America boomed but now it's bust the Great Depression explodes Across America social upheaval poverty [Applause] drought it's time for America to fight back the American Spirit is forged in the fires of the Great Depression we are pioneers and Trailblazers We Fight For Freedom we transform our dreams into the truth our struggles will become a nation the 1920s is Boom time in America money flows and oil wells explode though farmers are struggling cities expand skyscrapers go higher than the stock market aspirations run wild for cars and Suburban housing projects like Hollywood Land by 1929 more money is spent on Advertising than on education we got a little carried away with consumerism and capitalism and and it bit Us in the butt the Boom is built on credit in 1929 $6 billion of goods are bought on credit but 80% of Americans have no savings at all some stocks are valued at 50 times what they're really worth a giant bubble just ready to burst by October 1929 the inevitable happens the stock market loses 12 times more money in 3 weeks than the US government uses in a year the entire country could have gone down and almost did from an economic point of view for a year after the stock market crash America's economy Teeters on the edge of the Abyss December 1930 the streets of New York are quiet it's been a year since the stock market crash of 1929 but only 2% of the population owns stocks the other 98% get on with their lives until today this man is about to shake America's confidence in its banks to its very core he's put his money in his local bank the bank of United States a bank that has only hours left to exist got it but a newspaper article questions his bank stability this this is the moment that begins a chain reaction that will shake the whole country's economy yet we don't even know the man's name but his story was recorded by the New York Times a small Merchant in the Bronx went to a branch of the bank of United States and asked Bank officials to dispose of his stock in the institution good day sir how may I help you yes I'd like to withdraw my shares from the bank make your pardon sir Bank regulations virtually non-existent at the time bad real estate Investments mean the bank has only kept itself afloat by cooking the books you make sure how may I be I like to sell my shares well the stock here's a good investment sir I would advise against the sale I want my money the last thing the bank needs is to hand out all its cash we almost witnessed that fairly recently and I've seen what can go on and I've seen Travis he departed and apparently spread a false report that the bank had refused to sell his stock by midafternoon a considerable crowd had gathered outside the bank estimated at between 20,000 and 25,000 persons this is the day worry turns to panic would the banks go the same way as the stock market hysteria spreads like wildfire two million dollar are withdrawn from this Branch alone even though all the anxious depositors who asked for their money before closing time were given it the crowd became Restless a squad of police were sent in to control them [Applause] the trouble spreads to other branches by the next morning the bank of United States has collapsed confidence in US Banks disintegrates in the last 60 days of 1930 600 Banks shut banks close in wave after wave across the country by 1933 there are 28 states without a single Bank open unlike today the federal government does not bail out the banks unemployment goes from 4 million in 1930 to 12 million in 1932 every day a thousand homes are repossessed 200,000 vagrant children wander the country 34 m million Americans have no source of income it was an American Tragedy the Depression was and it took American Ingenuity to lift America out of it the fight back Starts Here vast building projects publicly funded privately built this is Frank hurry-up Crow he's already built six dams on time and under budget and now he has his on something even bigger the Colorado River I was wild to build this Dam the biggest dam ever built by anyone anywhere the Colorado River is one of the most powerful rivers in the world every second twice as much water tears through these Canyons then goes over Niagara Falls Frank Crow's plan is to harness it the water and hydroelectricity will transform the whole of the Southwest March 4th 1931 the government gives the go-ahead to build the Hoover Dam the Hoover Dam even before they started building it it became a metaphor people saw it as a statement of America's fortitude of our engine genuity of our talent for hard work and for our willingness to transform the environment around us the Hoover Dam will cost nearly $1 billion in today's money Frank Crow has offered a 2. 5% cut of the Dam's profits if he gets the job done quickly it should take 6 years to build but Frank says it can be done in four 42,000 men come from across the country looking for jobs on the biggest construction site in America Frank Crow takes 5,000 men willing to work harder and faster than anyone else it'll be survival of the fittest men are ready to do anything for work there's a large C do attitude in the United States and it comes from the fact that over the centuries there has been a lot of adversity and we have usually triumphed first it was the Triumph of developing this whole vast [Music] continent putting in railroad lines uh putting in all the civil engineering to support it putting in Hoover Dam these were all incredible challenges there are two stages to building the dam first divert the river around the work site second build the Colossal wall to divert the Raging Colorado four massive tunnels are drilled through 3 miles of solid rock each tunnel is as wide as a four-lane highway and as tall as a five-story building a million and a half gallons of water flow through here every second the Hoover Dam was a statement uh about what America was all about uh nothing is too big to