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THE 1930s ON FILM

• It's the Booze Talkin': Prohibition and the Gangster Film
  Transformations in the the gangster film reflect changing public attitudes toward Prohibition.
• Crime Pays: The Hollywood Gangster from 1930-1938
  Understand how and why the gangster became a movie hero during the Depression.
• Breadlines to Chorus Lines: Hollywood Musicals of the 1930s
  Project investigates the musical's escapist appeal for American during the Depression as well as how that appeal was manufactured in the studio system.
• Home of the Screwball
  A discussion of this film genre as an exploration and negotiation of the confusion of modern life in America through gender and class role reversals, and rapid fire dialogue.
• Capra, Smith, and Doe: Filming the American Hero
  The uses and the limitations of the hero in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Meet John Doe.
• The Talkie and the Tramp: Charlie Chaplin Stays Silent in the Machine Age
  Project includes a discussion of Chaplin's methodology and a brief filmography.
• The Foolish Search for Self: Identity Construction in the Films of the Marx Brothers
  Analyzes the performative nature of identity in these films.
• The Savage Genius: Louis Armstrong's Film Roles in the Depression
  An inquiry into Armstrong's complex and controversial film roles.
• Mammy Dearest: The Depiction of African American House Servants in The Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, and Song of the South
  Studies the figure of the Mammy as a way of understanding race, history and contemporary culture in film.
• New Frontiers in American Film Documentary
  Chronicles the explosion of documentary films in the US during the 30s. Site includes synopses and clips of films as well as bios of the artists involved. It also includes the full versions of The City, People of the Cumberland, and Valley Town.
• Reaping the Golden Harvest: Pare Lorentz, Poet and Filmmaker
  A close look at four of Lorentz's works produced as "Films of Merit" under the auspices of FDR's Resettlement Administration. Includes a clip from The Plow that Broke the Plains as well as The River and The City in their entirety.
• 1930s Newsreels, Documentaries and Infomercials
  Includes domestic and international politics as well as sports events and other areas of cultural history.
• Film Archive
  Short clips of notable films of the period, along with brief synopses.
  Little Caesar (1930)
  I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932)
  Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
  The Thin Man (1934)
  It Happened One Night (1934)
  The Black Cat (1934)
  Duck Soup (1935)
  Alice Adams (1935)
  Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
  Stella Dallas (1937)
  Stage Door (1937)
  The Awful Truth (1937)
  Stagecoach (1939)
  Wizard of Oz (1939)
  Citizen Kane (1941)
  Penny Serenade (1941)
  The Lady Eve (1941)
  It's A Wonderful Life (1948)
  
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THE 1930s IN PRINT

News & Events | People | Books | Magazines | Comics | Sports | Advertising 

News & Events

• The Great Depression
  A comparison of the Depression in the United States and Europe.
• Charlottesville in the Depression
  A local take on major political, social and militaristic events during the Depression through the lens of Charlottesville's VA's newspaper, The Daily Progress.
• The Living Newspaper: Understanding the 30s Through Audio
  Listen to the Living Newspaper "Triple-A Plowed Under" for a multimedia approach to re-presenting 30s culture.

• Age of Lost Innocence: Photographs of Childhood Realities and Adult Fears During the Depression
  The representation of children and childhood in the work of FSA photographers.
• Documenting the 1930s
  Documentary work by the Federal Writers Project, Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor, Malcolm Cowley, Richard Wright, James Agee and Walker Evans, and Lewis Hine.
• The Living Newspaper: Understanding the 30s Through Audio
  Listen to the Living Newspaper "Triple-A Plowed Under" for a multimedia approach to 30s culture.
• The Art of the Great Depression, New Deal Photography and Murals: Their Roles in the Construction of Regional and National Identity
  Investigates the consequences of government intervention with regard to the standardization and creation of an American culture.
• From Skyscrapers to Skulls: Georgia O'Keeffe Creates the "Native" American
  Provides an overview of O'Keeffe's work by placing it within the cultural context of the 20s and 30s.
• Representing Gringolandia
  A history of the artist Diego Rivera's patronage in the United States, his work in Detroit, his influence on his contemporaries, and his relationship with the American public.
• Out of One, Many: Regionalism in FSA Photography
  Analyzes how regionalism asserted itself in the work of the FSA, even as it strove to document a national identity.
• Walker Evans Revolutionizes Documentary Photography
  How Evans' aesthetic choices and the ideological implications of his work changed the genre of documentary photography.
• Photographing the Representative American: Margaret Bourke-White in the Depression
  Between 1935 and 1937, Bourke-White traveled the South searching for the face that would speak out from the printed page, "the representative American."

People

• Aimee Semple McPherson
  A study of the remarkable career of the most powerful female evangelist of the period.
• Babe Ruth
  Probes the construction of Babe Ruth as an American cultural icon.
• Slang in the Great Depression
  A look at the slanguage of the 1930's, complete with a first-cited dictionary, and the slang of the New Deal, the Soda Jerk, the Hobo, the Teenager, Advertisting, Radio, Jazz Culture, and Drug Culture.

