March 7: Searching for Economic and Social Justice in the 1930s: The Limits of the New Deal

 

Read

·         “We Are Americans!”: The Homestead Workers Issue a Declaration of Independence in 1936

·         “That Broke Down the Ethnic Barriers”: A Steelworker Describes the Decline of Ethnic Hostility in the 1930s

 

Questions:

·         Who were the main proponents of economic justice in the mid 1930s? What obstacles did they face?  What arguments did they make? How do you feel about their views?

·         try to draw some conclusions about the expansion of the definition of freedom during the New Deal and the continued challenges to it. For this question, use the Roosevelt and Hoover readings, as well as the ones from steelworkers above, and by John Lewis from previous class,

·         How were some ethnic minorities, Native Americans and others left out of some of the key benefits of the New Deal? How did housing reform and  Social Security Act, reinforce gender and racial inequalities?  

·         Why does DuBois feel that “self-segregation” is a viable alternative to integration?

·         What was the Popular Front and how did affect American culture, especially in respect to immigrants Catholics and Jews? How does This Land is Your Land, original version above, fit into popular front culture Foner describes? 

 

 

 

Recommended Websites

 

Indians and the New Deal

·         A Taos Pueblo Tries to Sell the Indian New Deal

·         A Sioux Leader Praises the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934

·         “It Didn’t Pan Out as We Thought It Was Going To”Amos Owen on the Indian Reorganization Act

·         A Sioux Attorney Criticizes the Indian Reorganization Act

 

The Great Mass Organizing Drives of the era

·         "The Wagner Bill is behind you!"

·         “Right After That They Walked Out”: Alice Wolfson Recalls the Origins of the CIO

·         “We Are Americans!”: The Homestead Workers Issue a Declaration of Independence in 1936

·         “That Broke Down the Ethnic Barriers”: A Steelworker Describes the Decline of Ethnic Hostility in the 1930s

·         “I Was Able to Make My Voice Really Ring Out”: The Women’s Emergency Brigade in the Flint Sit-Down Strike

·         “Susie Steno”: A Union’s View of Clerical Workers

·         Cartoonists on the Picket Line: The Walt Disney Studio Strike

 

 

New Deal issues/politics

·         How did we really get the 40 hour work week? http://www.timesizing.com/404040.htm

·         Please Help Us Mr. Roosevelt: African-Americans letters to FDR

·         “Share the Wealth”: Huey Long Talks to the Nation

·         “It Was a Wildly Exciting Time”: Milton Meltzer Remembers the New Deal’s Federal Theatre Project

·         Suspicion of Subversion: Congressional Conservatives Attack the Federal Theater Project

·         Fascist tendencies in the 1930s U.S. –“chapter 5” of this site; Note: I have not thoroughly checked this site for accuracy. Therefore, you should check with me on any issue, as I cannot vouchsafe it’s historical evidence. However, the little that I did check out seemed to verify its accuracy. However, I present it for it’s provocative point of view

·         Father Coughlin speech on FDR

·         Catholic Liberal John Ryan Denounces Father Charles Coughlin

·         FDR’s Court Packing plan-extensive documents and lesson plan

·         The Fair Labor Standards Act and Migratory Agricultural Workers  The effects of leaving out migratory workers from the child labor and hours provisions of the New Deal

 

 

CULTURE OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION

·         Culture/films: - http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/home_1.html

Terrific, loaded with materials; see excerpts of key films of the 1930s

·         Charlie Chaplin in Historical Context =exposition of Modern Times

·         Farm Security Administration-photos of 1930s poverty and courage -

·         American Life Stories http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html -- follow links to particular states, and find Chicago Life Histories: Select from 73 Oral Histories of Chicagoans taken by the Federal Writers Project During the Great Depression, at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/wpa:@field(DOCID(@range(07020105+08050405)))

·         Every picture tells a story: documentary photography during the Great Depression http://chnm.gmu.edu/fsa/

·         A New Deal for the Arts –the New Deal’s contribution to national culture

·         Federal Theatre Project

·         Joe Louis Fight Against Schmelling

·         New Deal Cultural Programs: Experiments in Cultural Democracy

·         Voices from the Dust Bowl

 

 

        Songs

·         Songs of Woody Guthrie Songs of the Dust Bowl, labor struggles, unemployment.

·                   This Land is Your Land, original lyrics (including those you won’t sing in grade school)

·                   Pretty Boy Floyd  (comparing bankers to robbers)

·                   Tom Joad  (Ode to famous protagonist in The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck)

·         Sixteen Tons

·         Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande

·         Songs from the Great Depression 100s of songs, including:

·          I Don’t Want Your Millions Mister by Jim Garland

·         I Hate the Company Bosses Sarah Ogun Gunning – a different type of “country” music

·         Northern California Folk Songs from the 1930s

 

 

General/Reference

·         Over 400 Documents on many subjects of the Great Depression, organized by Subjects (includes Chicago), and authors and dates

Example: Meridel LeSeuer describes the farm troubles of the midwest in 1934

   Black Cotton Farmers and the AAA

    Tillie Lerner on the 1934 Longshoremen’s strike

    Carey McWilliams on migrant workers

·         House Hearings on the Social Security Act of 1935 http://www.ssa.gov/history/35house.html

·         Mexico expropriates oil companies—Standard Oil’s reply