The Great Depression of 1929: When the Dream Collapsed I SLICE History | Full Documentary

Nov 2, 2025 | 1929: The biggest economic crisis of the 20th century brought an abrupt end to the euphoria of the Roaring Twenties. Driven from their land, the farmers of the Great Plains were forced to abandon everything they had. They became migrants in their own country and were treated as such by the vast Californian estates. They became the symbol of an America confronted by its own reality.

Built on the work of the iconic photographers of the Great Depression - Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Arthur Rothstein - this full archive documentary analyzes the consequences of the economic collapse in the United States and provides a unique take on the failure of the American model.

Documentary: An American Depression (2019)
Directed by Sylvain Desmille
Production: Les Batelières Productions pour LCP & Toute l’Histoire

The Wall Street Crash

Jan 17, 2015 | This BBC documentary from 2009 takes a fresh view of the 'Crash of 1929' and the subsequent global Depression, comparing aspects of that event with the most recent turbulence in 2008.

1929 - Der große Börsencrash: Schwarzer Donnerstag

Donnerstag, 24.Oktober 1929: Die New Yorker Börse bricht zusammen und stürzt das Land in die größte wirtschaftliche Krise seiner Geschichte. Die "Goldenen Zwanziger", die für Aufschwung und Reichtum standen, finden abrupt ein Ende. Es ist der Beginn einer weltweiten Wirtschaftskrise, die schon wenige Monate später ihren Anfang finden wird. Der Film zeigt, wie es zu diesem Börsencrash kam und analysiert detailliert die Umstände, die dann später zur "Großen Depression" führten.`,br />

1929? A Mere Walk in the Park!
THE TELEGRAPH: As central banks continue to splash their cash over the system, so far to little effect, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard argues that things risk spiralling out of their control

Twenty billion dollars here, $20bn there, and a lush half-trillion from the European Central Bank at give-away rates for Christmas. Buckets of liquidity are being splashed over the North Atlantic banking system, so far with meagre or fleeting effects.

As the credit paralysis stretches through its fifth month, a chorus of economists has begun to warn that the world's central banks are fighting the wrong war, and perhaps risk a policy error of epochal proportions.

"Liquidity doesn't do anything in this situation," says Anna Schwartz, the doyenne of US monetarism and life-time student (with Milton Friedman) of the Great Depression.

"It cannot deal with the underlying fear that lots of firms are going bankrupt. The banks and the hedge funds have not fully acknowledged who is in trouble. That is the critical issue," she adds.

Lenders are hoarding the cash, shunning peers as if all were sub-prime lepers. Spreads on three-month Euribor and Libor - the interbank rates used to price contracts and Club Med mortgages - are stuck at 80 basis points even after the latest blitz.

The monetary screw has tightened by default.

York professor Peter Spencer, chief economist for the ITEM Club, says the global authorities have just weeks to get this right, or trigger disaster.

"The central banks are rapidly losing control. By not cutting interest rates nearly far enough or fast enough, they are allowing the money markets to dictate policy. We are long past worrying about moral hazard," he says.

"They still have another couple of months before this starts imploding. Things are very unstable and can move incredibly fast. I don't think the central banks are going to make a major policy error, but if they do, this could make 1929 look like a walk in the park," he adds. Crisis may make 1929 look a ‘walk in the park’ >>>

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