political aspects of the great depression. but what i want to do today is to show that the great depression is a big event and has influences and consequences that go beyond just politics and go beyond just the stock market crash and the economic woes. and i'm going to try to spend our time divide evenly among these three aspects of american culture in the 1930s. how does it affect the family. and, again, probably you do and even i do sometimes, we just think oh, the family is static throughout history. it never changes. but if you stop and think about it, even in american history, the nature of the family is going to change, and it's going to change rather dramatically in the 1930s. the role that religion plays in american history is going to vary from decade to decade, from different eras to different eras. and there is a surprising development in religion during the 1930s, which some would relate to the great depression. also in american history, and we have touched on this in different chapters, and we'll continue to look at it as we get into world war ii and the 1950s film is a good way to have a window onto the past, and if you look at film, movies in the 1930s, there is a remarkable development in the film industry that i think is worth noting and taking a few moments to study. it tells us a great deal about the influence of hollywood, but it also tells us a great deal about the great depression, because no matter how bad things got in the great depression, you could escape and go and see a movie. so these are the things we are going to look at. anybody recognize the picture here. we're going to get to this film later. i thought this is a good symbol for what we're talking about. here's dorothy in a family farm in kansas. her problem doesn't seem that traumatic or earth shattering. i think her neighbor lady was threatening her dog, and i like the line at the beginning with dorothy says, she just wants to get away from trouble. and so basically, that backs, i think, a good way of understanding people in the 1930s. obviously, they have bigger trouble then keeping their dog safe. but she discovers in trying to get away from trouble, sometimes it's going to end up being in more trouble.. we have looked at some of these if you remember, when we talked about the new deal and the depression from the economic and political angles. so a little bit of this is a review. but think about it in terms of how it affects families. that is going to be the angle that i'm going to express here for a few minutes. about 80% of the banks were closed. on the eve of franklin roosevelt's inauguration in early 1933. and that is hard to imagine today. the national unemployment rate, about 25%, and we're going to see in a moment if you lived in cities, the unemployment rate is probably going to be higher, maybe as high as a third. maybe 33 or 34% unemployment. and what is it today? just by way of contrast? i think i heard the other day or a couple days ago a couple days ago, the unemployment dipped below 5%? so if you're part of that below 5%, that's an important problem for you, but most americans don't really worry about this. imagine, with that high rate in the 1930s. obviously a problem. another way of looking at that same statistic is not just about individuals, individuals who have no income. it's basically going to be about families that have no income. and the way you need to think about that is that the key at the time is, adult, male, heads of households. because middle class, married women in america, do not yet work outside the home. it was simply well, not economically necessary. it was not socially acceptable. and i think in your reading for friday, when you look at world war ii, you're going to discover with the stereotype of rosy the richer. that is going to dramatically change when you get middle class married women and poor women who have been working all along that is a given. but we're talking about married middle class. during world war ii and afterwards they're going to be working outside the homes so when you look at that you're thinking about households with only one income and that income is missing. you typically don't even have teenagers working or earning money unless maybe they have a paper route or something. so when you think about those figures, when you think about it in terms of families it is obviously a big problem. the medium family income in the 1930s, was about $22 a week and basically they are the lucky ones. because they do have an income as a family. another way of looking at those statistics and thinking about them, and some of this i think is still true. it's not just a matter of the money but your job is a critical part of your identity. the way you look at yourself. the way you give value to who you are as a person. this is often determined by your employment and so think about the psychological pain, especially if you are a father and a husband and you are one of the 25 or 33% that does not have a job. and, at the moment in the early 1930s, there is no unemployment insurance. and there is no welfare as we know it today. so when you are out of work, the circumstances are pretty dire for you. when you think about all of those different angles. another complication for the family, given those statistics, people in the 1930s and right on through world war ii are marrying an older age. and the reason they would do that, we'll, if you don't have a job and you basically have aspirations for maybe graduating from college, and you have those priorities that have not been achieved, what is going to get postpone probably? marriage is going to be postponed. until you can get a job or until you can finish, in fact i think if you look at your maybe great grandparents. if you can figure out if they were married in the 1930s. and then try to figure out their age. the man may be closer to 30. and the woman may be closer to 25. and that is pretty old, typically for americans getting married before the great depression. so even starting families, that is going to be a problem because of those statistics. we are going to stick with this picture for a bit here. and we mentioned some of these when we talk about the new deal the other day but i want to look