The American Heritage Media Collection sound filmstrip The 20s and the 30s deals in Part 4 with the early years of the coming of the New Deal. In Part 5 it carries the story to the eve of World War II. Coronet Films provides a an hour on the career of Franklin D. Roosevelt: there is a twenty-eight-minute videotape, Roosevelt and U.S. History: 1882-1929, and another thirty-two-minute videotape, Roosevelt and U.S. History: 1930-1945. Coronet also has Roosevelt: Hail to the Chief, a twenty-four-minute videotape that focuses on leadership in the depression.

Films for the Humanities and Sciences has several excellent videos. Franklin and Eleanor, twenty-seven minutes, deals with material that is strongly biographical and personal within the context of the times. An excellent short biography, Eleanor Roosevelt, is one of a series of fifteen-minute videotapes about significant figures. Another is Dorothea Lange, who photographed soup kitchens, bread lines, and desperate farm families. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?: History in Action, twenty minutes, is produced as though it were July 29, 1932, the day after the army evicted the bonus marchers from their squatter camp in Washington. The causes of the crash are considered, together with the effects of the depression on everyday life. Still another is America in the Thirties: Creating the Safety Net, thirty minutes, which begins with the crash and continues with a portrayal of the widening effects of the economic crisis.

The PBS series A Walk Through the Twentieth Century with Bill Moyers has The Helping Hand, a fifteen-minute exploration and examination of New Deal propaganda and efforts to explain government intervention in the economy. Also from PBS Video are After the Crash, a sympathetic and well-presented fifty-five-minute investigation of the Bonus Army of 1932, and Amelia Earhart (fifty-eight minutes), an exploration of the career of that controversial woman. A tour de force from PBS Video is The Great Depression, seven hour-long episodes using photographic, radio, and film library materials as well as voice-over quotations from important figures, newsreel footage, and eyewitness accounts. The result is dramatic, interesting, and excellently informative. A companion volume by T.H. Watkins, The Great Depression: America in the 1930s (1933), combines narrative history with pictures, documents, and colored posters that take up one-third of the volume. Another companion is The Great Depression: American Music in the '30s, twenty-one selections on one CD (Columbia/Legacy CK 57589). "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" joins "Happy Days Are Here Again" and other tunes of the time. PBS Video also offers FDR (270 minutes), an extended examination of the New Deal leader in two parts. Part 1 explores Roosevelt's background and education and carries the story to his bout with polio at age thirty-nine. Part 2 focuses on the New Deal years and includes the Roosevelt administration's response to the looming threat of war. PBS has created an excellent hour-long account of Father Coughlin in The Radio Priest. Also available from PBS Video is an American Experience episode, Sit Down and Fight: Walter Reuther and the Rise of the Auto Workers Union (fifty-seven minutes). Consult the Educational Film & Video Locator for The World of Tomorrow (eighty-three minutes), a sparkling documentary celebrating the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Good films about the depression include Gabriel Over the White House (1933), starring Walter Huston, is an odd, almost bizarre film that shows a lazy and ineffective president (Harding?) converted into an audacious leader who deals vigorously with economic disaster, crime, and corruption. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), starring Joan Blondell, is a song-and-dance comedy about poor but honest showgirls whose story is just right for chasing the audience's depression woes. Wild Boys of the Road (1933) is a William Wellman film that shows middle-class youths turned into petty criminals by life as hobos. It ends with an affirmative, if naively hopeful, New Deal message. Our Daily Bread (1934) is a King Vidor film about a drought-stricken depression farm saved by human virtue and the discovery of water. Dead End (1937)--directed by William Wyler and starring Humphrey Bogart, Sylvia Sidney, and Joel McCrea--is a film from Sidney Kingsley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play that contrasts wealth and poverty and crime and education as routes to success.From the archives of Fox Movietone News have been compiled two 142-minute videotapes narrated by Lowell Thomas. These newsreels, The New Deal: 1930-35 and The New Deal: 1935-39, were seen by millions of Americans in movie theaters years ago.

