marlee's blog

The Park in the 1930s “The beauty of the square is marred on its east side by the tall drab buildings of New York University.” In looking at these guides, I thought I would be interesting to see what the New York City guide says about the places we experience every day. Today, Washington Square Park is certainly a tourist destination; it’s difficult to walk through the park on a nice day without stepping in someone’s picture of the fountain or the arch. From the previous statement, it seems like these WPA tour guide writers felt the same way as many do today.

NYU hatred aside, I found the guide presented an interesting view not only what the Village contained, but also what tourists would want to know about it. I feel like tour guides today are overwhelmingly about directing a tourist to some sort of attraction rather than telling them about everything around them. The 1930s guide differs greatly in that it seems to assume it is speaking to an educated audience who desires some sort of knowledge regarding the location. Reading this felt more like reading a history of the area rather than a guide for tourists (also, the fact that the guide was 600 plus pages wouldn’t exactly make it the easiest thing to stick in your pocket to accompany you on a day of sightseeing).

Another aspect I found interesting was how the writer viewed the area (which indeed may have actually been what the space was like in the thirties). In describing Greenwich Village the author writes there are “two focal points…Sheridan Square can best be described as the “Times Square” of Greenwich Village.” Today, there is probably not a single person who would make that comparison. Nevertheless, it serves to illustrate what the space was like at the time.

As far as this functioning as a tour guide, it gets the standard “here’s how you get around” stuff over in the beginning and then seems to serve more as an educational tool. The guide does state in the beginning that “it is intended to give both the permanent resident and the visitor an intimate, accurate knowledge of the metropolis.” From the small excerpt I read, it seems that it would have done just that, but did it suffer a fate like that of the numerous works of fiction published during the 1930s and reach little readership? In any event, it would certainly be interesting to revive the guide today and see how much of the city has changed (taxis are definitely not five cents per quarter mile anymore).

Sign for a tourist destination in Ghana: Not exactly the American notion of tourismAs Americans it really seems like we are conditioned to travel. This was a fact I didn’t quite realize until I got out of this country and started experiencing other cultures. Last semester, I studied abroad in Ghana. My time there was great, but truth be told, the city of Accra was not my favorite place in the world, so my friends and I spent a lot of time traveling around. Not only did we see a lot of Ghana outside of the capital, but also we ventured outside to neighboring countries Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin (not the greatest tourist destinations, but awesome cultural experiences) for long weekends and made it as far as South Africa and Namibia (much more in tune with Western ideas of tourism) for spring break. While I saw these trips as a great experience and really cool for my passport, Ghanaians that I interacted with every day couldn’t understand why we were always going somewhere. When discussing travel plans with a TA from one of my classes, I asked him if he ever wanted to go to the United States or Europe and he answered, “No! Why would I want to?” Prior to leaving for spring break one Ghanaian friend even said, “OH, you Americans like to travel too much!”

And in fact that might be the case, we Americans do indeed like to travel, whether it is just throughout the country or abroad. Michael Berkowitz’s essay “A ‘New Deal’ for Leisure” reminded me of my anti-travel experiences abroad. It’s strange to think that something core to our culture is so absent from other cultures (it is understandable in terms of economic development and the fact that in Ghana tourism isn’t a top priority because of that, but to lack the desire to see other parts of the world seems a bit odd). Berkowitz quoted Don Thomas on the nature of travel in the United States in the 1940s: “it is regarded as a necessity purchased by 60 million Americans.”

It is interesting how we moved from travel as a luxury to travel as a necessity and how it became so ingrained in our culture. Regardless, through the interwar period it became a quintessential part of our lives as Americans such that many even saw it as “essential to their personal pursuit of happiness” (Berkowitz 207). Whatever the cause of our cultural obsession, I won’t fight it. My many travels have been some of my greatest experiences and great sources of learning – I would have had no idea of other’s anti-travel viewpoints had I not gone to Ghana and experienced it firsthand.

Not such a sunny day for American optimismIf Lemuel Pitkin is supposed to be the quintessential American boy representing all that is the American dream, it makes me nervous to be an American (especially if Betty Prail is the American girl). Now I understand that Nathanael West was writing a satire during the Great Depression and things were different- unemployment was 25%, hoboism was basically an accepted way of life, and there was basically no end in sight. But since the economic downturn over a year ago, it seems like this could be a possibility. This economic situation has been compared to the Depression. Does that mean that we can be compared to the Lem and Betty?