at it in terms of a family and how does that affect the family and this is a pennsylvania farm family. this is in the 1930s. and you might be thinking that they don't look too distressed or too for. they are dressed up because it just came home from church on a sunday. and just it's interesting to me, i noted, the farm mother, wife does not have had on. typically in that time period, you see women, middle class women and above wearing a hat. both indoors and outdoors that's typical through the 1950s. and the farmer husband, he does have a hat. and he is following the pattern of the day. does anybody know who got men away from wearing hats? because he basically didn't wear one when he ran for president. also during the inauguration festivities? john kennedy. so in the 1960s basically, men and women got over wearing hats indoors and outdoors. so let's look at how some of these agencies might affect some of these people in the families. first of all, they are not the main targets for these agencies. the main targets for the wpa, remember the works progress administration, where the government basically creates jobs. they are targeting more people in the cities. because it is in the cities where you have a higher rate of unemployment. but it is theoretically possible, that wpa could be an option for the husband, the father. in terms of a government job, temporary job, maybe working on a construction project and getting paid for that. of course the government expects them to spend the money, and the idea is that all of that is going to what, it's going to stimulate the economy. and the house wife mother, she also may have been eligible for work relief. to use the language of the day. and of course the sounds very sexist today, but there were wpa sewing rooms. where you would have the federal government recruiting women in a building, maybe an abandoned factory building, and maybe in coordination with textile companies they would have sewing rooms. or she might have a wpa job working in a public library. so the targets for the children, that's going to be the nya and the ccc. the national youth administration and the civilian conservation core. v nya is basically an agency that gives what we would call today, white collar, clerical jobs. given to both male and female young people. it was open to both genders and they might do things like work in a public school library after school. and they would be paid by the nya, the federal government. and so, the young lady in the family, possibly, would be eligible for that kind of opportunity. the civilian conservation core was, i, think the most popular, most popular new deal agencies among families, especially among parents. young adult men were basically sent by the federal government to work in national parks. they might do conservation projects or build picnic shelters. and they would actually live in those camps. in the forest. they would get paid about $30 a month, and the reason the parents liked that, 25 of that $30 is going to be sent home to the parents. so you can see why the parents would be happy with the ccc. but i think our young fellows here are probably a little young for the ccc but who knows, they may have joined it in the late 30s or early 40s. it's going to hang around and existence, really right on up until world war ii. so, you have those opportunities for those foreign families. the other thing the most obvious one, the aaa agricultural adjustment agency. this family, and maybe one of the reasons they look a little more prosperous than they otherwise would look maybe they're participating in the aaa the government basically paid farmers to grow less commodities or produce less milk. and they rewarded them with subsidies if they did that. so cutting production and you get paid a subsidy. and the prices of those commodities, they're going to be less of it, the prices are going to go up. so for a couple of years, this works pretty well. and income for farmers in 1934, 1935, income is actually up and i think i mentioned the political problem was though with this in 1935, remember, the supreme court. declared it unconstitutional. so they had to reconfigure it and make it a conservation program. to accomplish the same thing. yep for african american families, ironically, it's going to make life worse for many of them because in the south, we study about agriculture in the south in the late 19th century and it's still true in the early 20th century. a large numbers of african american men, after slavery, became sharecroppers and so they worked for land owners. they were growing cotton. what's going to happen to sharecroppers if you cut back your production of cotton, say by 25%? you're going to need fewer sharecroppers. so many african american families, unlike this white family, many african american families are going to be driven off the land and then what do you do? when you do, basically, as you move to the city. and that's not good, because in the cities, you have unemployment figures remember as high as what, about 33%. so the aaa is not going to work well for everybody for all times. now let's look at what i would argue is probably the biggest legacy of the new deal. and that is social security. and i want us to think about it in terms of how it is going to affect the family. because it dramatically does affect the family. in the 1930s and still affects the family today. probably most of us and even myself, when we think of social security, we think of the main feature of it which is an old age pension fund and we probably think of it mostly when you look at your paycheck. and see the big chunk that has been taken out for that purpose. but social security, if you look at the legislative history of social security, it is one of the most complex pieces of legislation, maybe not quite as complicated as obamacare but it's in that same ballpark in terms of all the different contingencies and different aspects that are included. we are just going to look at some of the main features of social security. so you have the old age pension fund, then you have unemployment insurance, and again, thinking about the higher rate of unemployment that make sense. but look at the next two. these are probably unless you