1930s entertainment essay
Warning : This resource may contain references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may have passed away. In , Margaret Preston — won a silver medal at the Paris International Exhibition and became the first female artist to be commissioned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales to paint a self-portrait. She also published what has been described as a modernist feminist autobiographical essay titled From Eggs to Electrolux. In , James Gleeson — exhibited with the Contemporary Art Society in its inaugural exhibition in Melbourne.
Life for the Average Family During the Great Depression
The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in modern history. As the economy boomed, new innovations allowed for more leisure time and the creation of a consumer society. But the economic depression that followed those boon years profoundly affected the daily life of American families, in ways large and small.
Even the affluent faced severe belt-tightening. Four years after stock market crash , during the bleakest point of the Great Depression, about a quarter of the U. Those that were lucky enough to have steady employment often saw their wages cut or their hours reduced to part-time. Even upper-middle class professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, saw their incomes drop by as much as 40 percent.
Families who had previously enjoyed economic security suddenly faced financial instability or, in some cases, ruin. Households embraced a new level of frugality in daily life.
They kept kitchen gardens , patched worn-out clothes and passed on trips to the movies as they privately struggled to retain ownership of a home or automobile. A mother serving dinner in the clean surroundings of a Farm Security Administration camp in Visalia, California, Favorites included chili, macaroni and cheese, soups, and chipped beef on toast. Potlucks, often organized by churches, became a popular way to share food and a cheap form of social entertainment. Many families strived for self-sufficiency by keeping small kitchen gardens with vegetables and herbs.
Experienced gardeners could be seen helping former office workers—still dressed in white button-down shirts and slacks—to cultivate their plots.
Children playing cards in the front yard in Washington, DC, Board games and miniature golf courses thrived. Before the Depression, going to the movie theater was a major pastime. Fewer Americans could afford this luxury after the stock market crashed—so more than one-third of the cinemas in America closed between and Often, people chose to spend time at home.
Neighbors got together to play cards, and board games such as Scrabble and Monopoly—both introduced during the s—became popular. The radio also provided a free form of entertainment. By the early s, many middle class families owned a home radio.
Mini-golf became a Depression-era craze. More than 30, miniature golf links sprang up across the country during the s. Prices ranged from 25 to 50 cents per round. Workers at a button factory in New York, circa Women entered the workforce in increasing numbers.
Some families maintained a middle-class income by adding an extra wage earner. Despite widespread unemployment during the Depression years, the number of married women in the workforce actually increased.
Women found work as secretaries, teachers, telephone operators and nurses. But in many cases, employers paid women workers less than their male counterparts. Families on government support were less stigmatized. Many Americans received some level of financial aid or employment as a result of New Deal programs. Prior to the Great Depression, most Americans had negative views of government welfare programs and refused to go on welfare. In some towns, local newspapers published the names of welfare recipients.
While attitudes toward government assistance began to change during the Great Depression, going on welfare was still viewed as a painful and humiliating experience for many families. A family of migrant workers in Blythe, California, Economic hardship caused family breakdowns.
The stress of financial strain took a psychological toll—especially on men who were suddenly unable to provide for their families. The national suicide rate rose to an all-time high in Marriages became strained, though many couples could not afford to separate.
Divorce rates dropped during the s though abandonments increased. Many of these were teens who felt they had become a burden on their families and left home in search of work. Riding the rails—illegally hopping on freight trains—became a common, yet dangerous way to travel. Crime was mythologized, but this was largely hype. High-profile events like these, broadcast through radio announcements and in newspaper headlines, contributed to a sense of lawlessness and crime in the Great Depression , stoking fears that hard times had created a crime wave.
But this was more hype than reality. Violent crimes initially spiked during the first few years of the Great Depression, but nationwide, rates of homicides and violent crimes began to fall sharply between and —a downward trend that continued until the s. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you.
This Day In History. How Photography Defined the Great Depression. Great Depression History.
s Decade Essay essays The of the Depression and unemployment, many turned to the likes of entertainment as a means of relief from the. As America was restored, culture grew quickly. Dance clubs, new music styles, glamour girls, movies and sports were all popular forms of entertainment in the.
