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Culture in the 1930s
23.4
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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
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NAMES AND TERMS
• Gone With the Wind
• Orson Welles
• Grant Wood
• Richard Wright
• The Grapes of Wrath
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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
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Hollywood takes center stage
• Film stars:– Clark Gable– Marlene Dietrich– Jimmy Cagney
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Movies of the ’30s
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Gangster Films
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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.”
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• 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
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Grant Wood’s American Gothic
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Thomas Hart Benton
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Dramatizing Labor struggles of the 1930s
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• Music to capture the hardships of Depression America
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• 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)
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• 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
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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.