Great Depression and Culture

Movies About 65% of population went to movies once a week (60 – 80 million people) 15,000 theaters in the US Inexpensive and offered escape from reality 27 cents But by 1933, movie attendance had fallen 40% 1/3 of theaters shut down. To boost attendance, theaters lower admission prices and held special events like “Bank Night” in which customer who received a lucky number won a cash prize

Dramas Gone With the Wind - 1939 won 10 Academy Awards Based on the 1936 bestseller by Margaret Mitchell, which won Pulitzer Prize in 1937 longest movie ever made in sound when it first premiered (three hours and forty-four minutes) one of the first movies in full color. Adjusted for inflation, it is still the highest grossing domestic movie in American history. story of a spoiled Southern belle, Scarlett O'Hara, living on a plantation during the Civil War http://garethrussellpopular.blogspot.com/2011/04/gone-with-wind-1939.html

Musicals The Wizard of Oz –1939 Based on the 1900 children's book by L. Frank Baum stars Judy Garland Notable for special effects and Technicolor 2 Academy Awards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)

Scary and Suspenseful The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) The Lady Vanishes (by Hitchcock 1938) A young woman awakes on a train only to find that the older lady she had befriended had disappeared. In her place was a new old lady wearing the previous woman’s clothes. Is she crazy? King Kong (1933) http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/hollywood_great_depression.cfm

Gangster Films The most violent movie of 1932 was Scarface, About a fictional Chicago mobster but clearly based on the life of the Al Capone 1931 The Public Enemy told the story of Prohibition, starring James Cagney http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dillinger/peopleevents/e_hollywood.html

Comedies: The Marx Brothers: a comedy group who made 13 “slap stick” style films (1929 to 1949) type of comedy with exaggerated violence and silly reactions to events Animal Crackers (1930) Monkey Business (1931) Horse Feathers (1932) Duck Soup (1933) A Night at the Opera (1935) A Day at the Races (1937)

Animation Walt Disney – 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/hollywood_great_depression.cfm

Radio 90% of households have a radio Total Sales: from 13 million to 28 million by 1940 New Emerson Bedroom Radio (1938) $9.95 http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1930s.html Dramas, variety shows play in evening “Soap operas” broadcast in middle of day Children’s shows after school hours The Lone Ranger Immediate news coverage becomes customary The Hindenberg crash May 6, 1937

War of the Worlds Orson Welles—actor, director, producer, writer Sunday October 30th, 1938, at 8 pm “War of the Worlds” is broadcast as if an actual alien invasion was happening. Dance music interrupted by announcement that the Mount Jennings Observatory in Chicago reported explosions on Mars. Though the program began with the announcement that it was just a story many listeners didn't hear it and mass panic ensued

War of the Worlds "It is reported that at 8:50 p.m. a huge, flaming object, believed to be a meteorite, fell on a farm in the neighborhood of Grovers Mill, New Jersey, twenty-two miles from Trenton.“ Then a “reporter” announces: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. . . . Wait a minute! Someone's crawling. Someone or . . . something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks . . . are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be . . . good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now it's another one, and another one, and another one. They look like tentacles… What's that? There's a jet of flame springing from the mirror, and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on! Good Lord, they're turning into flame! Now the whole field's caught fire. The woods . . . the barns . . . the gas tanks of automobiles . . it's spreading everywhere. It's coming this way.”

Music Woody Guthrie (1912 – 1967) “country” folk singer / songwriter sings of plight of poor Most famous song: This Land is Your Land Folk music seen as “real” and a representation of the common people in the US A reaction against “big city” jazz music Many songs focused on Great Depression issues

1930s: Birth of Swing Big band or swing music becomes popular from 1935 -1946 which becomes known as the Swing Era 1920s style Jazz begins to change: a more sophisticated sound with a more upbeat tempo dance music favored by young white dancers in urban areas Benny Goodman, one of the first and most famous swing bandleaders to achieve widespread fame.

Art Tended to be serious But WPA art tended to convey uplifting messages

Art Grant Wood “Regionalism” the belief that an artist should "paint out of the land and the people he knows best” Focus on American topics

Thomas Hart Benton Politics and Agriculture 1936

Union Station – Cincinnati 1920s Art Deco style + WPA murals = amazing Construction began in August 1929 and was completed March 31, 1933. Originally, it was designed as Neoclassical structure (fancy), but was changed to a modern building because of the high costs of fancy design The interior dome spans 180 feet, with a height of 106 feet. Designed to accommodate 17,000 passengers and 216 trains a day

Union Station - Cincinnati

Union Station - Cincinnati The mural to the left depicts the development of the nation. The background traces the history of transportation The middle shows the changing landscape from the plains to the eastern metropolis. The foreground represents the people who lived in and settled the country - from the Native American to steel workers in the modern city.

Union Station - Cincinnati

Art Deco of the 1920s continues, but is simplified Originally known as "North Side School," the brick building was a 1935-1937 WPA project. Giant people on the Carnegie Bridge in Cleveland. Finished in 1932

New Architecture Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater - 1937 “organic architecture” Fallingwater - 1937 Perched over a waterfall in Pennsylvania, it seems part of the rock formation

Literature John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath (1939) Pulitzer Prize in 1940 Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of sharecroppers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies“ they sought jobs.

Richard Wright, African-American author, writes Native Son (1940) tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty in Chicago's ghetto in the 1930s.

Famous Individuals Richard E. Byrd   a famous explorer of the Antarctic and Arctic whose 1933-35 expedition to Antarctica conducted many scientific search projects.  Amelia Earhart was the first woman and second person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.  Jesse Owens, African American athlete (from Cleveland!), won four gold medals in track-and-field at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin