Obviously important. We have started our one in our , i think we met last friday, we dealt with the new deal. We have talked about the aspects and political 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 and go beyond just politics the stock market crash. I will try to spend our time divided evenly among these three aspects of American Culture in the 1930s. How does it affect the family . And again probably you and i think the family is just static throughout history. Never changes. But if you stop and think about it, even in American History, the nature of the family is going to change. It will change rather dramatically in the 1930s. The role that religion plays in American History is going to var y from the good from decades. There is a Surprising Development in religion during the 1930s that somewhat relate to the Great Depression. , and weAmerican History will continue to look at it as we get into world war ii and the 1950s, film is a good way to have a window into the past. Theou look at movies in 1930s, there is a Remarkable Development in the Film Industry that i think is worth noting. It tells us a great deal about the influence of hollywood, but also tells us a great deal about the Great Depression. No matter how bad things got in the Great Depression, you could escape and see a movie. So these are the things were going to look at. Anybody recognize the picture here . We will get to this film. I thought this was a good symbol of what we are talking about. Here is dorothy and a family farm in kansas. And her problem does not seem that dramatic or earth shattering. I think her neighbor was threatening her dog. I like the line at the beginning where dorothy says, she just wants to get away from trouble. That becomes a good way of understanding people in the 1930s. A beastly they have bigger trouble than keeping their dog safe. But she discovers that in trying to get away from trouble, sometimes it ends up being in more trouble. These. Looked at some of when we talked about the new deal and depression from the economic and political angle so a bit of this is a review. Think about it in terms of how it affects families. That is going to be the angle i will stress year. I will stress here. 80 of the banks were closed on the eve of Franklin Roosevelt inauguration in 1933. That is hard to imagine today. The National Unemployment rate was about 25 . We will see in a moment, if you lived in a citys, the Unemployment Rate is going to be higher. Third,s high as one maybe 33 unemployment. What is it today, by way of contrast . A couple days ago unemployment dipped below 5 . 5 , that ise below an important problem for you. The most americans dont really wear about this. Theine that higher rate in 1930s. Another way of looking the same statistic, it is not just about individuals who have no income, it is not families that have no income. The key at the time is adult male heads of households. Because middleclass married women in america do not yet work outside the home. It was simply not economically necessary. It was not socially acceptable. In your reading for friday, when you look at world war ii, you are going to discover with the stereotype of rosie the riveter, that will automatically change. You get middleclass married women, for women who have been working all along. Poor women have been working all along. But we are talking about married, middleclass women during world war ii, working outside the home now. You were talking about households with only one income. And that income is missing. You typically dont even have teenagers working or earning money unless they have a paper. Oute when you think about those figures in terms of families, it is a big problem. The median Family Income in the mid1930s was about 22 a week. And basically they are the lucky ones because they had an income. Some of this i think is still true. ,ts not just a matter of money but your job is a critical part of your identity, the way you look at yourself and give value to who you are as a person. 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. Welfare as weo know it today. Thehen you are out of work, circumstances are pretty dire for you. Complication for the family, given those statistics people in the 1930s and through world war ii are varying at an older age. ,he reason they would do that if you dont have a job, and you basically have aspirations for graduating from college and has not achieved that, what will get postponed . Marriage is going to be postponed until you can get a job or until you can finish school. If you look at great parents, if you can figure out if they were married in the 1930s and then , theo figure out their age man may be closer to 30 and the woman might be closer to 25. For americans old getting married before the Great Depression. Even starting families are going to be a problem because of those statistics. We will stick with this picture for a bit. How does that affects the family . This is a pennsylvania farm family in the 1930s. You might be thinking, they dont look too distressed or poor. They are just up because they just came home from church on sunday. The form of mother the four mother the farm mother wife does not have a hat on. Usually you see middleclass women and above wearing hats outdoors. That will be typical through the 1950s. The farmer husband does have a hat. He is following the pattern of the day. Know who got men away from wearing hats, because he basically did not wear one when he ran for president . John kennedy. In the 1960s we basically get over men and women wearing hats indoors and outdoors. Lets look at how some of these agencies might affect some in the family. First of all, they are not the main targets for these agencies. The main targets for the wpa, the Works Progress administration, where the government creates jobs they are targeting more in the cities. It is there where you have higher rates of unemployment. It is theoretically possible that the wpa could be an option ar the husband in terms of government job, temporary job, working on a construction project. The government expects them to spend the money. And the idea is that it will stimulate the economy. The housewife mother may have been eligible for work relief, to use the light which of the day. This sounds very sexist today, ing there were wpa sewqin rooms. You would have the federal government recruiting women in an abandoned factory building. They would go