take on and we're going to change this country if Frank Crow was in a hurry before now the pressure is doubled time and money the tunnels can only be dug when the river is low that's only 4 months a year and the money there's a $3,000 fine for every day the project falls behind schedule the clock is ticking Frank's answer is as bold as he is gigantic mobile drilling Rings four stories of scaffolding mounted on the backs of trucks up to 30 men drill into the Rock Around the Clock 24 hours a day they move 10 times faster than normal drilling temperatures hit 140° in the tunnels Frank just pushes harder the drilling Crews compete against each other which will drill the furthest every day as drillman Marian Allen puts it it didn't make any difference what you did but you had to beat that other crew [Music] deadly fumes pump out of the trucks they build up in the tunnel they get into the men's lungs into their blood you men get him out of here carbon monoxide poisoning claims hundreds of men I went to work down there one night and there were 17 men in my crew the next morning myself and three others was all that was left all the rest was taking out sick it was [Music] rough pro has only one working rule to hell with excuses get results but the drive to get results quickly will have deadly consequences men desperate to keep their jobs make mistakes like trying to clear Rubble before the blasting is finished you are having to Dynamite areas and you have to dig out there's Machinery but you're still using a lot of pick and shovel treacherous work a Miner's wife remembers one worker desperate to keep his job everybody was trying to work in the tunnels this man was so anxious to work that he just went into the tunnel too quick just as he put his shovel in there was a delayed blast the company says 96 men die the workers claim it's hundreds the tunnels are finished 11 months ahead of time but that's just the beginning of the Hoover Dam the harder's job is Yet to Come building the biggest concrete structure on Earth Frank Crow is driving ahead the building of the Hoover Dam the biggest engineering project America has ever seen he's driving his men hard the crews work day and night a sea of concrete rises in the canyon as thick as two football fields laid end to end 5,000 men 50,000 machines and tools the best Engineers alive enough materials to fill a train 1,000 M long this is the 1930s equivalent of putting a man on the moon 6. 6 million tons of concrete have to be poured that's enough to lay a 4ft wide sidewalk around the earth how to pour that much concrete and get it where it's needed Frank Pro designs the most sophisticated cable system ever built giant bottom opening buckets they pour the concrete into molds exactly where it is wanted concrete was invented by the Romans 2,000 years ago but the Hoover Dam is the first large concrete Dam in history today virtually all dams are made of concrete it's malleable and it's strong it's the world's favorite building material for any structure Frank is up against the clock and he has a big problem the curing concrete generates heat if the dam were constructed in a single continuous P it would put out enough heat to bake half a million loaves of bread every day for 3 years [Music] but worse the dam would take 125 years to harden Frank crows got no time for that backs against the wall we figured out who we were we worked our way out of that depression The Secret of cooling the concrete lies within the dam itself 582 Mi of 1-in pipes carry ice cold water from the very River the dam is taming no one had ever thought of this before and those pipes are still in the Hoover Dam today Frank hurry up Crow lives up to his name [Music] the Hoover Dam is completed on September 30th 1935 2 years ahead of schedule Frank receives a bonus worth over $4 million in today's [Music] money for those workers to have built something as Monumental and as challenging as Uber dam was was an astonishing feat of construction and I think it gave us all a sense of the possible 1936 the Hoover Dam is the largest hydroelectric power producing facility in the world each of the 17 generators weighs more than four jumbo Jets together they can supply power to 750,000 people in booming cities like Los Angeles the dam creates Lake me the biggest Reservoir in America big enough to flood the entire state of New York under a foot of water it helps California produce more food for the United States than any other state the Hoover Dam workers make something else boom as well a little town 30 Mi away where they go to drink and gamble it's name Las Vegas as the wife of one Hoover Dam worker puts it when men worked in such dangerous surroundings you couldn't blame a lot of fellows for sort of letting their hair down they were having fun 1930 5,000 people live in Las Vegas then the dam workers arrived then the tourists then the gambling now over 37 million people come every year to party in Las Vegas after 70 years the Hoover Dam still supplies power to the people of Nevada Arizona and California one Las Vegas hotel has the biggest flashlight on Earth 40 billion candle power you can read a newspaper 10 Mi out in Space by its [Music] light 19 1934 Darkness Falls Across America the worst environmental disaster in American history dust storms hit New York Chicago and [Music] Boston in Manhattan the street lights come on at midday a monstrous dust storm 1,800 M wide from the Great Plains to the Atlantic Ocean the air turns to Earth the storm carries three tons of dust for every American alive ships stop off the Eastern Seaboard not sure what is happening the cloud reminds the captain of the ship the Deutsch land of the Sands of the Sahara blowing out to sea but now the clouds are devouring the Statue of [Music] Liberty D storms were born out of a 100 million acre Dead Zone 2,000 M away in Oklahoma Texas Kanas and Colorado the Great Plains had once been the most