I certainly hope not. A nation full of Lemuel Pitkins and Betty Prails would be a sorry place – people missing essential body parts and girls being raped time and time again both by men and the system, even if it is only metaphorical for what we are as a country. While we may not be exactly as the characters in A Cool Million, we as a nation are not without their key attribute – that of a gross amount of optimism.

A recent New York Times article commented on this frightening component of our American being: “Throughout the history of American commercial life, one cultural trait has tended to dominate: Americans are optimists, a people prone to seeing the glass as not merely half-full but rapidly expanding, and bearing liquid that might yet be turned into gold.” This optimism today has much the same effects that it had on Lemuel Pitkin - “Excessive optimism and its close relation — a reckless disregard of risk — are widely blamed for helping carry the United States into the worst financial panic since the Great Depression.”

For Lem his disregard of risk (i.e. getting into cars with strangers, involving himself in schemes that will lead to arrest or punishment) led to the mutilation of his body. For us, the disregard of risk led to a "casino culture" and the mutilation of our financial system. Perhaps Nathanael West was writing with a bit more insight than he had anticipated.

A New Yorker Cover from 1938

In Nelson Algren’s Somebody in Boots, we witness a seemingly usual scene of police brutality towards bums. It is different however because it also highlights the racial tensions that occurred during that time. In the story, Cass finds a travel companion in Matches, a black man bumming around in a similar situation.

Cass’s reaction to the scene with the police and Matches provides an interesting perspective we’ve not seen much in class. Despite the fact that they had been friends traveling together, Cass still thought himself better on the basis of his race. Algren writes, “Cass cocked his head, half-unable to believe what he had just heard. Slowly then he understood: a white man who walked with a ‘nigger’ was a ‘nigger’ too.”

This whole encounter led me to think about race in the Great Depression. Most (if not all, if I’m not mistaken) of the writings we’ve read have been written by white authors and about white people. It seems like in our investigation of the Great Depression we’ve omitted the study of an entire group who was even more marginalized than the poor white farmers we saw encountered in the Grapes of Wrath or the out of work, on the bum educated white man like Tom Kromer.

Really cursory research on racism during the Depression led me to this article about Jim Crow stories. Black Americans had it much worse during the depression than white Americans did due to the added element of racism. The article notes that black people could not even get jobs that were traditionally held by them: “Even ‘Negro jobs’…such as busboys, elevator operators, garbage men…were sought by desperate unemployed whites.” As displayed by the scene in Algren’s story, it would be assumed that those jobs would end up going to whites because of the undesirable association with black men.

It would seem that poverty should be the great equalizer, especially in a time like the Depression. Cass and Matches both basically had nothing, except for the fact that Cass assumed he had his race. At the end, Cass defensively asserts, “Ah’m not no nigger.” Matches responds, “You’re ridin’ jest the same, ain’t you?”

Tom Kromer’s novel immediately struck me as much unlike any other of the travel stories we’ve read thus far. Told from a first person point of view, Kromer puts himself in the story that doesn’t hold back at all. He is brutally honest about what he has to experience, no matter how gritty it might be, and what he must do to make it from day to day.

Most striking for me was Kromer’s complete lack of hope. Conveyed through the title, Kromer basically has nothing to live for. Being on the bum is completely about survival, not at all about quality of life. The Grapes of Wrath might have been fiction, but the people in it never actually gave up hope. The Joads were indeed waiting for something even if time and time again they were denied. Kromer basically resigned himself to living life on the fritz without the potential for anything better.

Kromer had an interesting attitude within the whole thing. After doing some brief research, I found an earlier article of his “Pity the Poor Panhandler; $2 an Hour Is All He Gets” that was published in 1929. For the article, he goes undercover as a bum, to write about their lives. A year later Kromer was actually a bum. He had no choice but to beg. Perhaps that is why his attitude is that of someone who is waiting for nothing. He suffered the ironic twist of fate that put him in the very position that he referred to as “deplorable begging conditions.” Another bit of irony based on his earlier work is that Kromer wrote “A man dressed in the seedy garb of a “down and outer,” possessing a sallow, hungry look, a glib tongue and a limp, needs to have no fear of the wolf howling at the door as long as he stays in Huntington.” Clearly from the accounts that he provides in Waiting for Nothing, life as a bum is not actually that simple. He cannot even manage in his hometown and consequently takes to the road.

It’s hard to imagine criticizing the life of the bum, even making light of it, and then a year later living that life for real. Such was the case of Tom Kromer though. Perhaps it was his attitude toward these people before he was one of them that forced him to have the painstakingly cynical view that he was waiting for nothing.

