Night WavesWall Street Crash
Wednesday 20 October 2004 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
Night Waves: The Wall Street Crash 75th Anniversary
On October 24th 1929, America plunged into the Great Depression. The American dream had turned to nightmare: unemployment rose to 25%, families starved, the very essence of the American way of life was questioned. In a special edition, on the eve of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Wall Street Crash, Philip Dodd and guests explore one of the darkest periods in American history and its impact on the psyche and culture of the country: from the photographs in the Farm Security Administration Collection to the novels of John Steinbeck, and the films of Frank Capra to the Dust Bowl Ballads of Woody Guthrie. Duration: 45 minutes |
 Programme Details This evening on Night Waves, Philip Dodd mark the 75th anniversary later this week of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 by looking at the cultural impact of the years that followed, a period of intense deprivation for Americans known as the Great Depression.
Philip is joined by the novelist Richard Francis and the journalists D D Guttenplan and John Micklethwait to discuss the ways in which America expressed its reaction to this crisis, and the extent to which it remains a component in contemporary American culture.
Diane Roberts recalls The Waltons, one of the best-known depictions of Depression life, while Deane Roote and Tony Russell examine the impact of the 1930s on American music, from blues to Copland.
And as a new exhibition of 1930s American photography opens in Salford, its curator Mark Durden talks about a selection of images from the exhibition.
Presenter: Philip Dodd
Producer: Thomas Morris
Additional Information:
This Is America is at the Lowry Centre in Salford until January 2nd 2005.
The Waltons is out next week on DVD.
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