Culture in the 1930s

23.4

MAIN IDEA

• Motion pictures, radio, art and literature blossomed during the New Deal.

WHY IT MATTERS NOW• The films, music, art, and literature of the

1930s still captivate today’s public

NAMES AND TERMS

• Gone With the Wind• Orson Welles• Grant Wood• Richard Wright• The Grapes of Wrath

The Lure of Motion Pictures & Radio

• MOVIES:– Cost: $.25– 65% of Americans went to movies once a

week– 15,000 movie theater – more than the # of

banks, twice the number of hotels• RADIO:

– Sold: 13 million in 1930, 28 million in 1940– ½ of all American households owned a radio

Hollywood takes center stage

• Film stars:– Clark Gable– Marlene Dietrich– Jimmy Cagney

Movies of the ’30s

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Gangster Films

RADIO

• Drama and variety– War of the Worlds

• Orson Welles later directed movie classics: “Citizen Kane” & “Touch of Evil”

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• Art, music, literature– Sober and serious– But conveyed an uplifting message about strength of

character and democratic values• Many artists supported the New Deal’s spirit of

social and political change• Many of them also received financial support

from the New Deal (Harry Hopkins and the WPA)– “They’ve got to eat just like other people.”

• Paid artists a living wage• Aimed to increase public appreciation of

art & promote positive images of America• Artists:

– created posters – taught art in schools– created murals

• These murals were inspired by Diego Rivera • Focused on dignity of ordinary Americans at work

Grant Wood’s American Gothic

Thomas Hart Benton

PhotographerDorothea Lange

Dramatizing Labor struggles of the 1930s

• Music to capture the hardships of Depression America• African American singer Leadbelly described the

experience of African American life– “Cotton Fields”– “The Midnight Special”

AMERICA SWINGS

• Big Band Era• Your Hit Parade and Make Believe

Ballroom brought latest tunes to public• Bing Crosby popular singer of day

• Supported by Federal Writers’ Project• Future Pulitzer Prize winner – Saul Bellow – first job• Richard Wright – African-American writer, Native Son (1940)• Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)• John Steinbeck – Grapes of Wrath (1939)

• James T. Farrell: Studs Lonigan trilogy (’32-’35)– Bleak picture of working class life in Irish

neighborhood of Chicago• Jack Conroy: The Disinherited (1933)

– Violence & poverty in Missouri coal fields• James Agee & photographer Walker Evans

teamed up for Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941)– Deals w/ difficult life of poor farmers – dignity &

strength of character• Thornton Wilder – Our Town (a play written in

’38) beauty of small town New England life

To sum up . . .

• Though artists and writers recognized America’s flaws, they contributed positively to New Deal legacy

• Intellectuals praised the virtues of American life

• They took pride in the country’s traditions and accomplishments.