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WiSe 13/14: New Deal Culture

Andrew Hemingway

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There is a scholarly consensus that the New Deal was a watershed in the history of the United States, both in terms of the emergence of a more powerful Presidency and of a more interventionist governmental role in the economy and social welfare provision. Its legacy is still a matter of contention. The policy of "bold, persistent experimentation" that Roosevelt promised in 1932 before he was even selected as the Democratic presidential candidate issued not only in such measures as the National Industrial Recovery and Agricultural Adjustment Acts, but also in the largest programs of direct state patronage of the arts in U.S. history. The most important of these initiatives were the projects for the visual arts, theater, writing, and music contained within the vast work relief program of the Works Progress Administration, 1935-43. These projects were highly controversial at the time in part because they became a focus for the cultural ambitions of the communist left and attracted the hostile scrutiny of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Another charge - that they functioned as a covert form of New Deal propaganda - has been echoed in some contemporary interpretations. The administration certainly used the media of photography and film on an unprecedented scale to publicize its policies, stimulating the development of the documentary genre in these and other fields. This course explores the tensions between the cultural programs' functions as short-term showcases of New Deal values and the more radical ambitions of the left to build a genuine cultural democracy by making state patronage a permanent feature of American cultural life and curbing the role of the market. It also considers the relation between state-sponsored culture and documentary record and the presentation of American society in the mass media. Preliminary Reading. Listening, and Viewing: Anthony P. Badger, The New Deal: 1933-40 The Depression Years (1989) Richard D. McKinzie, The New Deal for Artists (1975) Jane De Hart Matthews, The Federal Theatre, 1935-1939 (1967) Andrew Hemingway, Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926-1956 (2002), Parts 1 and 2 James Guimond, American Photography and the American Dream (1991), chapter 4 Listen to: Marc Blitzstein, The Cradle Will Rock, Jay Productions, CDJAY2 1300 (1985 Recording + Introduction by John Houseman) Watch: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (dir. Frank Capra, 1939) The Grapes of Wrath (dir. John Ford, 1940) close