Some of the flavor of the depression years and a good deal of the flavor of Huey Long's Louisiana can be gleaned from Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King's Men (1947), based not so loosely on the life of the Kingfish. In 1949 the novel was made into an excellent movie, directed by Robert Rossen and starring Broderick Crawford. Both the novel and the film are instructive and not a little unsettling as one contemplates the nature of political power.
Document Set 25-1

Crisis in Dearborn: the Ford Hunger March

1. Maurice Sugar's Reconstruction of the Ford Hunger March, 1980
2. A Ford Executive Recalls the Dearborn Incident, 1956
3. The Press Reacts to the Violence, 1932
4. William Reynolds Offers an Eyewitness Account in Retrospect, 1960
5. A Statement from the Wayne County Prosecutor, Harry Toy, 1932
6. The American Civil Liberties Union Assesses the Damage, 1932This unit is composed of documents that dramatize the rise of protest in response to a collapsed economy after 1929. Not only do these materials reveal the remarkable militancy of Detroit's unemployed, but they may also be used to acquaint students with the influence of the Left in the rise of mass protest. Confronted with evidence of police violence, as well as capitalist indifference to the plight of the jobless, students should gain insight into the depression's social implications.Instructors may wish to introduce the evidence with a background lecture on the role of the Left in the unemployed movement of the 1930s, placing particular emphasis on the Communist party's activity in the Unemployed Councils of major cities. This topic may easily be integrated into a broader discussion of the text material on both the bonus march and the farm holiday movement. Text and comments should lead to productive discussion of violence as a factor in American history, particularly if instructors wish to develop students' awareness of the conflict/consensus debate among historians.Another approach to the documents would encourage students to assess responsibility for the outbreak of violence at the Ford plant. Such discussion could begin with an examination of the marchers' objectives, including the goals of the sponsoring organizations. Students might be asked to consider the significance of communist involvement, but they should also ponder the intentions of those participants not politically motivated.Still another question raised by these documents involves the role of the government as a guarantor of the citizens' social welfare. The Ford demonstration might easily stimulate discussion of the Hoover administration's voluntaristic policies and assumptions. There is ample opportunity to relate Hoover's individualism to Ford's concept of self-help as evidence of outworn social assumptions. By the same token, familiarity with these traditions may help students understand both the expansion and limits of class consciousness in the 1930s; the documents can be a starting point for discussion of the failure of most workers to mount a sweeping challenge to capitalism in the system's moment of crisis.Finally, instructors can employ audiovisual materials to emphasize the social implications of systemic failure. A number of excellent films produced by the radical Film and Photo League may be screened as visual documents of the unemployed movement as well as evidence of the Left's role in the organization of the jobless. These films--such as Workers' Newsreel--Unemployed Special (1930-1932), The Ford Massacre (1932), Hunger: The National Hunger March to Washington (1931), and The Bonus March (1932)--provide graphic evidence of worker protest against joblessness.These documents offer an opportunity for instructors and students to revisit the darkest days of the depression. As the social consequences of economic disaster are analyzed, students may be asked to determine why there was no revolution, a question that leads forward in time to the New Deal era.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 25-1


Alex Baskin. "The Ford Hunger March--1932," Labor History 13 (Summer 1972): 331-360.

Sidney Fine. Frank Murphy: The Detroit Years (1975).

Christopher Johnson. Maurice Sugar: Law, Labor, and the Left in Detroit, 1912-1950 (1988).

Roger Keeran. The Communist Party and the Auto Workers Union (1980).

Harvey Klehr. The Heyday of American Communism (1984).

Daniel J. Leab. "United We Eat: The Organization of the Unemployed Councils in 1930," Labor History 8 (Fall 1967): 300-315.

James J. Lorence. Organizing the Unemployed: Community and Union Activists in the Industrial Heartland (1996).

Fraser Ottanelli. The Communist Party of the United States from the Depression to the New Deal (1991).

Roy Rosenweig. "Organizing the Unemployed: The Early Years of the Great Depression, 1929-1933," Radical America 10 (July-August 1976): 37-60.

Maurice Sugar. The Ford Hunger March (1980).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 25-1


The Bonus March (film--1932--20 min.). Pennsylvania State University, Audio Visual Services, 17 Willard Building, University Park, Pa. 16802.

The Ford Massacre (film--1932--8 min.). Pennsylvania State University, Audio Visual Services, 17 Willard Building, University Park, Pa. 16802.

A Job at Ford's. From The Great Depression Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

On the Line, The People's Century Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

The Rouge: The Factory and the Workers (videotape--45 min.). Filmmakers Library, 124 E. 40th Street, New York, N.Y. 10016.
Document Set 245-12