benefit from these directly most people don't even think about them don't even know about them. old age assistants, oaa, old age assistance and aid to dependent children, aid to dependent children. social security has passed in 1935. social security act passed in 1935. what if you are 65 or 70 years old when the legislation is passed? you obviously are too old, probably, or maybe even unable to work. so you can't contribute, you can't get into the system. but you still need help. that's the purpose for the oaa. people who get sort of caught in between when the social security program is going to start. the law is passed in 1935, deductions from paychecks doesn't really start until 1937. and benefits, they thought originally the benefits wouldn't start until 1942, they later change that up to 1940. so my point is, you're going to have some needy people before they can get real money from social security. and how do you do that? you do it with the old age assistance. what do you do it households where there is no breadwinner, there is no father or husband, a person who can get into social security by working and contributing. what do you do with a mother and two children and, in 1935 and social security, if you look at it in terms of old age pension fund and unemployment insurance, is not going to be helpful for them at all. so aid to dependent children basically is a grant of money to widows and orphans. it also includes people that we today, we would use the word disability but in the language of the 1930s, people who are blind, crippled which is interesting because of the exercise you did on wednesday with roosevelt, or on monday, excuse me, for roosevelts. a victim of polio, paralyzed. so crippled, and people who had other illnesses, sicknesses. what happens to them? they can't work and participate in social security. so you have basically a grant of money for them. the other thing that you need to realize about social security is at first, it's only going to cover about half of the workers. it is going to exclude, for example, unskilled workers. and self employed. so in the coming decades, i think by the 1950s, they get around to covering most people in the workforce. so only about half the workers and the original deduction is going to be, i think, a whopping 1% of your income. so social security sounds radical and for american politics in the time period, it is. by today standards, though, and by european standards, it's quite modest. francis perkins, secretary of labor and notice which she is wearing. she's following the style of the day. anybody know the superlative that she gets an american history? she is the first woman to serve in the cabinet. and she's going to be the secretary of labor for the entire roosevelt presidency, 1933 to 1945. and there is basically the idea that, among historians and people at the time, that she gets the lion's share of the credit for social security. and let me read a quote from her, the real roots of the social security act were in the great depression of 1929, nothing else would bump the american people into a social security system except something so shocking, so terrifying as that. depression. so again, if social security is a rather dramatic step in the 1930s, the reason for it is, when you have a crisis, an economic crisis on the scale that we do in the 1930s, then you would expect a remedy that would be equal to the crisis. important to the development of social security are going to be some amendments that are going to be added in 1939, and basically, what happens here, they are going to expand the dependent and survivor benefits. of the adc, we talked about a moment ago, a lot of those are going to be created, they will create more categories and more benefits. and some would say, in the history of social security, this is one of the most important ones, most important development for families. let me give you some statistics here to show the scale of this. according to the social security administration, since 1940, 1940 ends up being the first year that people are getting funds. the social security program has awarded benefits to more than 41 million children. so we think of social security, we think of old people. but 41 million children, approximately half of whom have received benefits as a result of the parents death. approximately 25 million widows or widowers have been awarded benefits. and if you think about your family, or your extended family. there may be people in your family who have under certain circumstances benefited from this. to finish up here, on social security, what's the significance of it? it's going to change the american family. let's look at how it's going to do that. the family is going to change from the elderly living with adult children. and again if this was sociology we would call that a white, and extended family, where you have the elderly parent living with their adult children. or, what's also going to be pretty dire, you have the elderly living in depends on what part of the country you come from, where i came from in the rural south, we called it a county home. in some places, it's known as the poor house. in some places, probably have north, it may be known as the all-ms. house. but it's basically for the elderly who are destitute. and they have no other support so they end up in these county homes. that basically is going to be eventually a eliminated thanks to social security. so you're going to get the elderly out of the home, living with their adult children and you're going to get the elderly destitute out of the homes houses. because now, they can have some sort of independent existence because of the benefits from social security. also, social security is going to help institutionalize retirement in america. you have the elderly parents, living alone. and they get income from social security. retirement becomes a formal system. a normal system in american culture. and that basically is new. and the main reason for it is social security. again this doesn't happen immediately in 1935. this is going to take a few decades, because as i said earlier, only about half of the workers are covered. so you have to get more people involved in the system. and eventually, that is