How did the Panic of 1837 become a prolonged downturn?

Credit expansion can look like prosperity until confidence breaks. The Panic of 1837 followed years of credit expansion and financial pressure in the United States.

Land speculation, banking structures, policy shifts and international conditions interacted in the collapse of confidence. Land, banks and overseas finance were entangled in ways easy to overlook.

Historians continue to debate the relative weight of particular policy decisions and overseas monetary conditions. Historians still argue about which lever mattered most in 1837.

The hardship that followed should not disappear behind one panic date. A useful documentary should distinguish the panic itself from the economic hardship that followed.

Which chain of causes most convincingly connects the credit boom to losses experienced by workers and households?