Beginning with the stock market collapse in Crash of 1929, the series looks at the creation of FDRs Tree Army in Civilian Conservation Corps; the construction of one of the greatest engineering projects of the modern era in Hoover Dam; the impact of the catastrophic drought that transformed the plains in Surviving the Dust Bowl; and an unlikely hero that gave downtrodden Americans hope in Seabiscuit.
American Experience
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Description
Beginning with the stock market collapse in Crash of 1929, the series looks at the creation of FDRs Tree Army in Civilian Conservation Corps; the construction of one of the greatest engineering projects of the modern era in Hoover Dam; the impact of the catastrophic drought that transformed the plains in Surviving the Dust Bowl; and an unlikely hero that gave downtrodden Americans hope in Seabiscuit.
Episodes
The Crash of 1929
Season 4, Episode 1 TV-G CC SD
By 1929, Charles Mitchell, President of the National City Bank (now Citibank), had popularized the idea of selling stock and high-yield bonds directly to the smaller investor. Mitchell and a very small group of bankers, brokers, and speculators manipulated the stock market, grew wealthy, and helped create the economic boom of the Twenties. This film chronicles the year the boom went bust through the words and experiences of the descendants of these titans of finance. While the market was rising, presidents and economists confidently predicted America would soon enter a time when there would be no more poverty, no more depressions-a "New Era" when everyone could be rich. Instead, it was the rich who became richer. "The Crash of 1929" captures the unbounded optimism of an age, at a time when the stock market promised permanent prosperity.
Civilian Conservation Corps
Season 4, Episode 2 TV-G CC SD
In March 1933, within weeks of his inauguration, President Franklin Roosevelt sent legislation to Congress aimed at providing relief for the one out of every four American workers who were unemployed. He proposed a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to provide jobs in natural resource conservation. Over the next decade, the CCC put more than three million young men to work in the nation’s forests and parks, planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting fires and maintaining roads and trails. Corps workers lived in camps under quasi-military discipline and received a wage of $30 per month, $25 of which they were required to send home to their families. This program interweaves rich archival imagery with the personal accounts of CCC veterans to tell the story of one of the boldest and most popular New Deal experiments, positioning it as a pivotal moment in the emergence of modern environmentalism and federal unemployment relief.
Hoover Dam
Season 4, Episode 3 TV-PG CC SD
Rising more than 700 feet above the raging waters of the Colorado River, it was called one of the greatest engineering works in history. The Hoover Dam, built during the Great Depression, drew men desperate for work to a remote and rugged canyon near Las Vegas. There they struggled against heat, choking dust and perilous heights to build a colossus of concrete that brought electricity and water to millions and transformed the American Southwest.
Seabiscuit
Season 4, Episode 5 TV-G CC SD
He was boxy, with stumpy legs that wouldn't completely straighten, a short straggly tail and an ungainly gait, but though he didn't look the part, Seabiscuit was one of the most remarkable thoroughbred racehorses in history. In the 1930s, when Americans longed to escape the grim realities of the Depression-era life, four men turned Seabiscuit into a national hero. They were his fabulously wealthy owner Charles Howard, his famously silent and stubborn trainer Tom Smith, and the two hard-bitten, gifted jockeys who rode him to glory. By following the paths that brought these four together and in telling the story of Seabiscuit's unlikely career, this film illuminates the precarious economic conditions that defined America in the 1930s and explores the fascinating behind-the-scenes world of thoroughbred racing.
Additional information
Networks
PBSNetworks
Audio
EnglishAudio
Subtitles
English (CC)Subtitles
Released year
1996Released year
Genres
Documentary/BioGenres
Duration
4 episodes (3 h 31 min)Duration
Additional terms
Terms of transactionWindows | Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 or later |
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Xbox | Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X |
Mobile | Windows Phone 8, Windows Phone 8.1, Windows 10 or later |