1929: The Week Wall Street Broke the World

At 1:30 in the afternoon of Thursday, October 24, 1929, a tall man in a perfect suit walked onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and bid $205 a share for U.S. Steel, above the last sale. For a few hours it worked. The bankers had stepped in, the newspapers said the worst was over, and Richard Whitney became the White Knight of Wall Street. ▶ More from The Fall Files:    • The Fall Files   ▶ Every ARCHIVUM documentary:    • ARCHIVUM   🔔 Subscribe:    / @archivumfilms   Five days later the market broke anyway. This is the true story of the Crash of 1929: the borrowed money underneath every share, the brokers' loans that reached $8.5 billion, the bank that sold its own stock to its depositors, the investment trusts built on top of other trusts, the warnings nobody wanted to hear, and the Senate investigation that finally opened the books. And it is the story of the man who held up the market with borrowed money while borrowing to hold up himself. CHAPTERS 0:00 1:30 P.M., October 24, 1929 2:06 Part 1 - Everybody Ought to Be Rich 5:15 Part 2 - Ten Cents on the Dollar 7:55 Part 3 - Sunshine Charley 11:04 Part 4 - The Preferred List 13:29 Part 5 - Trusts Built on Trusts 15:20 Part 6 - The Warnings 17:39 Interlude - The Plateau 18:54 Part 7 - Black Thursday 21:04 Part 8 - Two Hundred and Five 24:04 Part 9 - The Weekend of Reassurance 26:06 Part 10 - Black Tuesday 28:42 Part 11 - Three Years Down 31:33 Part 12 - Pecora 34:49 Part 13 - The White Knight 37:59 The Lesson - Who Holds the Ladder? 40:06 Epilogue - The Bid SOURCES & ARCHIVES U.S. Senate, Stock Exchange Practices, Report No. 1455 (1934) - public domain. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Report on the Matter of Richard Whitney (1938) - public domain. Subpoena of J. P. Morgan to appear before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, May 1933 - U.S. National Archives, public domain. Newspapers, October 1929 (public domain, via Internet Archive): New Castle News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Xenia Evening Gazette and others. Period photographs: Library of Congress (Bain News Service, Harris & Ewing), U.S. National Archives, Wikimedia Commons (public domain and CC licenses). IMAGES Full credits for every photo and document shown are in the pinned comment. AI-generated illustrations are used only for symbolic scenes (objects, empty rooms); no real person is depicted by AI. MUSIC (CC BY / CC BY-SA, Jamendo): listen by Tryad - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/843920) chanson à la marié2012 by Adragante - CC BY 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/941485) billy2012 by Adragante - CC BY 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/941486) time you'll never get back by Williamson - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/124370) Variatio 16 a 1 Clav. Ouverture - Goldberg Variations BWV 988 by Kimiko Ishizaka - CC BY 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/962283) Mellow meadows by Torley on Piano - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/151033) A- by Williamson - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/124454) we're all boned by Williamson - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/124394) Nocturne by zero-project - CC BY 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/633218) Passagé du vent by Adragante - CC BY 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/210616) Panda Dances by Waltteri - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/124713) Xenos PK-2 by Master Chlag - CC BY 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/546354) glitch cowboy local by Williamson - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/124398) a pleasant goodbye from Whore by Williamson - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/124470) Izhorian - Vicinity by Izhorian - CC BY 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/1065444) Blackspinner (Dark|Silk|Corridor) by Modus Null - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/1032228) an hour in by Williamson - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/124383) whiffle by Williamson - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/124466) 7-thème2-piano by Lepellec dominique - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/1193607) Night At The Shore by Stefano Giardiniere - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/1270239) Candlelight by Jahzzar - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/954490) Through the looking glass by zero-project - CC BY 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/1649859) A forgotten promise by zero-project - CC BY 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/1640780) Mode storm by Torley on Piano - CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://www.jamendo.com/track/151030) ARCHIVUM - The Fall Files: how great fortunes fall, and why so many people believed. #1929 #StockMarketCrash #WallStreet