Assessing The New Deal: Franklin D. Roosevelt and The Limits of Liberalism

1. The New Republic Reviews the New Deal's Accomplishments, 1940
2. Raymond Moley Expresses Reservations on the New Deal, 1939
3. Frances Perkins Describes Roosevelt's Ideology, 1946
4. Huey P. Long's Criticism of the Roosevelt Program, 1936
5. A New Deal Economist Portrays Roosevelt as a Friend of Capital, 1970
6. Gardner Means Recalls the New Deal as a Breakthrough, 1970
7. Hamilton Fish Expresses a Conservative's Recollection of Roosevelt, 1970After a complete treatment of the New Deal's evolution, Chapter 24 contains a5 closes with a solid discussion of the program in historical perspective. This balanced assessment of Roosevelt and the New Deal and provides an opportunity for instructors to engage students in an important interpretive exercise. Confronted with conflicting evaluations of the New Deal by its supporters and critics, students may be asked to formulate their own hypotheses regarding its significance.This document set also requires students to explore personal backgrounds and political agendas of the witnesses as part of the analytical process. The analysis will be facilitated by supporting lectures identifying brain trusters, critics on the Left, and Roosevelt's Republican opponents. Careful reading of the text will help equip students to develop their own assessments of the New Deal.One emphasis of this unit is the class impact of the New Deal, which may be approached through several of the documents. Building on this opportunity, instructors might assign students to research reactions to the Roosevelt program from various occupational, social, or class perspectives. This exercise would enable instructors to encourage discussion of group attitudes, especially toward the Second New Deal.Expanding on the issues raised by the documents, instructors might also encourage individual interviewing by students, with emphasis on the basic interpretive question. By so doing, students may become aware of the myriad personal experiences that make up the national memory of the depression. The results would bring additional perspective to classroom discussion of the New Deal's legacy.By working with oral history, students would also become engaged in "doing history," gaining familiarity with the historian's process. With careful preparation, students may become personally acquainted with some of the pitfalls of oral history, such as selective forgetfulness and loaded questions. As a bonus, students can develop a more personalized understanding of history, one that incorporates the link between local developments and larger trends (as revealed in the documents).The end result of this exercise should be heightened student awareness of the Great Depression as an economic, political, and social watershed in American history. Moreover, this unit should encourage students to grasp the link between past and present, as the modern significance of the New Deal's institutional impact becomes clear. Students can be made aware of the extent to which their own social and economic world was shaped by the innovations of the Roosevelt era.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 245-12


Barton J. Bernstein. "The New Deal: The Conservative Achievements of Liberal Reform," in Barton J. Bernstein, ed., Towards a New Past (1968).

Gary Dean Best. Pride, Prejudice and Politics: Roosevelt Versus Recovery, 1933-1938 (1990).

Roger Biles. A New Deal for the American People (1991).

Alan Brinkley. Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression (1982).

------. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War (1995).

Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle, eds. The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930-1980 (1989).

William E. Leuchtenburg. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (1963).

Albert U. Romasco. The Politics of Recovery: Roosevelt's New Deal (1983).

Jordan Schwarz. The New Dealers: Power Politics in the Age of Roosevelt (1993).

Harvard Sitkoff, ed. Fifty Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated (1985).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 245-12


Demagogues and Do-Gooders: Noisy Voices of the Great Depression (March of Time documentary film, 1936--18 min.). Time-Life Multimedia, 110 Eisenhower Drive, P.O. Box 644, Paramus, N.J. 07652.

F.D.R. (videotape--4.5 hrs.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

Huey Long (videotape--90 min.). Corinth Films, Inc., 410 E. 62d Street, New York, N.Y. 10021.

New Deal/New York. The Great Depression Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.

We Have a Plan, The Great Depression Series (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.
Document Set 245-23