in coordination with textile companies. They would have sewing rooms. You would have a wpa working in a public library. The children are going to be the nya and ccc. The National Youth administration, and the civilian conservation corps. Nya is basically an agency that gives what we would call white color clerical jobs collar clerical jobs to both male and female young people. It was open to both genders. And they might do things like work and a Public School library, after school, and would be paid by the mia paid by the nya, the federal government. The young lady in the family would be available for that kind of opportunity. The civilian conservation corps was the most popular new deal agency among families, especially among parents. Were basically sent by the federal government to work in national parks. They might do conservation projects or build picnic shelters. They would actually live in those camps in the forest. We would get paid about 30 a month. Parents liked that 25 about 30 will be sent home to the parents. You can see why the parents would be happy with the ccc. I think our young fellows here, probably a little young for the ccc, but who knows. They may have joined it in the early 1930s or early 1940s. It will hang on until about world war ii. You have those opportunities. The aaa agricultural adjustment administration. This family, and maybe one of the reasons they look more prosperous than they would otherwise look maybe they are participating in the aaa. Remember that the government basically paid farmers to grow commodities or produce less milk. They rewarded them with subsidies, if they did that. You get paid a subsidy. Commoditiesf those are going to go up. For a couple of years, this works pretty well. 19341935 farmers in is actually up. I think i mentioned the political problem roosevelt had in 1935. The Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. So they had to reconfigure it and make it a Conservation Program to accomplish the same thing. Families,namerican ironically its going to be worse for them. In the south, we studied about agriculture in the late 19th century. It is still true in the early 20th century. Large numbers of africanamerican men after slavery became sharecroppers. Landownersked for who were growing cotton. What will happen to sharecroppers, if you cut back , youproduction of cotton are going to need fewer sharecroppers. Many africanamerican families, unlike this white family, many will be driven off the lens. Driven off the land. Basically you moved to the city, and that is not good because in cities you have unemployment figures that number as high as 33 . Aaa is not going to work well for everybody for all time. Now let us look at what i would argue is probably the biggest legacy of the new deal. That is Social Security. It in us to think about terms of how it is going to because itfamily dramatically does affect the in the 1930s and still affects it today. Probably most of us think of the main feature, which is an Old Age Pension Fund. You think of it when you look at your paycheck, and to see the big chunk taken out for that purpose. , looking at its legislative history, its one of the most complex pieces of legislation. Maybe not quite as complicated as obamacare, but it is in that same ballpark in terms of all the different contingencies and aspects included. We will just look at some of the main features of Social Security. You have the Old Age Pension Fund and you have unemployment insurance. Again, thinking about the high rate of unemployment. But look at the next two. Unless you benefit from these directly, most people dont even think about them or know about them. Old age assistance. Oaa, old age assistance. And aid to dependent children. Social security is passed in 1935. What if you are 65 or 70 years old when the legislation is passed . You are obviously too old or unable to work. So you cant contribute. You cant get into the system. But you still need help. ,hat is the purpose for the oaa people that get caught in between. Passed in 1935, but doesnt start until 1937. And benefits would not start until 1942. They later changed that to 1940. The point is, you will have some needy people before they can get real money from Social Security. And how do you do that . With old age assistance. What do you do with households where there is no breadwinner or husband. Other andou do with a m and if youn in 1935, look at Social Security in terms of Old Age Pension Funds, it will be helpful for them at all. Children is ant grant of money to widows and orphans. Includes people, we would use the word disability. But in the land which of the 1930s, people who were blind, crippled. Roosevelt, a victim of polio, paralyzed. And people who had other sicknesses, what happens to them . They cant work and participate in it Social Security, so you have a great of money for them. Thing you need to realize about Social Security is at first, it is only going to cover about half of the workers. It is going to exclude, for andple unskilled workers self employed. In the coming decades, by the 1950s, they get around to covering most people in the workforce. Only about half the workers and the original deduction is going to be a whopping 1 of your income. Radicalecurity sounds and, for american politics at the time, it is. By todays standards and by european standards, it is quite modest. Frances perkins, secretary of labor. She is following the style of the day. Anybody know the superlative that she gets from American History . She is the first woman to serve in . The cabinet. He will be the secretary of labor for the entire roosevelt presidency. 19331945. There is basically the idea that she gets the lions share of the credit for Social Security. Let me read a quote from her. Roots of the Social Security act in the Great Depression of 1929. Nothing else would have brought the American People into a Social Security system except something so shocking, so terrifying as that depression. Security is a rather dramatic step in the 1930s, the reason for it is when you have a crisis on the scale that we do, then you would expect a remedy that would be equal to the crisis. Important to its development are some imminence that will be added in 1939. Amendments that will be added in 1939. They will expand the dependent and survivor benefits. A lot of those are going to create more categories and more benefits. Some would say in the history of Social Security, this is one of the most important developments for families. Let me give you some statistics. According to the Social Security ministration, since 1940, the first year people are getting funds, the Social Security program has awarded benefits to more than 41 million children. We think of Social Security as old people. 