffered a stroke in 1942, which left him "a semi-invalid", and managed a bowling alley in Flint, Michigan until his death in 1947. He was buried in a private mausoleum at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. Durant was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1996.
Durant Park in Lansing, Michigan is named after him.
Read more about this topic: William C. Durant
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redefinition of
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—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
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Wearily, as one would turn to nod good-bye to Rochefoucauld,
If the street were time and he at the end of the street,
And I say, “Cousin Harriet, here is the Boston Evening Transcript.””
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“As I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were brought to the light of this modern day.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)