• Blue Plate Special: An Anthology of 30s Prose
  This collection has crime fiction, some real event reportage, strikes and riots as well as humor. Like a good square meal, it has a little bit from every group. Put them all together and you have a wholesome taste of the decade.
• The Tradition of the Mountains
  An analysis of the southern Appalachian Mountains in literature.
• Ideological Conflicts: Absalom Absalom and Gone with the Wind
  A comparison of two books about the South, one a high modernist text by William Faulkner which few read at the time, the other the broadly popular fiction by Margaret Mitchell.
• The Dancer's Dance: Mules and Men—a Hypertext
  The complete text of this important work by Zora Neale Hurston includes extensive editorial and critical commentary, images and biographies.
• The WPA Guide to the Old Dominion
  Full text of this volume in the WPA Guide Series in addition to a series of projects directed at researching what the Guide did not describe, the actual life of citizens in the Old Dominion.
• American Humor: A Study of the National Character
  Constance Rourke's insightful study of American Folk Culture. From Yankee peddlers to Ring-Tailed Roarers from the Old Southwest, from Davy Crockett to Melville, Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman, Rourke maps the peculiar shape and texture of American humor. The full text digitized.
• Made in America: The Arts in American Civilization
  The full text of John Kouwenhoven's study of the vernacular tradition in American Culture, especially what Kouwenhoven calls "the practical aesthetic" which underlies both the original agrarian culture and the emergent industrial culture.
• The Seven Lively Arts
  The full text of Gilbert Seldes ground breaking account and defense of American Popular Arts, of film, popular music and dance, musical comedy, cartoons, and popular fiction.
• Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s
  The full text of Frederick Lewis Allen's classic account of the eleven years between the defeat of Germany in WW I to the stock market crash in October, 1929 from the perspective of the Depression.

Magazines

• Fortune Magazine in the 1930s
  Site investigating responses to the Depression, especially those of the graphic artists and editors who designed the covers of the magazine.
• Vanity Fair
  Consideration of Vanity Fair not only as a reflection of its time, but as a conscious effort to shape attitudes and beliefs during the Great Depression.
• Urban and Urbane: The New Yorker Magazine in the 1930s
  An analysis of the New Yorker Magazine and the appeal of this intensely local magazine to a national audience.
• Portrait of America: Survey Graphic in the 1930s
  An anthology of articles and images from Survey Graphic, a popular public forum for discussions about unemployment, labor unrest, race relations, health care, and technological change.
• Saturday Evening Post Covers
  A collection of covers from 1929 to 1941.
• Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro
  A hypertext of this famous edition of Survey Graphic

• Comic Strips of the 1930s
  A look at Krazy Kat, Dick Tracy, Popeye, Little Orphan Annie, Buck Rogers and Superman.
• Superman
  Includes Superman's first appearance in Action Comics #1.
• Some Say it With a Brick: George Herriman's Krazy Kat
  An inquiry into Herriman's treatment of class, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality and technology.

• Babe Ruth
  Probes the construction of Babe Ruth as an American cultural icon.

• The Art of Persuasion: American Graphic Design Comes of Age
  The transformation of modern European design ideas by American designers.
• The Ad Machine in Action: Cigarettes and Art in Advertising
  Studies the cigarette tag as the root of modern advertising.
• Slang in the Great Depression
  A look at the slanguage of the 1930's, complete with a first-cited dictionary, and the slang of the New Deal, the Soda Jerk, the Hobo, the Teenager, Advertisting, Radio, Jazz Culture, and Drug Culture.

