History- Popular culture in the 1930s

• Despite the hardship of the Great Depression, leisure and popular culture continued to flourish and develop
• Radio


  The popularity of the radio continued to increase throughout the Great Depression
• By 1930, around 40 per cent of the American population owned a radio set, and this number had more than doubled by 1939
• Content broadcast by radio

  • Sports
  • News reports
  • Plays
  • Shows
• Movies


  When the Great Depression first hit, cinema attendance dropped by a third. However, audiences soon returned in larger numbers
• People wanted to escape from their troubles and movies provided a way to do this
• 1930s Hollywood


  • Major film studios, such as MGM and Warner Brothers, producing a range of comedies, westerns, gangster movies and musicals
  • Walt Disney produced animated cartoons, which were very popular with movie-goers
• Comic books


  Became a new sensation during the 1930s
• Comics were cheap to produce and many new comic publishers were created
• The popularity of comics soared during the 1930s
• This period saw the first appearances of two of the world's most famous superheroes, Superman in Action Comics in 1938 and Batman in Detective Comics in 1939
• The arts and literature

  The social impact of the Great Depression inspired writers such as John Steinbeck, who often wrote about poor, working-class people and their struggle to lead a decent and honest life
• Novels not about the Great Depression


  • Gone with the Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell, set during the American Civil War (1861-1865) and Reconstruction
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) by Zora Neale Hurston, a classic novel of the Harlem Renaissance
• Federal Writers' Project


  • Created in 1935 as part of the WPA (Works Progress Administration), one of the New Deal alphabet agencies
  • Provided jobs for thousands of unemployed people including historians, writers, teachers, librarians
  • Produced hundreds of publications including children's books, local and oral histories, and state and city guidebooks such as the American Guide Series
  • Benefitted unemployed people who worked in publishing, writing and academic professions, as their roles were not as often prioritised in other relief measures and organisations
  • Resources created became an important part of historical records and cultural resources, including the Slave Narrative Collection