1930s America: Who Were "We The People?"
"...if the leaders we are now throwing up into places of power do not lead along new roads, if they fail us, the failure will not be due to lack of belief. We have got this rich land and this people rich with this new hunger for belief. The outstanding, dominant thing now in almost all of the Americans I have been seeing is this new thing, this cry out of their hearts for a new birth of belief."
"Puzzled America," 1935, by Sherwood Anderson, p xvi.
SGL: Quinn Rosefsky
Zoom Link: https://brandeis.zoom.us/j/7812352940?pwd=cFdXSWl5VWlWNllpZkxmODQ3YXZwdz09
Meeting ID: 781 235 2940
Passcode: tedtalks
Website link: https://sites.google.com/view/1930s-american-mind/home
SPRING 2023
Tuesdays: 11:10 am to 12:25 pm
Pre-class online "rehearsal" Feb 21 at 11 am.
Regular classes:
Feb 28. Mar 7,14,21,28. Apr 4 (a social event,) 11,18,25. May 2,9.
WELCOME LETTER
Welcome to 1930s America: Who were "We the People?" I am very excited about this course and hope you will be too. The importance of studying this epoch in our collective history is inescapable, especially given the many parallels between the events of the 1930’s and those of today. We’ll review a wealth of information attempting to capture the Depression years from more than one point of view.
The central goal, our main task, is to try to answer this question: Are there defining characteristics of the nation and its individuals who survived the era?
The course is divided into four modules: A Nation Adrift (classes 1-3;) Troubles (classes 4-6;) Cultural Manifestation (Classes 7-8;) and Deliverance (classes 9-10.) Because we will spend much of each class discussing what you have read (or watched) prior to each class, the window for homework assignment completion is key...not too soon, not too late. Peppered throughout each chapter, the "Questions for Discussion" are meant to stimulate your thinking as well as prepare you for class discussion where these questions will be raised. Please note that the website's ten chapters correspond to each week of class.
Following the ten chapters, one for each week of class, the Appendix (clickable link) contains a wealth of information which I urge you to explore well before classes begin. Please select a topic which appeals to you sufficiently to volunteer to do a brief presentation (5-7 minutes.) The more agency you have, the better your enjoyment and learning outcome.
Prior to class beginning on Feb 28th, please read "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck. The novel, not the film. It’s great literature…captivating…easily read in a week...access the novel below in “Homework” section at bottom.
We will watch the film as homework for the last class.
Course Description
We think of the 1930s as the period of the Great Depression, the aftermath of the stock market crash. Yet out of this calamity arose what Tom Brokaw described as "The Greatest Generation," those men and women willing to give their lives for freedom in WWII. How did the events of the 1930s shape and mold the character of these Americans? Who were “We the People” at a time when 25% of the workforce was unemployed and migrants (Okies) fled the dustbowl hoping for a better life in California? How could such heroes arise from an era peppered with gangsters, hobos, political demagogues, and isolationists turning a blind eye to fascism? What motivated the Supreme Court Justices, known as the Four Horsemen, who ruthlessly aimed to strike down FDR’s New Deal?
The 1930s saw multiple attempts meant to portray and ameliorate what was happening to society. These efforts can be seen through the lenses of photographers bringing to life the squalor afflicting the poor; in the journals of writers hired by the government to travel across the country questioning ex-slaves, bus drivers, and farmers; in the articles of intellectuals whose essays debated everything from art to communism; and in the works of artists hired by the government to capture the soul of America. Additionally, movie theatres provided weekly 25-cent escapes from the heavy burden hanging over the land. Come with us on a journey back in time to explore the soul of America. Help discover parallels with the present.
Course Objective
The essential questions we will think about are: 1.) What do the various histories we read say about people in the 1930s and today? 2.) Why do we still talk about events from that period? Together, we will attempt to understand the economics of the period; why the “American Dream” was so important; the effects of the Dust Bowl; labor unrest. We will uncover how the Supreme Court almost destroyed the New Deal; look at early manifestations of activism among African Americans; listen to the loudest of the anti-intellectuals, Father Coughlin and Huey Long, men who were threats to democracy. In multiple photographs of the era, artwork, film, and literature, we will explore cultural manifestations of a country battling both to preserve and escape tradition. And we will have greater appreciation of the isolationism that hindered our response to face fascism’s existential threats to humanity
THERE ARE NO REQUIRED TEXTS
ALL READINGS ARE LOCATED ON THE WEBSITE
Syllabus:
Module I: A NATION ADRIFT: Chapters 1-3
The Great Depression & unemployment
The New Deal as alphabet soup of experimental programs
Problems FDR encountered with Supreme Court
Effects of the Dust Bowl
American Identity & Competing Ideologies: A nation struggling to understand and shape its identity: preserve or escape tradition; reconstruct itself as well as safeguard valued liberties; embrace heterogeneity manifested in diverse & complex culture; move in all directions at once.
MODULE II: TROUBLES Chapters 4-6
African American experience of New Deal policies.
Slave Narratives
Why FDR wouldn’t sign anti-lynching legislation
Racist injustice in Alabama: The Saga of the Scottsboro Boys
Two demagogues: Father Coughlin & Huey Long
Threats of white supremacy
Strikes & Union Unrest
Gangsters
Plot to Overthrow Roosevelt
Neutrality Acts and Isolationism
MODULE III: CULTURAL MANIFESTATION Chapters 7-8
Photography's role in defining perceptions of the Great Depression
Excerpts from: “Native Son” by Richard Wright, “Puzzled America” by Sherwood Anderson, “The Partisan Review,” Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath."
The arts portrayal of mood
Science and Technology
MODULE IV: DELIVERANCE Chapters 9-10
Escapism, Superman
"The Grapes of Wrath" (the movie)
1.) Read John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." We will watch the movie version in the last class, so now is the time to read the novel. It is a gem of a read!
Online "The Grapes of Wrath." (clickable link to the NOVEL) Scroll down the connecting web page to a column of choices at the lower left . Select "HTML" file type to connect to the text. You'll have the novel.
3.) Prepare your thoughts on "Questions for Discussion."
4.) Decision to make/think about: Please select one of the listings in the Appendix (clickable link.) to guide you in a 5-7 minute (voluntary) report during the term.
CLASS ONE ON ZOOM, MON, FEB 28
Housekeeping
Ground Rules
Zoom etiquette, etc.
Introductions (see below)**
I will read the salient points based on Chapter 1 homework.
SGL Facilitated Discussion
**Introductions : Be prepared with a brief recollection from your childhood that connects you to the Great Depression. Below are examples from prior class:
Father, a doctor, used to barter with patients who had no money for payment.
Parents stored lots of food...just in case.
When grandfather let go from telephone company, he felt great shame and embarrassment because he had to borrow from brother-in-law who lived upstairs.
Parents always poor, always careful with money.
Parents ate liver, which was felt to be unconsumable by humans, but at least they had meat.
Family immigrated as refugees fleeing Europe in 1940. Even with tight money, America was not Nazi Germany.
Parents constantly talked about how difficult it was to get a job so, years later, they couldn't comprehend the risk their son was taking in changing to a new firm.
Parents told story of gathering coal from along the railroad tracks to heat their home.
Recollection of being unable to afford a whole sandwich....only half.
Father started college but had to drop out to help family earn an income.
Grandparents lost everything: farmland, their family-owned savings bank. Father would never borrow money for the rest of his life. His one luxury was a mortgage.