History 410/510: Society and Culture in the Great Depression

Daniel Pope

Class meets 10-11:20 MW 175 Lillis

Office: 331 McKenzie, 346-4015

Office Hours: Mon. 3:30-5:00; Thurs. 2:30-3:30
dapope@uoregon.edu

Course Description:

This course is avowedly experimental. I'm an American historian, but this term we will look at the decade of the 1930s in a global and comparative context, examining not only developments in the United States but also in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. To make matters even more complicated, although my own specialty is economic and business history, this course will pay consistent attention to developments in political, social and cultural history.

There are two main themes in the course. First, we'll examine the causes, consequences and human significance of economic collapse. Beginning around the time of the stock market crash in October 1929, the United States entered into an unprecedented economic depression. Recovery came slowly and fitfully; the economy remained depressed until the U.S. entered World War II. Although the extent, duration and impact of economic crisis varied from country to country, the Great Depression was a worldwide catastrophe.

Second, we will look at the political, social and cultural response to crisis. It is too simple to attribute the rise of dictatorships around the world to economic causes, but economic collapse challenged the viability of democracy as it threatened the survival of capitalism. The thirties were marked by conflicts and thrusts by fascist and militarist regimes that gathered momentum and led to the outbreak of World War II in 1939. At the same time, we'll examine how cultural institutions and creative individuals responded to economic disaster and the looming presence of war.

Course Policies:

Course requirements are as follows:
1. A midterm in-class exam scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 7(worth 20% of course grade)

2. Two short (3-5 pages each) papers. Choose any two of the topics below
a. A paper on a classic 1930s movie (20%).
b. A paper on a classic 1930s novel (20%).
c. A paper based on an interview with someone who lived through the Great Depression. Instructions
One of these papers is due on Monday, Feb. 19; the other is due on Monday, March 12. You can do them in any order you wish. Instructions for each of the topics will be available soon.

3. A take-home final exam , due Friday, March 16 at 10:15 (40%).

 You should be aware that plagiarism is a serious academic offense. If you use someone else's words, you must put them in quotation marks and provide a citation to your source. If you paraphrase--restate someone else's ideas with a different wording-- or if you use specific information from a particular source, again you must provide a citation. At a minimum , plagiarism can result in failure on the assignment involved.

Required readings:
I am asking you to acquire two books: Piers Brendon, The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s (New York: Knopf, 2000) and Peter Temin, Lessons from the Great Depression . The Dark Valley is a long but (in my opinion) intelligent and well-written narrative history of the 1930s, stressing economic depression, political crises and military confrontations but not ignoring social and cultural developments. Lessons from the Great Depression is a set of three essays on the causes of the Depression, why it lasted so long, and what eventually cured it. Peter Temin is a leading economic historian; in this book, he is particularly concerned to apply the lessons to current economic policies. We'll supplement these books with some primary sources; most, if not all, will be available online.

If you do the short paper on a novel of the 1930's (see above under “Course Policies”), please obtain and read one of the following:
Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon
Lao She, Rickshaw
Andre Malraux, Man's Hope
Tillie Olsen, Yonnondio
Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine
Richard Wright, Native Son
All of these novels except Rickshaw should be widely available in inexpensive editions (e.g. at Smith Family bookstore). I'm ordering a few copies of Rickshaw for the U of O Bookstore .

Class Sessions:
Try to finish the assigned readings by the dates where they are listed. Unless otherwise noted, the readings other than the Brendon and Temin books are on the web.

Jan. 8: Introduction and aftermath of World War I

Jan.10: Economic Collapse
Read: Brendon, ch.1-3; Temin, ch. 1; F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Echoes of the Jazz Age," from Scribner's Magazine , vol. 95 (Nov. 1931). Click on the image scan to magnify it for easier reading.
Listen to a clip from a speech by President Herbert Hoover .

Jan. 15: Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday–No class session

Jan. 17: Why so long? How widespread?

Jan. 22: Economic policies–the Keynesian response
Read Brendon, ch.4; Temin, ch. 2; John Maynard Keynes, "The World Economic Outlook," from The Atlantic , May 1932. (This link leads you to a recent posting of excerpts from Keynes's essay on the blog of an economist--from the UO incidentally--with some commentary on its current-day implications following.)

Jan. 24: Human impact of unemployment
Read: George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier , ch. 5. Online at http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/4.html . Optional: Marie Jahoda et al., Marienthal: the Sociography of an Unemployed Community , chapters 5 and 7, online here . (Unfortunately, the scans on this reading are of low quality.); look at the lyrics to three classic popular songs from the Depression.

Jan. 29: Political Responses to economic crisis–Fascism
Read: Brendon, ch. 5, 9, 12 (ch. 6 optional)

Jan. 31: Political Responses–USSR, terror and industrialization
Read: Brendon, ch. 10, 19; an American admirer interviews Stalin in 1933; Time Magazine names Joseph Stalin “Man of the Year” for 1939.

Feb. 5: Political Responses–Democracy in Crisis
Read: Brendon, ch. 7,8,11,14; Temin, ch. 3; FDR's Fireside Chat, Sept. 30, 1934 and his Second Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1937 ; (optional but recommended: listen to the audio of these talks–link is above the text).

Feb. 7: Midterm

Feb. 12: Spain I: Civil War and World Conflict

Feb. 14: Spain II: Ideals and Power Politics
Read: Brendon, ch. 15-16; examine the PBS website, Guernica: Testimony of War .

Feb. 19: Imperialism and anti-imperialism: Mussolini in Ethiopia
Read: Brendon, ch. 13; C.L.R. James on Abyssinia [Ethiopia]; Time names Haile Selassie man of the year for 1935.

Feb. 21: Colonial and anti-imperialist protest
Read: Selections from Gandhi , Nehru , and Haya de la Torre .

Feb. 26: Depression culture: A new visual culture?

Feb. 28: New Media and Depression Culture
Read: Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction," on the web; browse some of the ads for radios and radio equipment from the 1930s online here .

March 5: Advertising and Consumer Culture in the 1930s
Read: Excerpts from Roland Marchand, "Advertising in Overalls," from his Advertising the American Dream – online here .

March 7: Coming of War–Japan in China
Read: Brendon, ch.18, 25; New York Times reports the Nanjing Massacre, 1937 . Optional: A Western journalist describes the Chinese Communists' “Long March” .

March 12: Coming of War–Europe
Read: Brendon, ch. 21, 22, 24,26, Conclusion (ch. 20 is suggested but optional)

March 14: Legacies of the Thirties
Read: Excerpts from Studs Terkel, Hard Times (I'll announce specifics later) ; Henry Luce, "The American Century" (1941) reprinted in Diplomatic History , vol.23, n.2 (Spring 1999). (Follow this link and click on “Full Text: Open in New Window.”)

Winter 2007