what it is going to happen. you have independents for the elderly. and some people would say, they would not probably articulate this. probably would not want to say this directly to your parents, but one historian who studied social security came up with the conclusion that there was the kind of implicit generational bargain. adult children are willing to pay the payroll taxes as a way to care for their parents. rather than, the alternative, which would be having their parents living in their household. so social security becomes a means of independence, not only for their elderly parents, but it also means independence for the adult children as well. so that's a pretty big change for the family. now let's look at the role of religion. if you look at american history, there are times in which historians will argue that external events affect religion. just one example would be the great awakening. they cite certain things that are happening in the secular world. and it contributes to a revival. here we have one example, people of faith. how does it affect african americans? african americans are in the midst of what is known as the great migration. they are moving from the south to the north. to the industrial urban midwest, the west coast, and that migration is going to slow down during the 1930s for obvious reasons. nothing else, jobs are not as plentiful in places that they are going to. and so you have not great significant changes for them in religion except those that are living in northern urban areas. they are going to create some churches, those are going to take over old stores, so you have independent store front store front churches, they become popular. in the african american community in the 1930s. i think the only significant new religious group starts in detroit in the 1930. the nation of islamic. -- founds the black muslims for the nation of islamic. and other than that life pretty much goes on americans worship alone there are self segregation on sunday morning in churches. this may be a bit of a surprise to you, as you think about our religion in america in the 1930s. the major protestant denominations are going to decline. that's in the 1930s. does anybody know what church we're looking at here? this is saint philippe's episcopal church in charleston south carolina. so denominations like the episcopal church, presbyterian, methodist, the main line or establishment churches. if you look at any major category, attendants, income what they are giving. in virtually every category they are going down during the 1930s. if you live in the 1930s, i don't think billy graham is not as visible publicly as he used to be. he's very elderly and not well. but in the 1930s, there was a visible minister in the media and that would be harry emerson fosdick. and he is a liberal participant he's a liberal protestant. and this man the idea is that he would deny many of the supernatural aspects of christianity. such as, bodily resurrection of christ. he is the pastor at riverside church in manhattan. in new york city. and what he is focusing on and what his church is focusing on in the 1930s, you could predict that is caring for people in economic need. so more of an outgrowth of what is known as the social gospel. instead of an emphasis on the individual being converted. meeting needs of society. so, harry, emmerson fosdick he was on the radio, he was on the broadcast radio program known as national vespers. he wrote about 40 books. and that has created a bit of confusion. you would think that if your church is or if the liberal protestant churches are declining in attendance and that they are basically their influence would be declining but that is really not true and that's not true because men like fosdick and some others are writing books. they are publishing magazines and writing articles in magazines and they are being interviewed by the media. and like fosdick they are on the radio. so even though their numbers are down their influence is still pretty strong. and reinhold niebuhr is very prominent in the 1930s. this is his book, published in 1932. very influential. a moral man. and that's what it is moral man and immoral society. he is technically a liberal protestant, but he's a bit more realistic than some of the others. he is more concerned about for example like before he went to the theological seminary as -- he was a pastor. and he was able to work with blue-collar workers, union members, and helping them gain a voice in society. so he is championing the working class. and he's also a bit a bit more realistic in some of his theological discussions. he would talk about and celebrate the person of christ. he talks about evil in the 1930s. and there is a lot of evil if you think about what's going on in europe. many liberal protestants did not really want to deal with it. but reinhold niebuhr is willing to attack some of the fascists and nazis in europe and basically call it evil. so he is a bit tougher than some of the others. what is going on among evangelicals? well evangelicals they are increasing influence in the 1930s if you think about conservative protestant denominations and you look at their numbers in the 1930s, they are increasing. and that is churches, denominations, there are colleges, mission boards. so evangelicals in the 1930s are actually doing better statistically than the liberal protestants. but before we get too far, if you have studied statistics about evangelicals in the last seven or eight years, does anybody know at the pattern is? we are basically going down in terms of numbers. in terms of giving. but in the 1930s, and here is one of the reasons. charles e. fuller he's an evangelist on the radio. he is also a pastor in orange county california. this anybody ever wonder how ronald reagan got elected governor of california? when you think about it today there's sort of a disconnect. well, he and people like him, aren't moving to southern california. there is a migration of southern evangelicals into southern california. and so, preachers, pastors like fuller our very popular and they build churches, they build colleges and become influential. so by the 1960s, you could have someone like ronald reagan being elected governor