Riding the Rails

In Anderson’s Hungry Men, there is a certain sense of Hobo camaraderie. It is definitely not a solo adventure. Anderson writes, “on every train there is a new buddy to pal up with, and in every jungle there’s a bum going your way. A road buddy is someone to watch your bundle while you go get a drink…maybe he has been over the route before…and knows whether the crews are tough…you can talk to a road buddy like you were talking to yourself.” The close and trusting relationship described amongst these bums on the rails certainly seems interesting. This spurred me to do a little research into the lives of hoboes, which I actually knew nearly nothing about.

An entire hobo culture was associated with those who rode the rails complete with their own code by which they live. In 1894 at the Annual Convention held by the Congress of the Hoboes of America an in depth code was developed. The number one rule was to “Decide your own life, don’t let another person run or rule you.” The list goes on with interesting rules that basically try to insure that hoboes live wholesome lives. Along with the hobo code that governed this group, there were established hobo symbols to instruct others along the way. There were elaborate drawings that could instruct others about anything from food to what the town jail was like. The hobo culture was even complete with their own songs.

While hoboism had been a long tradition in the United States, the population greatly grew when the Great Depression hit. The life may have been a dangerous one, but it was one that seemingly also provided a sense of community. In Boxcar Bertha, the life is referred to as a “strange and motley sorority.” Life as a hobo was a strange family affair along the rails, but one that provided an interesting sense of comfort in a hard time.  Today, it is certainly an interesting point of study of how these people lived their lives.

Of this week’s readings and images, I found Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip to be one of the most interesting sources. We have been looking at America through the lens of an American for the most part. These writers have been Americans in search of their country. Ilf and Petrov, however, provide a very different perspective of what these writers have seen and show through their accompanying photographs.

Ilf and Petrov were tourists in America who were not out to simply document the horrors of the Depression. Rather, they provide an opportunity to see America through a different lens – both in terms of how they interpret the country and the pictures they have taken. Their relative lack of familiarity with the country, at least in comparison to the American authors, allows their journey and description to have certain innocence. Even though their work “lovingly satirized America for a broad Soviet audience,” it also proves to be an interesting historical source of the time.

One of the most useful aspects of Ilf and Petrov’s work is that it shows America’s beauties and flaws unrelated to the Depression despite being a product of the 1930s. They spend a significant amount of time discussing the roads in the United States. Whereas their American contemporaries might have seen them as a migrant trail, Ilf and Petrov are able to marvel at them for genius. At one point, they say they say “we would like to use this caption for this picture: ‘This right here is America!’” That picture is one of a small town gas station at an intersection.

Ilf and Petrov’s writings and photography show a different America. The photography very much emphasizes American technology and progress rather than American destitution. They still discuss joblessness and homelessness, but it is not their emphasis. Their accompanying photographs don’t show a starving farmer or broken down houses, but things that we do not normally associate with the time period. Although much of the work is satirical, it does give insight to the many of the things which other writers took for granted.

My Grandfather

This week’s set of readings was very much a collection of the varied experiences each of these authors had as they traveled through the countries. The authors relate their interactions with the people they met in the different towns. From these readings, it seems everyone has a story to tell, even the author, as in the case of Ernie Pyle. In Home Country, Pyle describes driving across Iowa and reverting to a childhood memory. He writes, “I became conscious of the wind and instantly I was back in character as an Indiana farm boy again” (3). He goes on to describe a bit about his family and his life as a child. Much like the wind reminded him Pyle of his childhood, these descriptions reminded me of, well, my grandfather’s childhood.

My family is very big into documenting their lives. My paternal grandmother’s side of the family has published a family history dating back a couple centuries. My grandfather meanwhile, took it upon himself to write an informal autobiography of his life. When he did this a few years ago, it was emailed around to the various members of my family. Pyle’s reminiscences in a way reminded me of my grandfather’s.

My grandfather was born in 1924 in Clarksville, Iowa. During the Depression he was a child and a young teenager, but he still has some interesting notes about the times that I don’t really think come across in the readings. Whereas most of the readings discuss the American people in a sense of desperation, my grandpa had something different to say about the Depression. He was fortunate enough to not be especially hard hit by the depression; both of his parents had inherited farmland (totaling 320 acres) and his father owned and ran one of the five grocery stores in town (with a population about 1400). He does, however, still remember it as a time of frugality. He was very careful to note that while there was not a lot of money to go around, people’s expectations were so much less than they are today. People were also very careful about the way in which they spent that money.

