American experience : The 1930s
(DVD)

Originally produced as episodes of the television program American experience between 1990 and 2009.

Includes bonus Seabiscuit footage: an interview with Stephen Ives, Superhorses gallery.

Surviving the Dust Bowl narrated by Liev Schreiber.

In 1929, there were few critics of a stock market seeming to rise without limits. Presidents and economists alike confidently predicted that America would soon enter a "New Era" when everyone could be rich. Ultimately the promise of an economic boom disappeared almost overnight.

In 1933 President Roosevelt sent legislation to Conngress aimed at providing relief for the 1 out of every 4 American workers who were unemployed. This included a proposal for the Civilian Conservation Corps, which over the next decade put millions of young men to work, planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting fires, and maintaining roads and trails.

The Hoover Dam reflected the engineering genius and design philosophy of the time. the was called "the greatest engineering work of its character ever attempted by the hand of man." Working conditions were dangerous and the pay was low, but in the midst of the great depression the workers were grateful to have a job.

Surviving the Dust Bowl. In 1931 the rains stopped and the "black blizzards" began. Less well-known than those who sought refuge in California, typified by the Joad family in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," the Dust Bowlers stayed and overcame an almost a decade of unbelievable calamities and disasters, enduring drought, dust, disease, even death, determined to preserve their way of life.

Seabiscuit. Despite his boxy build, stumpy legs, scraggly tail and ungainly gait, Seabiscuit was one of the most remarkable thoroughbred racehorses in history. 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 turned Seabiscuit into a national hero.

Not rated.

DVD; NTSC; stereo.; region 1.

Closed-captioned.