Find archive articles on the Great Depression from the 1930’s. Our site has great information from old magazine and newspaper articles on the Great Depression.
The New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, with its millions of employees and billions of dollars in relief funds, has long been recognized as a potential cesspool of graft where the unscrupulous are concerned. Last week, in the fierce heat of the 1938 campaign’s closing days, the stench of scandal began to penetrate the WPA administrations of two states…
Scandal (Pathfinder Magazine, 1938) Read More »
This 1939 magazine article addressed the matter of the communist organization Workers Alliance perverting the arts organizations that operated within the Federal Works Projects Administration (WPA), thus forcing the government agency to close:
When the arts projects of the WPA were instituted, many capable and culturally progressive individuals throughout the country hailed them as a banner raised against the gloomy depression sky to form a rallying point for youthful and ambitious artists whose task it was to carry the torch of aesthetic advancement on to that future time when we envisaged the return of ‘prosperity’…yet the obvious control of the arts projects by the communist party through its stooge, the Workers Alliance has forced the hand of Congress to abolish the agency.
CLICK HERE to read about African-Americans during the Great Depression.
The W.P.A. Arts Projects Closed Due to Communist Tampering (Ken Magazine, 1939) Read More »
This 1938 editorial by the artist Philip Evergood (1901 – 1973) stated that the Federal Arts Project of the Thirties had not simply made the lives of artists a little better, but had also created a far better society:
The Federal Arts Project has pointed the way to an American Culture. It has set a weight in motion, it has let loose a force that has affected hundreds of thousands of lives. It has made murals depicting the history of our country and the lives of our people have been placed on the walls of our schools, hospitals, libraries and public buildings making them of greater beauty and of greater community interest – monuments and small sculpture have been added in equal numbers, easel paintings and prints now hang in thousands on the walls of public buildings…
Evergood likened this government funding to the Renaissance, when the church served as the artist’s patron and culture flourished.
Government Subsidized Art (Direction Magazine, 1938) Read More »
Novelist Taylor Caldwell (Born Janet Miriam Holland Taylor Caldwell: 1900 – 1985) recalled the bleak days of the Great Depression – and the perpetual appearance of American socialist who seemed always to be in recruitment mode.
Open or crypto-Communists, they had one unwavering theme: Communism was a System with a Heart. Communism was the new Christianity. Communism was the savior of the working people. America must become Communistic, if it was to pull out of the Great Depression. The Light of the World was not in my church. It was in Moscow.
Click here to read further about American Communists during the Great Depression…
In 1887 the NEW YORK TIMES reviewed the first english edition of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, click here to read it…
Rejecting Socialism During the Depression (American Opinion, 1963) Read More »
This is an interesting article that assesses the financial abilities of each of the 48 states in 1935 in an effort to illustrate that the ten richest states, as a result of their minority status on Capitol Hill, were in no position to cry out about majority tyranny when the insolvent 38 states rigged a deliberately unfair tax code that would see to it that they alone would pay the nation’s bills.
The ‘rich’ people may howl and growl and moan at having to foot the bills for everything, but there’s no remedy for it… The reason is this: our parade of poor states totals 38, while the rich states number only ten. The figures show that these rich states, which have only one-third the population, have to pay two-thirds of the taxes. The 10 richest states have only 20 Senators in the Senate, while the 38 poor states have 76. The rich are decidedly in the minority and there is no way for them to change the set-up.
Soak the Rich States, Too (Pathfinder Magazine, 1935) Read More »
This article was written by an anonymous soul who wanted the Script readers to understand that the life of an American Communist during the Great Depression was not a good one. Their lives often involved constant police surveillance and harassment to say nothing of blacklisting.
What boon can membership in the Communist Party confer upon them in exchange for the martyrdom they almost inevitably suffer? But is any membership card ever printed worth having one’s skull fractured for?
More about American Communists during the Great depression can be read here
The Degraded Lives of American Reds (Script Magazine, 1935) Read More »
When the market crashed in the Fall of 1929, the Communist Party of America really thought their hour had arrived. They took to the streets with their red banners and set to work fomenting unrest in whatever factories were still afloat. Most Americans recognized their blarney as mere pie in the sky and would have none of it; still their membership lists were growing and many Americans were wondering how they should be dealt with. This article examined how the communists were organized, what they were up to and recommended that Americans should keep in mind that the Reds will go when prosperity returns – and not before.
We also have an article on The Daily Worker.
Reds Among Us (Scribner’s Magazine, 1930) Read More »
Click here to read about an American woman who grew heartily sick of the socialists who loitered on every street corner during the Great Depression…
Low-Wage Pay Scales for Working Women (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937) Read More »
Published in May of 1933, the attached article concerned the much anticipated London Economic Conference which was scheduled to convene the following month in London. The world leaders who agreed to assemble were all of one mind in so much as their shared belief that collectively they would stand a better chance in defeating the economic depression that was bedeviling all their respective countries. It was their intention to meet and review all existing international trade and tariff agreements and to make an effort at stabilizing the currency exchange rates.
The Economic Collapse of the World (Literary Digest, 1933) Read More »
This article recorded portions of the battle on Capitol Hill that were waged between the Spring and Winter of 1937 when Congress was crafting legislation that would establish a minimum wage law for the nation’s employees as well as a maximum amount of working hours they would be expected to toil before additional payments would be required. This legislation would also see to it that children were removed from the American labor force. The subject at hand is the Black-Connery Bill and it passed into law as the Fair Labor Standards Act.
The Wages and Hours Bill (Pathfinder Magazine, 1937, 1938) Read More »