• The Cavalcade of America: Examining the Myth and Reality Hero Worship in American Radio
  Abraham Lincoln and Annie Oakley, Thomas Jefferson and Geronimo, all subjects of the Dupont Company's Cavalcade of America broadcasts in the 1930s and all suggesting something of the complexity of the pantheon of American heroes.
• The War of the Worlds
  A Gullible Nation?: A Closer Look at a Night of Panic
  The complete broadcast of Orson Welles' famous 1938 radio program accompanied by an exploration of the cultural conditions that led to the ensuing panic.
• Amos 'n' Andy: In Black and White
  An analysis of the cultural dynamics of the most popular radio show of the 1930s.
• Superman in Identity Crisis: The Many Faces of the Man of Steel
  An examination of the origins and transformations of Superman including the first 16 episodes of the radio program.
• The Visitor in Your Living Room: Radio Advertising in the 1930s
  A study of radio advertising in the 30s, including the structure of the common ad, the psychology at broadcast advertising's roots, and the radio's effect on mass culture.
• This Land Is Your Land: Rural Music in the Depression
  This site scrutinizes the evolution of traditional rural music—through distribution by record and radio—into the commercial genre of Country & Western during the Depression.
• Woody Guthrie: This Man is Your Myth: This Man is My Myth
  Woody Guthrie as a collective idealization, an iconic American figure.
• Urbane Cowboys: alt.country in the 1990s
  Analyzes alt.country's connection to the culture and music of the 1930s
• Hep, Hot, and Headbanging: The Retro Rebirth of Swing
  A history of Swing Music through the 20th century
• Jazz: Marking Time in American Culture
  A web site supplement to Professor Scott Deveaux's MUSI 212: Introduction to Jazz at the University of Virginia.
• The Robert Johnson Notebooks
  A collaborative effort examining the poetry and song of the famous blues musician, Robert Johnson.
• The Jukebox: Popular Music in the 1930s
  That's right, a jukebox filled with the most popular vocals and instrumentals of the decade.
• A Day in Radio
  On September 21, 1939, WJSV, an AM radio station in Washington, D.C., recorded the entire 19 hours of its broadcast day. That whole day is presented here.
• On the Air: 1930s Serials
  Clips from the following classic 30s radio programs:
  Amos 'n' Andy
  Little Orphan Annie
  Jack Benny
  Burns and Allen
  Dick Tracy
  Fibber McGee and Molly
  The Lone Ranger
  Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy
  Uncle Remus
  Buck Rogers (Episodes 2 and 4)
  Superman (Episodes 3 and 10)
• The Free Company
  Complete broadcasts of the 10 half-hour programs in this series of dramas loosely based on the Bill of Rights, includes:
  The People With Light Coming Out of Them
  The Mole on Lincoln's Cheek
  An American Crusader
  One More Free Man
  Freedom's a Hard Bought Thing
  His Honor, The Mayor
  A Start in Life
  The States Talking
  The Miracle on the Danube
  Above Suspicion
• FDR Speaks
  Audio of various speeches of FDR including the famous "Quarantine" speech, the dedication of the Bonneville Dam and his second inaugural address.
• The Real Deal
  A study of the presentation and reception of New Deal programs through speeches, print media, political debate and legislation.
• Slang in the Great Depression
  A look at the slanguage of the 1930's, complete with a first-cited dictionary, and the slang of the New Deal, the Soda Jerk, the Hobo, the Teenager, Advertisting, Radio, Jazz Culture, and Drug Culture.

THE 1930s ON DISPLAY  

• The Index of American Design
  A selection from over 17,000 watercolor images of objects of American material culture created by artists working for the Works Progress Administration.
• Negotiating the Racial Mountain: The Depression Era Murals of Aaron Douglas
  An exploration of the Mural Art of Aaron Douglas as an expression of his unique and uniquely powerful vision of the nature and significance of African-American Culture in the United States.
• Art for Trade's Sake: The Fusion of Commerce and Culture, 1927-1934
  Explores the changes in the relation between culture and commerce between the Macy Store's 1927 exhibition of "art" with the 1934 Museum of Modern Art's 1934 exhibition Machine Art as a measure of changing relations between the museum as an institution and corporate America.
• Machines for Living
  Investigates how the machine influenced industrial design in the 1930s.
• Building the Chrysler Building: The Social Construction of the Skyscraper
  An inquiry into the skyscraper's place between tradition and the future.
• Iconography of Hope: The 1939-1940 New York World's Fair
  Site presents the fair's "World of Tomorrow" as well as contemporary reactions to that world.
• The Hoover Dam: Lonely Lands Made Fruitful
  Examines the epic, the aesthetic, the practical and the political aspects of this Federal Works Project.
• Landscape of the New Deal, The Blue Ridge Parkway
  Illuminates the purpose of the parkway in America as a new kind of public space.
• Touring the 1930s American Roadscape
  See how roadside architecture and institutions developed in response to a growing automobile culture.
• Aberdeen Gardens: Building a Community "For Blacks, by Blacks"
  A history of the Newport News FSA backed community.
• Colonial Williamsburg: The Corporate Town
  A study of the corporate construction of Colonial Williamsburg as well as local and national reactions to it.
• Colonial Williamsburg: From Concept to Construct
  See how Williamsburg functions as both a secular shrine to our nation's democratic origins and a viable community for its residents.
• Advertising and Marketing of Colonial Williamsburg During the Great Depression
  The role of marketing and advertising in the creation of Colonial Williamsburg in the national imagination.
• Dumbarton Oaks: A Landscape of Cultural and Social Distinction
  An exploration of this iconic model of many trends in American culture during tumultuous 1920s and 1930s.
• Some Enchanted Evenings: American Picture Palaces
  A look at the ways in which movie palaces expressed the anxieties, thrills, and pitfalls of the culture of American consumerism in the 30s.
• The Performance of Race in the Federal Theatre Project
  Explores black artists and roles in projects backed by the FTP.
• Lesbian to Bride: Female Sexuality in the Broadway Melody Series
  Analyzes the changing nature of sexuality in Broadway Musicals over the course of the 30s.
• "We Doin' Alright": The South in the Great Depression
  A collection of projects examining the South during the Depression.

Please send comments to abh9h@virginia.edu.