POPULAR CULTURE AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Despite the Great Depression, popular culture flourished in the United States of the 1930s. Similarly to visual arts and literature, popular culture of the era focused on emphasizing what was presented as uniquely American experiences and contributions. The mass popularization of culture was also linked to important technological advances. Many Americans, even in poor rural areas, had access to phonographs and radios. The latter was incredibly popular in the 1930s, becoming the critical source of information and entertainment. Another contemporary groundbreaking technological development was the popularization of sound film. While in the first years of the Great Depression, Americans did not visit movie theaters as frequently as prior to the economic crisis, already in the mid 1930s, cinema was one of the favorite forms of entertainment.
MUSIC
Trends in popular music reflected social processes triggered by the economic crisis. Although the Great Migration of African Americans from the South (initiated around 1910) slowed down with the onset of the economic depression, hundreds of thousands of black Southerners continued to seek opportunities somewhere else, mostly in nothern cities. With the transfer of people, music created and popularized by African Americans, including jazz, blues, and gospel, became increasingly popular in the North. Despite the existing racial inequalities and the ongoing black civil rights struggle, the American origins of these musical genres fit in the narrative of uniquely American cultural contributions. Analogously, American folk music, created and performed by both white performers and musicians of color, attracted mass audiences across the country. With their focus on the plight of ordinary Americans, folk songs were now collected and recorded as part of the American legacy by the Library of Congress and artists working for the Works Progress Administration.
The 1920s (known as the "Jazz Age") witnessed the transformation of jazz from its modest African American/New Orleans origin to a global phenomenon. By 1930, new forms and styles developed and swing emerged as a dominant form in American music. Virtuoso soloists often led their swing big bands (thus swing was also known as "big jazz") and their popularity was enormous, also because swing music developed with corresponding swing dance. Live swing bands were broadcast on the radio nationally every evening. Among the most famous bandleaders and arrangers were Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Fletcher Henderson, Earl Hines, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Harry James, and Jimmie Lunceford. The pioneer of jazz music, Louis Armstrong, continued to inspire both mass audiences and fellow musicians. Musical theater also followed the predominant trend and contributed some of the most popular standards of the 1930s, including George and Ira Gershwin's "Summertime," Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's "My Funny Valentine," and Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's "All the Things You Are."
Swing uses a strong rhythm section of double bass and drums as the anchor for a lead section of brass instruments such as trumpets, trombones, saxophones, clarinets, and sometimes stringed instruments such as violin and guitar at medium to fast tempos and a "lilting" swing time rhythm. The time between 1935 and 1946 is known as the Swing Era.
RADIO
The 1930s were the era of the immense popularity of radio. Those Americans who did not own a radio could still access one in their communities through friends or neighbors. Popular content spanned from comedy, with Bob Hope being one of the biggest comedic radio personalities of the time, music, theater, or soap operas, to news and political content. Never before was radio used as such a powerful tool of dissemination of political messages. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt informed about and advocated for New Deal policies in his fairly regular "Fireside chats." His political opponents also used radio to attract their supporters. Huey Long and Charles Coughlin, FDR's two most fervent populist critics, built their vast popular support through radio shows that attracted tens of millions of Americans. In 1938, Orson Welles' famous broadcast of War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells caused panic among the show's listeners who feared that the conflict between humans and aliens (the subject of Wells' novel) was real. Although historians debate over how wide the audience of the show was and thus how widespread the panic could be, the episode demonstrates the incredible power of radio broadcast at the time.
Fireside chat on government and capitalism (September 30, 1934),
Franklin D. Roosevelt at the White House in Washington, D.C., delivering a national radio address in 1934. National Archives and Records Administration
HOLLYWOOD
1930 marks the beginning of what is considered to be the 'golden age' of Hollywood, a period which lasted through the 1940s. The studio system was at its height, with studios having great control over creative decisions. While in the first years of the Great Depression all the major studios experienced losses (much less people went to see movies and ticket prices decreased), already in the mid-1930s, they began to record profits.
A lasting example of the studio influence was the Motion Picture (or Hollywood) Production Code of 1930 (known also as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, who was the president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America). In response to a number of scandals in the 1920s and under the pressure of Christian leaders and organizations, the studios adopted a series of topics that should be avoided (e.g., strictly defined sexual content but also ridicule of clergy) and guidelines for how certain topics should be depicted (e.g., a kiss could not last longer than three seconds). The code was not strictly implemented until 1934, when the Production Code Administration was established. The PCA enforced the code by reviewing and making suggestions on all studio scripts before they went into production, then doing the same with all completed films before issuing a PCA certificate. Directors frequently found a way to manipulate the codes that were enforced more and more loosely during the post-World War period and finally abandoned in the 1960s.
As the late 1920s witnessed the popularization and commercialization of a sound film, both popular and more ambitious cinema flourished in the 1930s. A number of popular genres, including gangster films, musicals, comedies, or monster movies, attracted mass audiences, regardless of the economic crisis. Careers of some of the iconic Hollywood's performers also flourished in the 1930s, including Greta Garbo, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Mae West, the Marx Brothers, Errol Flynn (best known for his role as Robin Hood), or child star Shirley Temple. Charlie Chaplin, the greatest star of the silent era, successfully transitioned into the sound film.
Additionally to more popular and low-budget genres, the most acclaimed works of the period were much more ambitious and expensive films with epic stories in their center. Adaptations of classic or best-selling literary works, biographies of famous individuals, or big adventure movies were the most common examples. Among them are such classics of American cinema as King Kong (1933), Anna Karenina (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Gone With the Wind (1939), or Grapes of Wrath (1940).
1936 SUMMER OLYMPICS
The 1936 Summer Olympics was an international multi-sport event that was held in Berlin, Germany. To outdo the Los Angeles games of 1932, the Nazis built a new 100,000-seat track and field stadium, six gymnasiums, and many other smaller arenas. The games were the first to be televised, and radio broadcasts reached 41 countries. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, a favorite of Adolf Hitler, was commissioned by the German Olympic Committee to film the Games for $7 million. Her film, entitled Olympia, pioneered many of the techniques now common in the filming of sports.
The 1936 Summer Olympics was an international multi-sport event that was held in Berlin, Germany. To outdo the Los Angeles games of 1932, the Nazis built a new 100,000-seat track and field stadium, six gymnasiums, and many other smaller arenas. The games were the first to be televised, and radio broadcasts reached 41 countries. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, a favorite of Adolf Hitler, was commissioned by the German Olympic Committee to film the Games for $7 million. Her film, entitled Olympia, pioneered many of the techniques now common in the filming of sports.
Hitler saw the Games as an opportunity to promote his government and its ideals of racial supremacy. The United States considered boycotting the Games, as to participate in the festivity might be considered a sign of support for the Nazi regime and its anti-Semitic policies. However, others argued that the Olympic Games should not reflect political views, but rather be strictly a contest of the greatest athletes. The 1936 Summer Olympics ultimately boasted the largest number of participating nations of any Olympics to that point. However, some individual athletes, including Jewish Americans Milton Green and Norman Cahners, chose to boycott the Games.