United States Unemployment Rate, 2020, History Collection.
Sociopolitical Climate During Julia Child's Early Life
Migrant Mother, 1936, Library of Congress
The Great Depression
The early nineteen hundreds brought various forms of hardship. In the 1930's and 40's, the Great Depression and World War II majorly contributed to American struggles.
President Hoover, serving during the Depression Era, did little to alleviate this mass destitution - in turn, division between people and legislature prospered. (pictured: Men in Food Supply Line, 1931, NARA)
"It was a time of terrible suffering. The contradictions were so obvious that it didn’t take a very bright person to realize something was terribly wrong. Have you ever seen a child with rickets? Shaking as with palsy. No proteins, no milk. And the companies pouring milk into gutters. People with nothing to wear, and the were plowing up cotton. People with nothing to eat, and they killed the pigs. If that wasn’t the craziest system in the world, could you imagine anything more idiotic? This was just insane."
~ Virginia Durr on her experience of the Great Depression, 2005, courtesy of WFMT Radio
Job Hunters, 1932, Emaze; History Daily
"The Great Depression was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world, lasting from the stock market crash of 1929 to 1939." ~ History.com Authors, 2020, HISTORY
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in "Top Hat," 1935, RKO Radio Pictures
Radio broadcasting was a reprieve for countless families. Swing music and comedy films offered a distraction from harsh truths of reality. The repercussions of the Depression faded at the turn of the decade, only to be met with the beginnings of World War II.
The Marx Brothers, Animal Crackers, 1930, Timeless Theater
"Even to mention the 1930s is to evoke the period when human civilisation entered its darkest, bloodiest chapter. No case needs to be argued; just to name the decade is enough. It is a byword for mass poverty, violent extremism and the gathering storm of world war. “The 1930s” is not so much a label for a period of time than it is rhetorical shorthand – a two-word warning from history." ~ Johnathan Freedland, 2017, The Guardian
World War II
Group of American Soldiers Surrounding Jewish chaplain flag, 1945, National Museum of American Jewish Military History
"The carnage of World War II was unprecedented and brought the world closest to the term “total warfare.” On average 27,000 people were killed each day between September 1, 1939, until the formal surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. Western technological advances had turned upon itself, bringing about the most destructive war in human history. The primary combatants were the Axis nations of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Imperial Japan, and the Allied nations, Great Britain (and its Commonwealth nations), the Soviet Union, and the United States." ~ HistoryNet, 2020.
World War II stimulated the failing economy, but restricted civil liberties and freedoms nonetheless. Day to day life was affected through prolonged rationing of food, gas and clothing.