Post by *~Mrs. Cooper ~* on Dec 29, 2006 20:18:45 GMT -5
1930-1939 - After the Crash
The thirties brought something Americans had never known on so vast a scale--poverty, panic, fear, and deprivation. The Great Depression changed forever and generation that would give birth to the baby boomers and defined what it meant to survive hard times. It was pervasive, unreletning, nationwide. From the urban sophistication of Wall Street to the heartland of rural America, the depression showed no mercy, no favoritism.
The Stock Market Crash of 1929, the collapse of the U.S. banking system in 1933, and the severe drought that turned the Great Plains into a dust bowl throw the United States into economic chaos. Thousands of suicides were reported in the months following the crash. Desperate farm income still dropped by 50%. In addition, industry production was reduced by half, 85,000 business failed, numerous banks closed, and unemployment reached 25%.
Religious bickering paled against the harshness of drought, unemployment, starvation, and hardship. Against that back-drop, the theological mood of the country shifted, and a new type of theologian emerged. These thinkers, including American'-born brothers H. Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr, and immigrant Paul Tillich, "aspired to be public theologians...." They employed the language of faith to address a public also beyond the churches. They...functioned almost as novelists or artists do," writes Dr. Marty.
The querulous noise of cultural conflict of the twneties was silenced by the hard realities of the thirties. Singing telegrams and the music of Benny Goodman couldn't soften life for the 40 million people living in poverty or the thousands of workers out on strikes. After the crash, Americans were suffering.
* * *
The Decade at a Glance
The thirties brought something Americans had never known on so vast a scale--poverty, panic, fear, and deprivation. The Great Depression changed forever and generation that would give birth to the baby boomers and defined what it meant to survive hard times. It was pervasive, unreletning, nationwide. From the urban sophistication of Wall Street to the heartland of rural America, the depression showed no mercy, no favoritism.
The Stock Market Crash of 1929, the collapse of the U.S. banking system in 1933, and the severe drought that turned the Great Plains into a dust bowl throw the United States into economic chaos. Thousands of suicides were reported in the months following the crash. Desperate farm income still dropped by 50%. In addition, industry production was reduced by half, 85,000 business failed, numerous banks closed, and unemployment reached 25%.
Religious bickering paled against the harshness of drought, unemployment, starvation, and hardship. Against that back-drop, the theological mood of the country shifted, and a new type of theologian emerged. These thinkers, including American'-born brothers H. Richard and Reinhold Niebuhr, and immigrant Paul Tillich, "aspired to be public theologians...." They employed the language of faith to address a public also beyond the churches. They...functioned almost as novelists or artists do," writes Dr. Marty.
The querulous noise of cultural conflict of the twneties was silenced by the hard realities of the thirties. Singing telegrams and the music of Benny Goodman couldn't soften life for the 40 million people living in poverty or the thousands of workers out on strikes. After the crash, Americans were suffering.
* * *
The Decade at a Glance
1930 Grant Wood exhibits American Gothic.
1931 The Empire State Building opens in New York.
1931 Al Capone is jailed for income tax evasion.
1932 America is stunned as headlines report kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby.
1932 Shirley Temple's first movie is released.
1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt is inaugurated and launches The New Deal, and unpredecented number of emergency relief and recovery programs.
1933 Passing of Twenty-first Amendment repeals Prohibition.
1933 Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany.
1934 Federal law grants labor the right to form unions, but strong-arm tactics stall unionization.
1934 Walt Disney releases Snow White, America's first full-length animated movie.
1935 Social Security Act instituted.
1936 Edward VIII of Great Britain abdictated the trhone to marry American Wallis Simpson.
1936 Jesse Owens captures four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics.
1937 First jet engine is built.
1938 Orson Welles' radio broadcast of War of the Worlds on Halloween night creates a nationwide hysteria.
1938 Fair Labor Standards Act is passed, limiting child labor.
1939 War breaks out in Europe, a war that from its first day was called World War II.
1939 John Steinbeck publishes The Grapes of Wrath.
1939 An atom is split by John Dunning at Columbia University.