of california. so here is the most popular catholic figure probably of the 1930s. father charles coffin. he also is a radio preacher and he has a mixed message he is meeting the needs of people and very concerned in terms of social justice. but he has a crazy foreign policy ideas. he is by the early 1940s sympathetic to the nazis and the fascists. and that will get him in trouble with the federal government. it will also get him in trouble with the catholic church. and his mission tells him to be quiet, he obeys. and he goes off the air. but he was very very popular in the 1930s. so now quickly, in closing, for 25 cents typically you could go to a movie in the 1930s. and you could indulge in what historians call heightened escapism. and let's look very briefly at some of the movies that i think resonate with the 30s. and you have to remember, i would argue that movies have power. and you can use them as historical evidence. they are not perfect, books are not perfect always either, and movies can do wet, they can reflect a time period. and they can also influence the time period. so with that in mind, let's look at some of these. the one on the right is probably more famous. the film comes out in 1940. i think the novel. and that is john steinbeck his novel came out 1939. but they are in oklahoma and they have trouble with the drought and the farmers foreclosed, they hid for california and they thought things would get better but actually it got worse. so you have a tale of tragedy during the great depression this one, on the left, is less well-known. this dates back to 1934 and don't be confused by the title, this is actually a very liberal radical application one critic has said of the social gospel it's about a couple living in the city they can't make ends meet and so they go and live off farm that's been foreclosed and they get other people who passed by, who don't have jobs, and they try to make a triumph out of this for closed form. i it's basically, in some ways, an attack on capitalism. king of the door who is the director had a lot of trouble getting the money to make it. but i think last year it was put on the library of congress film registry, which means it is a film that has cultural significance and worthy of preservation. so it's one, again radical version of how people struggle during the great depression. this is one of my favorites, this is claudette colbert, a widow and her housekeeper is also a widow. and they each have a daughter. they started a pancake business. there is obviously the racial stereotyping there. but it also deals with the question of racial passing, which is not something people talked about in the 1930s and we're just beginning to talk about it today. but the housekeeper's daughter is very light skinned and she wants to pass as a white person in public school and that leads to, as you can imagine, all kinds of trauma. but they become very wealthy from the pancake business. so it's a nice parable of the 1930s, i think, and the great depression. a little more familiar, i think a lot of people think about gone with the wind and it's only about the 19th century south but in many ways it's also about the 1930s. and its popularity. this is a crowd, i believe, in raleigh, north carolina, and they don't look very poor, the way they're dressed. and they're waiting patiently to get into see gone with the wind. so there's something about scarlett o'hara's struggling that does resonate with the 1930s. and we're basically left here with where we began. the wizard of oz. again, you think about the 1930s, this actually, in fact, we had an exercise dealing with this early in the semester. the novel actually is about the economic woes of the 18 90s. the film basically becomes a story that resonates with the economic woes of the 1930's and so if you can imagine, being in the audience and thinking about it. and how it's going to fit, i think, the big lesson comes at the end when dorothy discovers what, after all that travel and trying to get help and solving all of her troubles. she finally comes to the conclusion that, what's the line at the end, there is no place like home. which to some people in the 1930s, may have meant, well maybe the great depression was not as bad as it seemed after all. any questions? obviously, if you need to leave, please feel free. you may want to use the backdoor there. if anybody has any questions, i'll be happy to entertain them. i actually have some information about some other movies that came out in the 1930s and 1939. almost all of them are considered classics. anybody, any questions? >> the aaa, the agricultural administration. who do you think it helped out more, the individual families for the nation as a whole? >> well, it depends on which when you're talking about. the one from 1933 to 1935, worked well for the families. and it worked well for the farmers, it worked well for the farmers in the south especially. so as they are helped, that's going to help the national picture. >> so the one from 32 to 35 directly help the family get more income because they were directly being given, >> they got income from two sources, they would get bigger, higher price further -- at the market. and they would get a subsidy check from the government. yep as a premium to encourage them. roosevelt figured you are asking farmers to do something that is sort of counter intuitive. to grow it lasts and that's going to help you make more money. so they figured, i think figured correctly. the only way are going to get farmers to cooperate is to pay them and so, farmers face with this proposition, okay, it may look stupid but i'm not stupid, you're going to pay me to our class, basically. and they would have referendum on this with the farmers. the cotton farmers got to vote on it. and typically, they vote for overwhelmingly and it does work. what happens is, after the supreme court declares it unconstitutional, they have to rig it and make it sound like a conservation. you're not planting as much money, as much crops to get more money. you're doing it for conservation so it was called soil conservation. >> 35. makes sense, thank you. >> and you buddy else? any questions?

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