1934

Articles from 1934

The Great Depression and the Failings of FDR (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

The columnist whose opinions are attached bitterly pointed out that the first year of FDR’s administration had marginalized the Congress – and further opined that Roosevelt’s rhetoric clearly implied his arrogant conviction that his administration alone was the only alternative to out right revolution, and should therefore to be seen as a mandate of the people. The article lists the numerous failings of FDR’s New Deal.


CLICK HERE to read more criticism from FDR’s loyal opposition…


When W.W. II began and the factories reopened, the reality of having money and full-time employment made so many people giddy with excitement it proved to be too much for them – click here to read about that…

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The Junior Brain Trusters (New Outlook, 1934)

I have gathered my tools and my charts… I shall roll up my sleeves – make America over!

This was the motto to which the young folk began their work, nearly a thousand of them, which may be grouped for study purposes under the generic title, ‘Junior Brain Trusters’. They were, for the most part, young men from the colleges and universities of the larger eastern cities…. Many of them came as protégés of the Senior Brain Trusters themselves, brought from the classrooms by [Guy] Tugwell, [Raymond Charles] Moley, [Felix] Frankfurter – Professor Frankfurter being especially successful in drafting students and recent graduates from the Harvard Law School.

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The Brain Trusters (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

A year and a half into FDR’s first term, journalist William E. Berchtold caught wind of a growing realization in Washington that most of the ’emergency’ legislation will become permanent. This didn’t bother him nearly as much as the fact that such imperishability also meant that the host of beta males who were positioned to maintain this behemoth would also be remaining (History has taught us that it was not FDR’s alphabet agencies that became a mainstay, but those of LBJ).

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During the Depression Unskilled Labor Flocked to Hollywood (Photoplay Magazine, 1934)

Illustrated with the images of shanties and tents that once surrounded Universal Studios, this article tells the sad story of Hollywood movie extras and the challenging lives they led during the Great Depression:

Tossed out of other work by the recent depression, attracted by the false stories of Hollywood’s squanderings and extravagances, excited by the thrill of living and working in the same town and the same industry with world famous personalities, they drifted to Hollywood and attached themselves to the motion picture industry. They registered with the Central Casting Bureau, and joined the great army of extras.
These people saw no glitter, no romance, no bright mirage of stardom. To them, it was hard work and serious work…


From Amazon: Hollywood Unknowns: A History of Extras, Bit Players, and Stand-Insstyle=border:none

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The Alphabet Bureaucrats (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

It would be difficult to select the typical New Deal bureau. In not a few there is considerable friction between different degrees and elements of thought as to how far the New Deal should really go… The program is so vast, the limits of its intent so completely shrouded in the vague phraseology of the new idealism, that there appears to be plenty of work for all. [For example] unwanted surplusses were found in the electrical power and appliance field. It was perceived that here was a case of ‘under-consumption’ on the part of American homeowners. How to solve the problem? With another bureau, of course. And so we have the EHFA – the Electric Home and Farm Authority.

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The Lot of Women in the Great Depression (New Outlook Magazine, 1934)

An editorial by two American feminists who insisted that the economic depression of the Thirties had knocked the wind right out of the Women’s Movement. They argued that some of the high ground that was earned in the preceding decades had been lost and needed to be taken back; their points are backed up by figures from the U.S. Census Bureau as well as other agencies. Much column space is devoted to the employment discrimination practiced by both state and Federal governments in favor of single women at the expense of the married. It is grievously made clear that even the sainted FDR Administration was one of the cruel practitioners of wage inequality.


CLICK HERE to read about the pay disparity that existed between men and women during the 1930s.

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