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The Mississippi Bubble Burst
This document is an engraving created by Bernard Picart in 1721, entitled ''Monument Consecrated to Posterity''. It effectively portrays the scale of the crisis and mayhem caused by the bursting of the Mississippi bubble in May 1720.
- Bernard Picart. ''Monument Consecrated to Posterity''. 1721. The South Sea Bubble Collection, Harvard Business School. -
Amsterdam Banking Crisis of 1763
This source is an etching made by Jan Caspar Philips in 1763, entitled ''The Bankruptcies of Amsterdam in the Year 1763''. It symbolically depicts the immediate aftermath of the crisis in which over 30 Amsterdam banking and trading firms went bankrupt.
- Jan Caspar Philips, ''The Bankruptcies of Amsterdam in the Year 1763'', 1763. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. -
The Financial Panic of 1825
This is an 1822 drawing by a man under the pseudonym 'Thomas Strangeways (K.G.C)'. It was part of a scam intended to advertise the non-existent land of Poyais to potential investers and settlers, and the success of this act of fraud played a significant role in causing the financial crisis of 1825.
- Thomas Strangeways (K.G.C), ''A Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, Including the Territory of Poyais''. 1822. John Carter Library. Brown University. -
The Financial Panic of 1857
This document is a page of the manuscript of Karl Marx's ''Grundrisse'', which was not published until 1939, but was written by Marx during the financial crisis of 1857-8. The ''Grundrisse'' is generally considered to be a rough draft of ''Das Kapital'', and it most probably would not have been written were it not for the 1857 financial panic.
- Photo from: Marcello Musto, ''Karl Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy''. London: Routledge, 2008. p.139. -
The Financial Panic of 1873
This document is the Teaty of Frankfurt signed in 1871 to end the Franco-Prussian War. It is the primary cause of the financial crisis triggered on the 9th of May 1873. This financial panic was the beginning of the 'Long Depression', which lasted until 1879, and had enormous repercussions in Europe.
- ''Treaty of Frankfurt'',1721, Otto-von-Bismarck Stiftung, Friedrichsruh, Germany. -
The Wall Street Crash
This source is a picture taken on Black Friday, the 24th of October, by an unknown photographer. It shows a crowd of people gathering on the steps of the building across from the New York Stock Exchange as the market first crashed. This was the beginning of the Great Depression, which would have enormous consequences in Europe, notably the rise of the Nazis.
- Christina D. Romer "Great Depression." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 11 Mar. 2014. (Accessed April 6, 2015).
