Lecture: Hard Times in the Great Depression: Challenges to American Ambition

Lecture Outline:

-The Numbers
-The Better Angels of Our Nature
-“Natural” Disasters, Manmade Disasters & Exodus
-The Ordeal of Herbert Hoover
-The 1932 Election

World's Highest Standard of Living | The Art Institute of Chicago
First published in Life Magazine’s February 1937 issue, this photo was taken in Louisville after the flooding of the Ohio River, which killed almost 400 people and displaced about a million more across four states.

FDR's War Against the Press

In the 1936 election, Roosevelt claimed that 85 percent of the newspapers were against him….Roosevelt’s relationship with radio was warmer.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, revised the media rules in profound ways. Like Trump, he feuded with the mainstream media; like Trump, he used a new medium as a direct pipeline to the people. He also used the government’s machinery to suppress unfavorable coverage, a fate we hope to avoid in the age of Trump.

New Deal Sales Pitch

You have been assigned a New Deal program to “sell” to your classmates. Your task is to inform and persuade in equal measure.
Don’t neglect your duty to inform. This is school, after all. Read about your New Deal program. You can’t sell a product that you don’t know thoroughly. Knowledge breeds confidence. Teach your audience about the program.

Your pitch must be 3-4 minutes, you are free to use whatever visual tools (poster, whiteboard, PowerPoint) you want.

Audience is everything. Stay in the time period 1933-38. You are selling to a populace suffering from the Great Depression and anxieties from the rising tide of fascism in Europe. Speak to those people. What is the problem? How will this program solve it

Consider countering claims that opponents of your program might levy. “Some fools may argue that the AAA is unconstitutional, but…” or “uninformed critics bemoan the the program does not relieve all Americans, but…”

Introductions and conclusions matter. First and last impressions are destiny.

A little stagecraft goes a long way; too much showmanship repels the audience. Have fun! Be fun! Do not be boring.

Rubric: 5 points content / 5 points persuasiveness / 5 points timing and style

Here are some models you might consider:

How to advertise considering logos, pathos, and ethos:

Don Draper’s Mark Your Man Pitch:

Don Draper’s Carousel Pitch:

FDR's Second Bill of Rights

During President Roosevelt’s January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union, he said the following:

It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[3] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:

  • The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
  • The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
  • The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
  • The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
  • The right of every family to a decent home;
  • The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
  • The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
  • The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

Lesson Plan on Life During the Great Depression: A Diversity of Experiences

To some extent, the optimism of the Roaring Twenties was stymied by the financial crash of October 1929 and the economic depression that ensued. Conventional memory of the The Great Depression (TGD) paints a historically inaccurate, often whitewashed, version of life in America during  TGD. To the chagrin of historians of this era, we paint TGD in broad brushstrokes and, as a consequence, overlook the nuances and the diversity of American Experiences during TGD.

Thus, the objective of this lesson is to explore how different people from different walks of life experienced TGD. This era was complex, dynamic, and curious; it was not just Depressing.

To this end, each of you will read 1 of these 4 documents and respond to the questions given

Print your reading responses, bring them to class, and be prepared to discuss the articles.

Group #1: Wall Street Stock Broker
Group #2: American Women
Group #3: White Americans
Group #4: African Americans

If you are really interested in life during TGD, my favorite book on the era, and one of my favorite oral histories, is Hard Times by my hometown hero Studs Terkel

Revisiting the Hoover Dam: A great feat of engineering, but no panacea for modern ills

As to whether America could build the dam today, Michael Hiltzik, its modern historian, says in his book “Colossus” that it probably could not. It was hard enough back then to overcome the rivalries of the seven states involved, but at least nobody gave a fig for the down-river rights of the south-western Indians, let alone the Mexicans, or the creatures whose habitats were eradicated when the river was dammed. Today a rampart of federal legislation, such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, would block the way.

The Crash of 2008-09

Read these four articles on the Crash of 2008-2009.

  • Capitalist Manifesto, Zakaria (5 pages)
  • Franklin Delano Obama, Krugman (1 page)
  • FDR’s Lessons for Obama, Kennedy (2 pages)
  • Barack Hoover Obama, Baker (9 pages)

All four authors are very highly regarded.

You should also read this “truly terrifying data about the real state of the U.S. economy“. If nothing else, take a few minutes to peruse the data tables (you will find such data  useful when constructing your essay).

After you have read all of the articles you are to type a 1500 word (2 page, normal font and margins), single spaced essay which, in no particular order:

  • assesses what the Obama administration has done hitherto
  • evaluates historical precedents
  • prescribes a solution for the Obama administration
  • warns the Obama administration of potential pitfalls
  • cites all sources given above but does not abuse quotes (no more than 10% of your essay can be quotes)

We will discuss your essays in class. Oh, and don’t be surprised if there is a multiple choice and matching quiz on all of the readings. Good luck.

FDR's Lessons for Obama

Alas for countless pundits and inspirational speakers, it is apparently not the case that the Chinese word for crisis is spelled by joining the characters for danger and opportunity. But that common fallacy nevertheless captures an important metaphorical truth: whatever the perils it brings with it, a crisis can be a grand opportunity. Among those who have understood that truth was Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Writing to his fellow Democrats in the 1920s, Roosevelt noted that their party could not hope to return to power until the Republicans led the nation “into a serious period of depression and unemployment.” The Great Depression soon brought a far longer and deeper period of woe than F.D.R. foresaw. But the crisis of the 1930s also provided an object lesson in the relationship between economic danger and political opportunity — a lesson Barack Obama is now trying to follow. Obama, too, came to office in the midst of an economic crisis, and in the solutions he has offered, it appears he has often looked to the example of F.D.R., whose presidency — and the very idea of activist government that it represents — is very much back in the public mind this year. Roosevelt pushed through policies that aimed not just to deal with the immediate challenge of the Great Depression but also to benefit generations of Americans to come. Pulling off a similar feat will require Obama to persuade Americans to see opportunities in the present crisis as well.

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