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Roosevelt built a coalition of labor unions, women, African Americans, ethnic groups, and the middle class that redefined American politics and lasted until the 1960s. Besides economic and political change, the 1930s also saw a change in attitude toward civil rights. Racism was deeply rooted in many areas of American life, and Roosevelt wanted ...
- The 1930s Education: Overview | Encyclopedia.com
The 1930s Education: OverviewEducation has always been at...
- The 1930s Government, Politics, and Law: Topics in the News
In the 1930s, American foreign policy was a mixture of...
- The 1930s Education: Overview | Encyclopedia.com
- Overview
- Political movements and social change
Aside from the Civil War, the Great Depression was the gravest crisis in American history. Just as in the Civil War, the United States appeared—at least at the start of the 1930s—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. Roosevelt’s New Deal and his administration’s attempts to cope with the problems of poverty, unemployment, and the disintegration of the American economy. 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 1930s turned out to be predominantly conservative in its impact on American society. The Great Depression taught people of all social classes the value of economic security and the need to endure and survive hard times rather than to take risks with one’s life or money. Moreover, faced with the spectre of totalitarian ideologies in Europe and Japan, Americans rediscovered the virtues of democracy and the essential decency of the ordinary citizen—the near-mythical “common man” who was celebrated in Roosevelt’s speeches, Frank Capra’s movies, and Norman Rockwell’s paintings. Thus, a decade marked by fundamental—even radical—social change ended for most with a reaffirmation of America’s cultural past and its traditional political ideals.
By contrast, many American intellectuals in the 1920s, 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.
But the stock market crash in 1929, the factory closures and spiraling unemployment of the early 1930s, and Hitler’s takeover of the German government in 1933 forced many “expatriates” not only to return to the United States but to become politically engaged in their home country. During the worst years of the Great Depression, between 1930 and 1935, this engagement often took the form of an attraction to Marxism, the Soviet Union, and the American Communist Party.
Marxism seemed to explain persuasively the causes of capitalism’s collapse, while also providing a vision of an alternative social order. The Soviet Union, the site of the first successful Marxist-inspired revolution, appeared by the 1930s to be a concrete embodiment of what many writers called (in characteristically pragmatic American terms) the socialist “experiment.” In addition, from 1934 to 1939, the Soviet Union was the most uncompromising opponent of Nazi Germany, seeking alliances with Britain, France, and the United States and promoting a “popular front” partnership of liberals and socialists within the Western democracies to halt the spread of fascism in Europe and throughout the world. Nowhere did Moscow’s desire for a broad antifascist coalition appear more genuine than in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), when the Soviet Union was the only country besides Mexico to aid in any serious way the Spanish Republicans against the armies of Francisco Franco (supported by Hitler and Benito Mussolini).
Aside from the Civil War, the Great Depression was the gravest crisis in American history. Just as in the Civil War, the United States appeared—at least at the start of the 1930s—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. Roosevelt’s New Deal and his administration’s attempts to cope with the problems of poverty, unemployment, and the disintegration of the American economy. 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 1930s turned out to be predominantly conservative in its impact on American society. The Great Depression taught people of all social classes the value of economic security and the need to endure and survive hard times rather than to take risks with one’s life or money. Moreover, faced with the spectre of totalitarian ideologies in Europe and Japan, Americans rediscovered the virtues of democracy and the essential decency of the ordinary citizen—the near-mythical “common man” who was celebrated in Roosevelt’s speeches, Frank Capra’s movies, and Norman Rockwell’s paintings. Thus, a decade marked by fundamental—even radical—social change ended for most with a reaffirmation of America’s cultural past and its traditional political ideals.
By contrast, many American intellectuals in the 1920s, 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.
But the stock market crash in 1929, the factory closures and spiraling unemployment of the early 1930s, and Hitler’s takeover of the German government in 1933 forced many “expatriates” not only to return to the United States but to become politically engaged in their home country. During the worst years of the Great Depression, between 1930 and 1935, this engagement often took the form of an attraction to Marxism, the Soviet Union, and the American Communist Party.
Marxism seemed to explain persuasively the causes of capitalism’s collapse, while also providing a vision of an alternative social order. The Soviet Union, the site of the first successful Marxist-inspired revolution, appeared by the 1930s to be a concrete embodiment of what many writers called (in characteristically pragmatic American terms) the socialist “experiment.” In addition, from 1934 to 1939, the Soviet Union was the most uncompromising opponent of Nazi Germany, seeking alliances with Britain, France, and the United States and promoting a “popular front” partnership of liberals and socialists within the Western democracies to halt the spread of fascism in Europe and throughout the world. Nowhere did Moscow’s desire for a broad antifascist coalition appear more genuine than in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), when the Soviet Union was the only country besides Mexico to aid in any serious way the Spanish Republicans against the armies of Francisco Franco (supported by Hitler and Benito Mussolini).
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The impact of the Great Depression on the United States was especially severe, though it was a truly global calamity. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fell by 50 percent between 1929 and 1933. Some ...
The Depression caused major political changes in America. Three years into the depression, President Herbert Hoover, widely blamed for not doing enough to combat the crisis, lost the election of 1932 to Franklin Delano Roosevelt by a landslide.
Oct 29, 2009 · The New Deal and American Politics. From 1933 until 1941, President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs and policies did more than just adjust interest rates, tinker with farm...
Sep 12, 2018 · The Attack On Democracy In The 1930s And Today. September 12, 20185:11 AM ET. Heard on Morning Edition. 7-Minute Listen. Playlist. As fascism spread globally in the 1930s, the U.S. responded...
Sep 16, 2010 · By 1932, many Americans were fed up with Hoover and what his political opponent Franklin D. Roosevelt called his “hear nothing, see nothing, do nothing government.
