|
THE MAKING OF A NATION - March 14, 2002: Great Depression/Arts
& Culture
By David Jarmul
VOICE 1:
THE MAKING OF A NATION, a program in Special
English by the Voice of America.
(Theme)
Hard economic times and social conflict have
always offered a rich source of material for artists and writers. A
painter's colors can show the drying of dreams or the flight of human
spirits. A musician can express the tensions and uncertainty of a people
in struggle. The pressures of hard times can be the force to lift a
writer's imagination to new heights.
So it was during the nineteen-thirties in the
United States. The severe economic crisis -- the Great Depression --
created an atmosphere for artistic imagination and creative expression.
The common feeling of struggle also led millions of Americans to look
together to films, radio, and other new art forms for relief from their
day-to-day cares. Our program today looks at American arts and popular
culture during the nineteen-thirties.
((Tape Cut 1: Benny Goodman Orchestra))
VOICE 2:
The most popular sound of the nineteen-thirties
was a new kind of music -- "swing" music. And the "King
of Swing" was a clarinet player named Benny Goodman.
((Tape Cut 2: Benny Goodman Orchestra))
Benny Goodman and other musicians made swing
music extremely popular during the nineteen-thirties. Swing music was
a new form of jazz. Many of its first players were black musicians in
small, unknown groups. It was only when more well-known white musicians
started playing swing music in the middle nineteen-thirties that the
new music became wildly popular.
VOICE 1:
One reason for the popularity of swing music
was the growing power of radio during the nineteen-thirties.
Radio had already proven in earlier years that
it could be an important force in both politics and popular culture.
Millions of Americans bought radios during the nineteen-twenties. But
radio grew up in the nineteen-thirties. Producers became more skillful
in creating programs. And actors and actresses began to understand the
special needs and power of this new electronic art form.
Swing music was not the only kind of music that
radio helped make popular. The nineteen-thirties also saw increasing
popularity for traditional, classical music by Beethoven, Bach, and
other great musicians.
In nineteen-thirty, the Columbia Broadcasting
System began a series of concerts by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra
on Sunday afternoons. The next year, the National Broadcasting Company,
NBC, began weekly opera concerts.
VOICE 2:
In nineteen-thirty-seven, NBC asked Arturo Toscanini
of Italy to lead an orchestra on American radio. Toscanini was the greatest
orchestra leader of his day. Millions of Americans listened at Christmas
time as Toscanini and the NBC Orchestra began playing the first of ten
special radio concerts.
It was a great moment for both music and radio.
For the first time, millions of average Americans were able to hear
classical music by great musicians as it was being played.
VOICE 1:
Music was an important reason why millions of
Americans gathered to listen to the radio during the nineteen-thirties.
But even more popular were a series of weekly programs with exciting
or funny new actors.
Families would come home from school or work and laugh at the foolish
experiences of such actors as Jack Benny, Fred Allen, George Burns,
Edgar Bergen, and W.C. Fields. Radio helped people forget the hard conditions
of the Great Depression. And it helped to bring Americans together and
share experiences.
VOICE 2:
Swing music. Classical music. Great comedy programs.
The nineteen-thirties truly were a golden period for radio and mass
communications. But it was also during this period that Hollywood and
the American film industry became much more skilled and influential.
In previous years, films were silent. But the
"talkies" arrived in the nineteen-thirties. Directors could
produce films in which actors could talk. Americans reacted by attending
film theaters by the millions. It was a great time for Hollywood.
VOICE 1:
The films had exciting new actors. Spencer Tracy.
Bette Davis. Katharine Hepburn. The young Shirley Temple. The most famous
film of the period was "Gone with the Wind" with actor Clark
Gable and actress Vivien Leigh. Directors in the nineteen-thirties also
produced such great films as "It Happened One Night," "Mutiny
on the Bounty," and "The Life of Emile Zola."
VOICE 2:
The success of radio and films, as well as the
depression itself, caused problems for many Americans newspapers during
the nineteen-thirties. The trouble was not so much that readers stopped
buying newspapers. It was that companies talked about their products
through advertisements on radio instead of buying advertising space
in newspapers.
Nearly half of the nation's independently-published
newspapers either stopped publishing or joined larger companies during
the nineteen-thirties. By World War Two, only one-hundred-twenty cities
had competing newspapers.
VOICE 1:
Weekly and monthly publications faced the same
problem as daily newspapers -- increased competition from radio and
films. Many magazines failed. The two big successes of the period were
Life Magazine and the Reader's Digest.
Life Magazine had stories for everyone about
film actors, news events, or just daily life in the home or on the farm.
Its photographs were the greatest anywhere. Reader's Digest published
shorter forms of stories from other magazines and sources.
VOICE 2:
Most popular books of the period were like the
films coming from Hollywood. Writers cared more about helping people
forget their troubles than about facing serious social issues. They
made more money that way, too.
But a number of writers in the nineteen-thirties
did produce books that were both profitable and of high quality. One
was Sinclair Lewis. His book, "It Can't Happen Here," warned
of the coming dangers of fascism. John Steinbeck's great book, "The
Grapes of Wrath," helped millions understand and feel in their
hearts the troubles faced by poor farmers.
Erskine Caldwell wrote about the cruelty of
life among poor people in the southeastern United States, and James
T. Farrell about life in Chicago.
VOICE 1:
The same social concern and desire to present
life as it really existed also were clear in the work of many American
artists during the nineteen-thirties. Thomas Benton painted workers
and others with strong tough bodies. Edward Hopper showed the sad streets
of American cities. Reginald Marsh painted picture after picture of
poor parts of New York City.
The federal government created a program that
gave jobs to artists. They painted their pictures on the walls of airports,
post offices, and schools. The program brought their ideas and creativity
to millions of people.
At the same time, photography became more important
as cameras improved in quality and became more moveable. Some photographers
like Margaret Bourke-White and Walker Evans used their cameras to report
the hard conditions of the Depression.
VOICE 2:
All this activity in the arts and popular culture
played an important part in the lives of Americans during the nineteen-thirties.
It not only provided relief from their troubles, but expanded their
minds and pushed their imaginations.
The tensions and troubles of the Great Depression
provided a rich atmosphere for artists and others to produce works that
were serious, foolish, or just plain fun. And those works, in turn,
helped make life a little better as Americans waited, worked, and hoped
for times to improve.
(Theme)
VOICE 1:
You have been listening to THE MAKING OF A NATION,
a program in Special English by the Voice of America. Your narrators
have been Steve Ember and Bob Doughty. Our program was written by David
Jarmul. The Voice of America invites you to listen again next week to
THE MAKING OF A NATION.
| 
