Lectures curated around American Experience: The Crash of 1929 that explores a fateful year through the descendants of several titans of finance on the 80th anniversary of the Crash of ‘29. In 1929, while the stock market was rising, seemingly without limits, there were few critics. Based on eight years of continued prosperity, presidents and economists alike confidently predicted that America would soon enter a time when there would be no more poverty, no more depressions — a “New Era” when everyone could be rich. On October 29, 1929, the lifelong dreams of hundreds of thousands of stock market investors — middle-class secretaries, clerks, small businessmen — vanished in a few hours, along with their hard-earned savings. The events of this day still haunt the American psyche. This program examines the boom before the crash, whether the crash was predictable, and if it precipitated the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
Lectures curated around American Experience: The Crash of 1929 that explores a fateful year through the descendants of several titans of finance on the 80th anniversary of the Crash of ‘29. In 1929, while the stock market was rising, seemingly without limits, there were few critics. Based on eight years of continued prosperity, presidents and economists alike confidently predicted that America would soon enter a time when there would be no more poverty, no more depressions — a “New Era” when everyone could be rich. On October 29, 1929, the lifelong dreams of hundreds of thousands of stock market investors — middle-class secretaries, clerks, small businessmen — vanished in a few hours, along with their hard-earned savings. The events of this day still haunt the American psyche. This program examines the boom before the crash, whether the crash was predictable, and if it precipitated the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
