“The Arts in Depression America”
Art, music, and literature were expressed seriously in the 1930s as opposed to movies and radio, but many art pieces brought an inspirational positive message to the American people.
The Artists
Many Artists were supported by the New Deal. The Federal Art Project paid artists to create pieces that could be viewed by the public. The goal was to create positive images and thoughts of society. Artists made posters, taught lessons in schools, and painted murals on some of the public buildings. Most of the murals depicted Americans at work. Themes for many 1930s art works were Social Realism and Regionalism. Some of the famous artists in that time were Edward Hopper, Thomas Hart Benton, and Grant Wood, who was from Iowa. Possibly Wood’s most famous painting was “American Gothic”.
"American Gothic"
The Singers
Woody Guthrie was a singer/songwriter who had lived through the Great Depression and was forced to leave his home because of the Dust Bowl. He wrote songs about the troubling times that Americans were going through. His songs were honest, and they were widely accepted by Americans that had experienced problems themselves.
Swing music became popular in the later half of the 1930s. It slowly replaced Jazz music that had popular earlier in the decade and in the 1920s.
Woody Guthrie
The Writers
Along with the Federal Art Project, the WPA (Works Progress Administration) also supported the Federal Writers’ Project. The project helped writers get jobs and publish their books such as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Many books focused on racism, rural life, and hardships due to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Other writers wrote about positive outlooks on American life, and this was good for the New Deal. The comic character Superman was introduced in 1938 and Batman in 1939.
John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
I am glad the WPA supported the Federal Art Project and Federal Writers' Project. They helped the arts keep going through the tough time, and great works exist today because of them. Art, music, and writing are all very important to me, and those are interesting ways to look back and see how things were before.
Links/Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1930s
Our history book (The Americans)
Comments
Good topic and excellent job!! It is a topic that is usually forgotten.