Environmental Disaster: Images of Human Error and Hope for The Future

1. The Resettlement Administration Proposes an Educational Film, 1935
2. The Plow That Broke the Plains: A Synopsis, 1936
3. Congressman Fred Hildebrand Senses the Political Potential of the Motion Picture, 1936
4. Defensive Reaction on the High Plains, 1936
5. A Photographic Record of the "Dirty Thirties"The substantial text coverage of environmental issues and agricultural problems in the 1930s offers an excellent opportunity for instructors to introduce students to the study of film as historical document. Because many New Dealers understood the power of the moving image as a tool for communicating a message to the American public, many examples of the motion picture as political instrument in the 1930s survive. No agency was more actively engaged in such experimentation than the Resettlement Administration, which sponsored Pare Lorentz's cinematic breakthrough, The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936).Ideally, instructors should screen the film for students as background for a discussion of the documents, focusing on the historical context in which it was produced and originally viewed. After an introductory lecture on the RA and its program, students should be ready to explore through discussion the agency's objectives in making the film. The original proposal and the synopsis should be compared in an effort to understand the RA's goals.This discussion might naturally lead to an examination of the political debate surrounding the film's distribution. Instructors may find that, after viewing the film, students are perplexed by the furor over its release and its eventual suppression. To sharpen their awareness of the underlying factors in the controversy, students may be asked to assume the roles of the various participants in the debate, such as Pare Lorentz, Rexford Tugwell, congressional critics and supporters, and perhaps film critics. Basing their arguments on the documents, text, and personal research, students may thus become acquainted with the subtleties of an issue that raised troubling questions about responsibility for the ecological disaster that occurred on the Great Plains in the 1930s.For a deeper analysis of the controversy surrounding the film's distribution, the censorship after its release may be examined. Instructors who wish to explore this matter fully should secure both the AHA-sponsored videotape, Image as Artifact (1987), and Guide to the "Image as Artifact" Video Compilation (1988). The video contains a three-minute epilogue that was excised from the film shortly after it entered distribution in 1936 (the epilogue also appears in the National Audiovisual Center version). An alternative would be a lecture in which the instructor could explain the removal of the controversial epilogue, which detailed New Deal efforts and expenditures to cope with the dust bowl crisis (for full details, see John E. O'Connor, Image as Artifact: The Historical Analysis of Film and Television [1990], Chapter 4). Discussion of these debates could range from the reactions of farmers and chambers of commerce to the internal disagreement within RA, as well as the defensive response attributed by Lorentz to Will Hays and the motion-picture industry.On still another level, some instructors will undoubtedly wish to analyze the film in terms of content and artistic merit. To promote informed discussion, it may be useful to provide an introductory comment detailing the generally positive reviewers' response to the film. Instructors might ask students why critical acclaim was heaped on a film that may seem to them a rather unsophisticated documentary (by comparison with the modern films they have viewed). This discussion should begin with an exploration of the term documentary so that students will understand the dynamics and character of the genre. If instructors screen the film, students will have an unparalleled opportunity to experience the moving image at its best. They should be challenged to find meaning and impact in the juxtaposition of visual images, narration, and music in the creation of a work of art that is also politically persuasive. In turn, this exercise could easily lead to a searching discussion of propaganda as it was known in the 1930s and as it is perceived today. Students may be asked to decide whether a distinction can properly be made between "good" and "bad" propaganda. By wrestling with this question and relating it to The Plow, students will sharpen critical skills now essential in a world in which visual imagery surrounds them and responsible citizenship requires increased sophistication in accepting or rejecting those images.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 245-23


William Alexander. Films on the Left: American Documentary Film from 1931 to 1942 (1981).

Paul Bonnifield. The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, and Depression (1979).

James Curtis. Mind's Eye, Mind's Truth: FSA Photography Reconsidered (1989).

Douglas Hurt. The Dust Bowl: An Agricultural and Social History (1981).

Pare Lorentz. F.D.R.'s Moviemaker: Memoirs and Scripts (1992).

Richard Dyer McCann. The People's Films: A Political History of U.S. Government Motion Pictures (1973).

John E. O'Connor. Guide to the "Image as Artifact" Video Compilation (1988).

------. Image as Artifact: The Historical Analysis of Film and Television (1990).

Note: Instructors who wish to use Document Set 245-23 effectively are urged to consult the O'Connor volumes. The ideas developed in this set are derived from O'Connor's excellent analysis, which includes more detailed suggestions on teaching The Plow That Broke the Plains.

Robert L. Snyder. Pare Lorentz and the Documentary Film (1968).

William Stott. Documentary Expression and Thirties America (1973).

Donald Worster. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s (1979).
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 245-23


Cinema of the New Deal (videotape--60 min.). Zenger Media, 10200 Jefferson Boulevard, P.O. Box 802, Culver City, Calif. 90232-0802.

Dorothea Lange (videotape--13 min.). Films for the Humanities and Sciences, P.O. Box 2053, Princeton, N.J. 08543-2053.

The Grapes of Wrath (videotape--129 min.). University of Illinois Film/Video Center, 1325 S. Oak Street, Champaign, Ill. 61820.

Image as Artifact (videotape compilation--120 min.). American Historical Association, 400 A Street SE, Washington, D.C. 20003.

The Plow That Broke the Plains (videotape--29 min.). National Audiovisual Center, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, Order Section JL, Washington, D.C. 20409.