41 million children. Approximately half of whom have received benefits as the result of a parents death. Approximately 25 million widows or widowers have been awarded benefits. If you think about your family or extended family, there may be those in your family that have benefited from this. On Social Security, what is the significance . It is going to change the american family. The adult men living with children, i guess we would call that an extended family in social clt in sociology. You have adult parents living with their adult children, or, what will be pretty dire, you living inrly ruralles out, the south, we called it a county home. It may places up north, be known as the almshouse. It is for the elderly who are destitute. They have no other support. So they end up in these county homes. This will eventually be eliminated thanks to Social Security. So you are going to get the elderly, out of the home living with adult children. And you will get the elderly destitute out of the almshouses. Of they can have some sort independent existence because of the benefits from Social Security. Is going to help institutionalize retirement in america. Parents,the elderly 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. Now, again, this does not happen immediately in 1935. It is going to take a few decades, because as i said earlier, only about half of the so you havecovered, to get more people involved in thatystem, and eventually, is what is going to happen, so ce for thedependen elderly. A lot of people would say they would not articulate this, and you probably would not want to say this directly to your , that there was a kind of implicit, generational bargain. I dont 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 is a pretty big change for the family. Now, lets 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 happening in the secular world, and it contributes to a revival. Example,have, what people of faith, how does it affect africanamericans . Thecanamericans are in 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. Are not ase, jobs plentiful in the places that you are going to, and so have not great, significant for them in religion, except those living in more northern urban areas, they are going to create some churches that are going to basically take over old stores, so you have independent storefront churches become popular in africanamerican communities in the 1930s. I think about the only significant new religious group starts in detroit in 1930, the nation of islam, i like to elijah mohammed. Basically worship alone. Churches. Ning in this may be a bit of a surprise to you. As you think about religion in , the majorthe 1930s protestant denominations are going to decline in the 1930s. Anybody know what Gorgeous Church we are looking at here . This is Saint Philips episcopal in charleston, south carolina. Denominations like the episcopal church, presbyterian, the mainline or some would say establishment churches. If you look at any major income, attendance, int they are giving virtually every category, they are going down during the 1930s. If you lived in the 1930s, i do not think billy graham is not as visible publicly as he used to be. He is frail, elderly, and not 1930s, ain the visible minister in the media would be Harry Hammerson Fosdick , and he is a good example of a and whatrotestant, makes somebody a liberal protestant, they are not all the same, but for this man probably, the idea that he would deny many of the supernatural aspects of christianity, such as the bodily resurrection of christ. He is the pastor at Riverside Church in manhattan in new york , and what he is focusing on, and what his church is focusing on in the 1930s that you can predict is caring for people in economic need, so more and outgrowth of what is known as the social gospel instead of an emphasis on the individual being converted, Meeting Needs so Harry Emerson fox fosdick was on the radio known as national vespers, and he wrote about 40 books, which has created a little bit of confusion. You would think that if your ,hurches, if the liberal protestant churches are declining in attendance and giving that their influence would be declining, but that is really not true, and it is not true because men like fosdick and others are writing books. They are publishing magazines, and they are writing articles in magazines. They are being interviewed by fosdick on the radio. So even though their numbers are down, their influence generally is still pretty strong. Reinhold niebuhr is probably the most famous, very prominent in the 1930s. This is his book, published in. 932, their influential society. And immoral he is a protestant, but he is a little more realistic and some of the others. Is more concerned about, for example, before he went to union some a logical union seminary, he was willing to work with bluecollar workers, union members, and helping them gain a voice in society, so he is ,hampioning the working class and he is also a bit more realistic in some of his theological discussions. He will talk about and celebrate the person of christ. He talks about evil in the 1930s, and there is a lot of evil. You think of what is going on in germany. Many liberal protestants did not want to deal with it. Reinhold niebuhr is willing to attack some of the nazis and and so he is tougher than some of the others. And what is going on among evangelicals. Evangelicals, they are increasing in influence in the 1930s. He think about conservative, protestant denominations, and you look at their numbers in the 1930s. They are increasing. And that is churches, denominations, their colleges, their mission boards, so evangelicals in the 1930s actually are doing better statistically than the liberal protestants, but before we get too smug, if you have studied statistics about evangelicals in the last seven or eight years, anybody know what the pattern is . Down inasically going terms of numbers, in terms of giving, but in the 1930s, and here is one of the reasons Charles Fuller is an evangelist on the radio. He is also a asked her in orange county, california. Anybody