Another interesting thing about my grandpa’s story is how he remembers the 1930s. He writes, “I would go barefoot during the summer all day long…my friends and I liked to follow the ice trucks, which delivered ice to “ice boxes”… we would pick up and eat ice chips on a hot summer day.” Even from this small childhood memory, it is apparent that not every part of everyone’s lives was focused on the hard times that much of the country was facing.  For my grandpa at least, it was still possible to grow up in the thirties and have a good childhood.

A man burning Steinbeck's novel.

In recent classes, we have discussed the great controversy that the publication of Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath has caused. From the government hearings to the more modern claims of it being a completely fictitious source about the Great Depression, the book has certainly had an impact on American life and culture. In his native California, the Grapes of Wrath was poorly received and even incurred the wrath of a local library.

Marci Lingo discusses just how strongly the Kern County Free Library felt about Steinbeck’s book. The Library describes the terrible crimes Steinbeck has committed through the publication of the book: “The Grapes of Wrath has offended our citizenry by falsely implying that many of our fine people are a low, ignortant [sic], profane and blasphemous type living in a vicious and filthy manner.” And that was only one of the book’s mild offenses. Public officials are supposedly presented as “inhumane vigilantes, breathing class hatred and divested of sympathy or human decency.”

The library only seems to legitimize any possible claims that Steinbeck might have made in the Grapes of Wrath. Banning a book that tells a fictional story of the terrible times which migrants from the Dust Bowl paints the officials as what Steinbeck supposedly sees them as. Not allowing the story to be read (or seen for that matter because the library also sought to halt production of the movie) certainly can be interpreted as an act of “class hatred” or the action of a person who is “divested of sympathy.”

An interesting note that Lingo makes is that the Associated Farmers were among the first to support the book banning. The suppression of the ideas that Steinbeck puts forth is akin to the suppression of the so-called “reds” (or any sort of workers campaign for better wages) that the Farmers’ Association of the book attempted. The ban, like the unfair wages, was met with opposition. The governing board supporting the ban was painted as a sort of propagandizing entity that creates conditions where “the public is no longer to decide what it shall read. That choice is to be taken from it and be exercised by a public body.”

The ban did not last long and Steinbeck’s novel was allowed back on the library shelves in 1941. It’s amusing to think how those spearheading the campaign back then would feel if they knew that The Grapes of Wrath was a required reading for most students in the United States these days.

Hooverville

A recent Time article, "Jobless in America," stated, “America now faces the direst employment landscape since the Depression.” In this portion of The Grapes of Wrath, the Joads have made it to California and we are given a glimpse of what the dire employment landscape was in the Depression. The characters that the Joads meet in California tell them about the scenario. Time and again, the family is told of the reality.

A man they meet at the riverside is heading in the other direction. He makes an attempt to warn them of the lack of work and poor standard of living which migrants are forced to live. The man is harshly honest: “You ain’t gonna get no steady work. Gonna scrabble for your dinner ever’ day. An you gonna do her with people lookin’ mean at you” (281). Later at a Hooverville, they meet Floyd Knowles, who also shares discouraging news. He tells them, “Look I been scourin’ aroun’ for three weeks all over hell, an’ I ain’t had a bit a work, not a single han’-holt” (354). The Joads made their trip across several states on an empty promise of an overprinted handbill. Instead of work, the find themselves in a Hooverville with reports of how the Depression is just as bad for them in California.

Today, there is no form of mass migration to a better life in California. Unemployment still abounds there. California has reached a historical high for unemployment with a rate of 11.9%. The national rate is at 9.7%. These rates may not compare to the astronomically high rates of the Great Depression, but surely they show there is something to worry about. The unemployment we face today can afflict everyone. In the 1930s, if you were a farmer in the Dust Bowl it was basically a guarantee that the odds were not in your favor. A professional in a city might have had better luck. However today, as the Time article notes, anyone and everyone is at risk – lawyers, counselors, retail clerks. It’s a scary thought that not even an education and some sort of professional training can insure employment for you in this economic climate.

While this recession isn’t nearly the Depression, it is still bad and could get worse. We’re not at the state of Hoovervilles and 25% unemployment. We might get there one day though. It’s something we need to worry about. “Jobless in America” puts forth a frightening thought: “if we’re not careful, [we could face] a country sprouting listless Obamavilles.”