Surviving the Dust Bowl (videotape--60 min.). PBS Video, 1320 Braddock Place, Alexandria, Va. 22314-1698.
Document Set 254-3

Mass Culture and Social Crisis: Music, Film, and The Mood of Depression America

1. E. Y. Harburg's Bitter Memories, 1932
2. Warner Brothers Dissects a Sick Society, 1932
3. Robert Bendiner Recalls Two Depressions, 1932-1933
4. Wild Boys [and Girls] of the Road, Domesticated, 1933
5. Images of Depression America from HollywoodIn recent years historians have turned to the study of motion pictures as historical documents that reveal much about social and cultural history. Although feature films stand as striking artifacts that vividly expressed the culture of the 1930s, they must be addressed with great caution by teaching scholars. Because an uncritical absorption of moving images may distort students' perceptions of a historical period, the responsible use of film presents a great challenge and a major opportunity for instructors who seek to expand their students' understanding of evidence. Through analysis of motion pictures, this unit offers an opportunity for students to explore the social and cultural values they contain as well as the popular attitudes present at the time of their creation.A logical point of entry into such discussion would be a lecture comparing the actions of the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations in 1932 and 1933, as well as the public perception of the two leaders at the time. Discussion might begin with an inquiry into writer Robert Bendiner's intent in recalling a "gloomy depression" under Hoover, as opposed to an "exhilarating depression" under Roosevelt. Equally useful would be lyricist E. Y. Harburg's recollection of the dark mood that prevailed as an uncertain public prepared for the critical election of 1932. An examination of these memories will set the stage for analysis of the two filmscripts that constitute the centerpiece of this document set.Instructors might want to screen all or part of the two films in question, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) and Wild Boys of the Road (1933). If this is not possible, film reviews or instructor summaries may be used to prepare students for discussion of the concluding segments of each film. A useful framework for comparing the films may be found in Andrew Bergman, We're in the Money: Depression America and Its Films (1971). Far-reaching debate is likely to develop over the social and cultural significance of these feature films. Instructors may also focus student attention on the differing historical situations in mid-1932 and mid-1933, when the two scripts were completed. Students should be able to establish linkage between the political context and the mood that dominates each film.Another fascinating analytical exercise would revolve around the alternative endings available for Wild Boys of the Road, both of which are included in the documents. Instructors might ask students which conclusion was more honest, in view of the historical realities in 1933. Students might be assigned to research the historical background of the film, including the problem of transient youth and sympathy for the New Deal at Warner Brothers. Follow-up discussion could focus on the filmmaking process, the rationale for artistic decisions, and the possibility of executive influence in the creative process. This discussion might also explore the well-known interest in topical films at Warner Brothers and an explanation for that preference.As students examine the evidence, they should gain a new appreciation of the value of non-elite sources in the study of cultural history. In this instance, productive discussion should develop from their attempt to understand the function of the feature film in mass culture. The interpretation of the motion picture as historical document is tricky, but with ample guidance students will grow in their ability to think critically about the nature of primary source material. In the process they should also gain insight into the responses of the mass audience to the despair of depression. The optimism of the "happy ending" to Wild Boys of the Road, when analyzed side by side with the rejected conclusion, as well as the grim pessimism of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, should enable students to appreciate the values, hopes, and convictions of the viewing public in the dark days of the early depression.

Recommended Readings for Document Set 254-3


Andrew Bergman. We're in the Money: Depression America and Its Films (1971).

Lary May. Screening Out the Past: The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture (1980).

Steven Mintz and Randy Roberts, eds. Hollywood's America: United States History Through Its Films (1983).

Giuliana Muscio. Hollywood's New Deal (1997).

John E. O'Connor. Teaching History with Film and Television (rev. ed., 1987).

Marlette Rebhorn. Screening America: Using Hollywood Films to Teach History (1988).

Nick Roddick. A New Deal in Entertainment: Warner Brothers in the 1930s (1983).

Peter Roffman and Jim Purdy. The Hollywood Social Problem Film: Madness, Despair, and Politics from the Depression to the Fifties (1981).

Robert Sklar. City Boys: Cagney, Bogart and Garfield (1992).

------. Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (rev., 1994).

Warren I. Susman. "The Culture of the Thirties," in Warren I. Susman, ed., Culture As History (1984), 150-183.
Audiovisual Resources for Document Set 254-3


Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (videotape--106 min.). Zenger Media, 10200 Jefferson Boulevard, P.O. Box 802, Culver City, Calif. 90202-0802.

Gold Diggers of 1933 (videotape--98 min.). Facets Video, 1517 W. Fullerton Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60614.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (videotape--76 min.). Facets Video, 1517 W. Fullerton Avenue, Chicago, Ill. 60614.

Wild Boys of the Road (film--68 min.). United Artists 16, 729 Seventh Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10019.

Years in Review--The Thirties--1932, 1933 editions (films--8 min. each). Kraus-Thompson Organization, Ltd., Route 100, Millwood, N.Y. 10546.