ever wonder how Ronald Reagan got elected governor of california there . When you think about it today, there is sort of a disconnect. Are, he and people like him moving to southern california. There is a migration of southern evangelicals into southern california, and so preachers, fuller, are very popular, and they build churches. They build colleges, and they become influential, so by the 1960s, you could have someone like Ronald Reagan being elected governor of california. Here is the most popular catholic figure probably of the coughlin. Ther charles justice, but he also has a kind of crazy foreignpolicy ideas, and he is by the early 1940s sympathetic ,o the nazis and the fascists and that is going to get him into trouble with the federal government. It also gets in trouble with the catholic church, and his bishop acyclic tells him to be quiet, and he always land goes off the air, but he was very, very popular in the 1930s. Closing, 425 in cents, typically, you could go to a movie in the 1930s, and you could indulge in what historians call heightened , and lets look very briefly at some of the movies that i think resonate with the 1930s, and you have to remember i would argue that movies use themr, and you can as historical evidence. They are not perfect. Books are not perfect always either. Movies can do what they can reflect in the time period, and they can also influence the time period, so with that in mind, lets look at some of these. The one on the right is probably more famous. The film comes out in 1940. I think the novel, John Steinbecks novel, came out the year before, 1939, but they are, i believe, in oklahoma, and they have trouble, the drought, the farm is foreclosed, and they and theycalifornia, thought things would get better, but, actually, they get worse, so you have a till of tragedy during the Great Depression. Lessone on the left is wellknown known. This dates back to 1934, and dont be confused by the title. This is actually a very liberal, radical application, one critic has said, of the social gospel. It is about a couple living in the city. They cannot make ends meet, so they go and live on a farm that has been foreclosed, and they get other people who pass by do not have jobs, and they try to make a triumph out of this foreclosed farm. It basically, in some ways, is an attack on capitalism. 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 is, again, a radical version of how people struggled during the Great Depression. His is one of my favorites this is clotted Colbert Claudette colbert. She is a widow, and there is another widow, and there is racial stereotyping. It also deals with racial passing, which is not something people talked about in the 1930s, and we are just beginning to talk about it today, but the housekeepers 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, that they become very wealthy from the pancake business, so it is a nice parable of the 1930s, i think, and the Great Depression. I think more familiar, a lot of people think about gone with the wind and it is only about the 19th century south. In many ways, it is also about the 1930s and its popularity. Crowd, i believe, in raleigh, north carolina, and they do not look very poor the way they are dressed, and they are waiting patiently to get in to see gone with the wind, so there is something about scarlet struggling that does resonate with the 1930s. Heree are basically left 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 is actually about the 1890s. Woes of the the film basically becomes a story that resonates with the economic woes of the 1930s, and so if you can imagine being in the audience and thinking about and how it is going to fit, i think the big lesson comes at the end, when dorothy discovers after all of that travel in trying to get help and solving all of her troubles she finally comes to the conclusion what is the line at the end . ,here 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. Ll any questions . Please feel free. You may want to use the back door there. If anybody has any questions, i will be happy to entertain them. Informationave some about some other movies that 1930s. In the them arealmost all of considered classics. Anybody . Any questions . Administration. Who does that help more, the individual families or the nation as a whole . Carl well, it depends on which one you are talking about. 1935 worked 1933 to well for families, and it worked well for farmers. It worked well for the farmers in the south, especially, so as they are helped, it is going to help the national picture. From 1935 directly helped the family get more income, because they were getting from two resources. They would get higher prices for their cows at the market, and they would get a subsidy check from the government. A premium to encourage them. Roosevelt figured youre asking farmers to do something that is sort of counterintuitive, to going to, and that is help you make more money, so i think they figured, and i think figured correctly, the only way to get farmers to cooperate is to pay them, so farmers faced ith this proposition of, ok, may look stupid, but i am not stupid. You are going to pay me to work less, basically. Referenda ond have this for the farmers to move on it, and typically, they move for it overwhelmingly, and it does work. What happens is after the Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional, they have to make it sound like conservation. You are not planting as much to get more money. You are doing it for conservation. So conservation. When was it ruled unconstitutional . After . Carl 1935. Any questions . [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer join us every saturday night at 8 00 p. M. As we join students in college fromrooms to hear topics the American Revolution to 9 11. Lectures in history are also available as podcasts. Website, cspan. Org history podcast, or download them from itunes. Announcer could five g mobile connectivity be right around the corner . Monday, on the communicators, Kathleen Abernathy will discuss why 5g is needed for the internet of things, self driving cars, and the expansion of virtual reality. She is joined by a senior editor, howard buskirk. Where thise have got is going, and we will push ahead to assure that we maintain Global Leadership in the wireless arena, and i think that is terrific for our country
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