Thirteen Ed Online - Hard Times, Soft Sell

		Hard Times, Soft Sell The following handouts will help you complete your Web lesson. Student Handout #1 AMERICAN VISIONS: Streamlines and Breadlines Questions to consider: 1. How does the work of Edward Hopper reflect the urban experience of the 1930s? 2. How do anti-city themes manifest themselves in the work of painters like Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood? 3. The Great Depression left people longing for better times. What role does futurism play? Where does one see the "popularity" of the future in 1930s mass culture? 4. Along with -- but in direct contrast to -- futurism, many people felt a nostalgia for a pastoral America of bygone days. How does the art of Grant Wood -- and others -- reflect this longing for "peace and plenty?" 5. Despite the hard times, where does optimism fit within the Depression-era zeitgeist? 6. Art critic Robert Hughes said that the 1930s "saw more weight of marketing message built into everyday household objects than ever before. They advertised themselves." What does he mean? What is industrial design? 7. What is Art Deco? Why did that style flower in the 1930s? 8. What were the most popular pop culture icons of the Depression? How are Orphan Annie, Shirley Temple, and "swing music" emblematic of the era? 9. Escapism is a prevalent theme of the era. How was this played out in art and various forms of popular culture? 10. How are the various themes of Depression-era culture expressed in the mass media of the day? How were they expressed in the fine arts? Student Handout #2 Great Depression Resources on the Web The Library of Congress has a wealth of life histories generated by the Federal Writers' Project for the U.S. Works Projects Administration (WPA) from 1936 to 1940. The collection includes 2,900 documents representing the work of over 300 writers from 24 states. These histories "describe informants' family, education, income, occupation, political views, religious mores, medical needs, diet, and miscellaneous observations." The WPA Life Histories can be found at (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/wpaintro/). You can search the WPA Life Histories Collection for documents containing specific key words at (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query). The FDR Cartoon Archive is a great resource of political cartoons from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency. In addition to cartoons and Inaugural addresses, the site includes many links to other FDR-related pages. (By the way, the FDR Cartoon Collection Database is a cooperative preservation project of a high school's AP Computer Math and AP History classes!) Class 11M at the Point Grey Mini School in Vancouver, British Columbia has put together a terrific site on the popular culture of Great Depression (http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade30.html). Their pages include a wide variety of information on topics as diverse as 1930s Olympic events, jive and swing music, "Hollywood fashions," relief camps, Dick Tracy, food and nourishment issues, magazines, movies, crime, education, the role of mothers, diverse immigrant communities, automobiles -- and even undergarments of the day! The Fleischer Brothers were responsible for some of the most innovative animated cartoons of all time. One of their creations, Betty Boop, remains emblematic of the 1930s' spirit of optimism and innocent "naughtiness." Do a web search using Altavista to learn about the Fleischers' work . If you want to find out more about animation -- and two-dimensional comics of the 1930s, visit the History of Comic Art (http://www.wizard.com/~herriman/). And speaking of animation and comics, David Gerstein's Virtual Inkwell (http://wso.williams.edu/~dgerstei/) has links to a variety of sites on Thirties topics, including the Marx Brothers, Felix the Cat, and the Our Gang comedies. To find interesting historical photos, go to the Time Life Photo Sight (http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/) Another great place to perform searches on topics related to American artists, art and architecture is the Getty Information Institute Subject Index (http://www.getty.edu/art/ ). There are a lot of interesting resources and links pertaining to FDR and the Depression at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum (http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/) and at the Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal page (http://www.Geocities.com/Athens/4545).