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousands of years specifically for the purpose of keeping an audience's attention. Storytelling , music , drama , dance , and different kinds of performance exist in all cultures, were supported in royal courts , developed into sophisticated forms and over time became available to all citizens. The process has been accelerated in modern times by an entertainment industry that records and sells entertainment products.
The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in modern history.
The Golden Age of Radio , also known as the old-time radio OTR era, was an era of radio in the United States where it was the dominant electronic home entertainment medium. It began with the birth of commercial radio broadcasting in the early s and lasted through the s, when television gradually superseded radio as the medium of choice for scripted programming, variety and dramatic shows.
Golden Age of Radio
Screwball movies. In fact, it is striking how few American movies during the s dealt with the plight of the poor and the unemployed. The most memorable films of the decade particularly those made at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount, and Twentieth Century-Fox were musicals, screwball comedies, and romances. Only Warner Brothers specialized in movies, usually gangster sagas, about the violence and poverty of slum life, a life the embattled hoodlum protagonists always yearned to escape. The fast-talking guys and dames of s movies—like the contemporaneous music and lyrics of George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin , Cole Porter , Irving Berlin , and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart —were the product of a culture both urban and urbane; the movies and the music depended on clever allusions and witty dialogue, written or composed mostly by sophisticated Manhattanites. Nor was it possible to envision the gangsters, as played by Edward G.
Political movements and social change
Just as in the Civil War, the United States appeared—at least at the start of the s—to be falling apart. But for all the turbulence and the panic , the ultimate effects of the Great Depression were less revolutionary than reassuring. This was undeniably an era of extraordinary political innovation , much of it expressed in the reforms enacted by Franklin D. It was also a time when a significant number of Americans flirted with Marxist movements and ideas, as well as with the notion that the model for a more humane society could be found in the Soviet Union. Above all, it was a decade of cultural ferment, in which American writers, artists, and intellectuals experimented with new, more socially oriented forms of literature, painting, theatre, music, and mass entertainment. Yet, paradoxically, the turmoil of the s turned out to be predominantly conservative in its impact on American society. By contrast, many American intellectuals in the s, disillusioned by what they considered the pointless carnage of World War I , had shown little interest in politics or social movements. Nor did they display much affection for life in the United States. Indeed, most American novelists, poets, artists, composers, and scientists continued to believe, as they had since the 19th century, that the United States was culturally inferior to Europe. So, to learn the latest modernist techniques in literature, painting, or music, or to study the most advanced theories in physics or psychoanalysis, they assumed they had to go to London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, or Copenhagen.
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In spite of the tremendous hardships in America during this decade, it also became a time of great music that is still remembered today. Jazz music was highly popular in this time, and Billie Holiday was a famous jazz performer. She stood out from many other musicians because of her intense and passionate performances. According to the research done by the Education Foundation, many people believe that the most important development in the radio at that time was entertainment; this is entirely false.
Popular Entertainment in 1930s America
Teachers Pay Teachers is an online marketplace where teachers buy and sell original educational materials. Are you getting the free resources, updates, and special offers we send out every week in our teacher newsletter? All Categories. Grade Level. Resource Type. Log In Join Us. View Wish List View Cart. Results for culture of the s Sort by: Relevance. You Selected: Keyword culture of the s. Grades PreK. Other Not Grade Specific. Higher Education. Adult Education.
Radio: The Internet of the 1930s
As a member, you'll also get unlimited access to over 79, lessons in math, English, science, history, and more. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you succeed. Already registered? Log in here for access. Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course. Log in or Sign up. In the present day, if we want to be entertained, we have almost 1, television channels, millions of websites, and countless other high-tech, low-tech, and no-tech options for passing the time. These entertainment mediums have become so common in our lives that even those of us who were raised in a pre-cable, pre-internet era are beginning to have a hard time remembering what it was like without these things. And if that's hard to imagine, consider that during the s, not only did Americans have considerably fewer options for entertainment, but, because of the Great Depression, those options also had to be cheap or free. Beginning in , a series of events such as the stock market crash and bank failures, led to a serious economic depression around the world, which is generally referred to as the Great Depression.