fertile grasslands on Earth the top soil was 6 ft deep but it has been plowed up and used up by four generations of farmers now the sun has dried it up what really did the farmers in was an environmental cataclysm that involved an extended drought high winds and the loss of millions and millions of tons of top soil it was almost as though the heavens themselves had turned against the farmers by 19 1930 the rains virtually stop the lighter organic matter the best soil is literally Gone With the Wind the tiny particles of soil are suspended in the air then a freakish phenomenon happens static electricity builds between the Earth and the dust like a magnet the static electricity sucks up more and more dust feeding itself growing in size and [Music] power a monster is created the dust is lifted up to 10,000 ft powered by high altitude winds the monster rips across the country looking for pray April 14th 1935 Lar Colorado Louise Walton once a Broadway dancer and an actress she gives up the glamour to breathe the clean dry air of the Prairies the doctors say her lungs needed Louise thrives on the Southern Plains and so did her six-year-old daughter Jean until recently [Music] their rural dream has become a nightmare 49 dust storms in the last 3 months but today the air is crisp and clear Jean has just got out of hospital with respiratory problems because of the dust storms early that morning 600 mil North a cold front from Canada had hit a warm high pressure front perfect conditions to create the winds for a dust storm but this is not just any duster by the time it passes bismar North Dakota it's the biggest strongest dust storm ever seen in America the cold front drives the storm South across the Prairies it's heading straight for Louise and jeans place at 65 mph it grows more and more powerful it produces enough static electricity to power New York City by the time the storm reaches Lamar Colorado it is 200 mil wide the temperature plunges 2:40 p.
m. Jean finds herself looking into the heart of the storm [Music] Jamie [Music] it was like I was caught in a world pool all of a sudden it got completely dark I I couldn't see a thing [Music] [Music] [Music] the dust clouds contain over 300,000 tons of Great Plains top [Music] soil people tie themselves to ropes before going to a barn just a few hundred feet away cattle die and when they are cut open their stomachs are full of sand there are these memories of people that go for days and days and days hold up inside of their little ranch houses and they never see the light of day because the dust is so severe and it's so thick over hundreds of miles for days they don't see light the tiny dust particles drill into the child's lungs she comes down with dust ponia the brown plague the Red Cross set up six emergency hospitals in Kansas Colorado and Texas to deal with the rise of respiratory infections Louise Walton had come to Colorado for the air and now doctors tell her that her little girl could die of it there is an exodus of biblical proportions underway on the Great Plains by 1936 farmers are losing $25 million a day farming is no longer a possibility the Great Depression takes hold their mortgage comes due they can't pay it they're not growing crops they lose the Family Farm they lose their [Music] identity a century before a half a million people had gone west on these same Trails looking for hope now 250,000 of them are fleeing the Dust Bowl in despair but not everyone has the choice to leave Jean and Louise survive black Sunday in stay put 2third of dust Bowlers stick it [Music] out they have nothing left but their determination and will thousands of PS small res radio is one of the few things to bring Comfort to those who stay it connects them to the rest of the country by 1935 a network of stations with 10,000 watt transmitters links the country together the same voice can be heard from coast to coast radios become the country's most popular household item by 1934 there are over8 18 million radio sets 40% of America lives in isolated rural communities but now they can get local news and weather Farm prices and be part of national events America was built for the introduction of radio this is a vast land it has a lot of different layers to it as you go across the country America was learning about itself through news from across the country and around the world Germany is rearming in regular news reports bring international events straight into American Homes little do Americans realize that news from so far away will change America forever amb the struggle against the Great Depression continues the American people will not give up the French gave America The Statue of Liberty now America builds her own Monument to its people's [Music] tenacity blasted out of solid rock Mount Rushmore is created the blasting of Washington's chin and the first step in the world's largest monument is finished it began in 1927 desolate corner of South Dakota as a way to attract tourists now it's a federally funded project part of President Roosevelt's New Deal to reinvigorate the country soon they'll start on Jefferson then Lincoln and Roosevelt the heads alone will be 60 ft high and Washington's nose is 19 ft long as big as the head of the Sphinx in Egypt you can get a good idea of the size of the monument by these men playing Lea frog along the nose of the father of his country it's a grand undertaking they were in a way our pyramids we were building something that would last and be a statement about who we were the 500t cliff is being sculpted by Dynamite a dangerous way to make a living for Drllers like Bill Reynolds below Bill are 20 charges of dynamite able to blast three tons of solid [Music] rock above him is 60 ft of sheer Cliff where the Detonator and the Hoist man are up Drllers always move up to stay above any charges just in case they should accident entally go off the charges are due to be set off at 400 p. m.
