THE 1930s ON FILM
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/FILM/filmframe.html
Film Archive
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/FILM/filmframe.html
Short clips of notable films of the period, along with brief synopses.
 Little Caesar (1930)
 I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932)
 Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
 The Thin Man (1934)
 It Happened One Night (1934)
 The Black Cat (1934)
 Duck Soup (1935)
 Alice Adams (1935)
 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
 Stella Dallas (1937)
 Stage Door (1937)
 The Awful Truth (1937)
 Stagecoach (1939)
 Wizard of Oz (1939)
 Citizen Kane (1941)
 Penny Serenade (1941)
 The Lady Eve (1941)
 It's A Wonderful Life (1948)
Film Projects
 The Talkie and the Tramp: Charlie Chaplin Stays Silent in the Machine Age
Project includes a discussion of Chaplin’s methodology and a brief filmography.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/FILM/chaplin/frames.html

Mammy Dearest: The Depiction of African American House Servants in The
Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, and Song of the South
Examines the figure of the Mammy as a way of understanding race, history and
contemporary culture in film.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA99/diller/mammy/home.html

Reaping the Golden Harvest: Pare Lorentz, Poet and Filmmaker
A close look at four of Lorentz’s works produced as “Films of Merit” under the
auspices of FDR’s Resettlement Administration.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/FILM/lorentz/front.html

Capra, Smith, and Doe: Filming the American Hero
A discussion of the uses and the limitations of the hero in Mr. Smith Goes to
Washington and Meet John Doe.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma97/halnon/capra/home.html

Crime Pays: The Hollywood Gangster from 1930-1938
Examines how and why the gangster became a movie hero during the Depression.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/gangsters/home.html

Breadlines to Chorus Lines: Hollywood Musicals of the 1930s
Project explores the musical’s escapist appeal for American during the Depression as
well as how that appeal was manufactured in the studio system.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/FILM/musicalhome.html

New Frontiers in American Film Documentary
Chronicles the explosion of documentary films in the US during the 30s. Site
includes synopses and clips of films as well as bios of the artists involved.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/Huffman/Frontier/frontier.html

1930s Newsreels
Includes domestic and international politics as well as sports events and other areas
of cultural history.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s2/Film/news/newsreel.html

The Savage Genius: Louis Armstrong’s Film Roles in the Depression
A look at Armstrong’s complex and controversial film roles.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug99/graham/intro.html

Home of the Screwball
A discussion of this film genre as an exploration and negotiation of the confusion
of modern life in America through gender and class role reversals, and rapid fire
dialogue.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/AM803_02/frame.html

The Foolish Search for Self: Identity Construction in the Films of the Marx
Brothers
Examines the performative nature of identity in these films.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Cober/marx/identity.html

Fighting Depression: The Hollywood Musical in the 1930s
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/OBJECTS/VI/musical.html
***This site needs an intro. Does the other 30s musical site make it not worth doing a
site overhaul on this?
THE 1930S IN PRINT
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/printframe.html
News

Events
- The Great Depression
A comparison of the Depression in the United States and Europe.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/g/1930s/PRINT/newdeal/intro3.html
Charlottesville in the Depression
A local look at major political, social and militaristic events during the
Depression through the lens of Charlottesville’s VA’s newspaper, The
Daily Progress.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug99/sarratt/sarratt/cvillehome.html

Documentary
- Portrait of America: Survey Graphic in the Thirties
An anthology of articles from Survey Graphic, a magazine which, in the
1930s, provided a public forum for discussions about unemployment,
labor unrest, race relations, healthcare, and technological change.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Davis/survey/home.html
-
Documenting the 1930s
Documentary work by the Federal Writers Project, Dorothea Lange and
Paul Taylor, Malcolm Cowley, Richard Wright, James Agee and Walker
Evans, and Lewis Hine.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/document/doc.html
-
Photographing the Representative American: Margaret Bourke-White
in the Depression
Between 1935 and 1937, Bourke-White traveled the South searching for
the face that would speak out the message from the printed page," the
representative American.”
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/am485_98/coe/photofrnt.html
-
Walker Evans
A study of the great American photographer, Walker Evans, with
comparison with other Farm Security Administration photographers,
Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, and Arnold Rothstein.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/fsa/welcome.html
Out of One, Many: Regionalism in FSA Photography
Explores how regionalism asserted itself in the work of the FSA, even as it
strove to document a national identity.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug99/brady/intro.html
Lewis Hine’s Men at Work
****** Where is the rest of this project????
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/document/men/coverpage.html
The Art of the Great Depression, New Deal Photography and Murals:
Their Roles in the Construction of Regional and National Identity
Examines the consequences of government intervention with regard to the
standardization and creation of an American culture.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG99/vizzuso/WPAproject.html
Walker Evans Revolutionizes Documentary Photography
Examines how Evans’ aesthetic choices and the ideological implications of
his work changed the genre of documentary photography.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/fsa/welcome.html
People

Babe Ruth
Examines the construction of Babe Ruth as an American cultural icon.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/yeung/Baberuth/home.html

Aime Semple McPherson
Explores the remarkable career of the most powerful female evangelist of the
period
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG00/robertson/asm/front.html
Books

The Dancer's Dance: Mules and Men -- a Hypertext
The complete text of this important work by Zora Neale Hurston includes
extensive editorial and critical commentary, images and biographies
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Grand-Jean/Hurston/Chapters/page1.htm

Blue Plate Special: An Anthology of 30s Prose
This collection has crime fiction, some real event reportage, strikes and riots as
well as humor. Like a good square meal, it has a little bit from every group. Put
them all together and you have a wholesome taste of the decade.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/White/anthology/home.html

The WPA Guide to the Old Dominion
Full text of this volume in the WPA Guide Series in addition to a series of
projects directed at exploring what the Guide did not describe, the actual life of
citizens in the Old Dominion.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/OBJECTS/V/main.html


Ideological Conflicts: Absalom Absalom and Gone with the Wind
A comparison of two books about the South, one a high modernist text by
William Faulkner which few read at the time, the other the broadly popular fiction
by Margaret Mitchell.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/ababgwtw/home.html
The Tradition of the Mountains
A look at the southern Appalachian Mountains in literature.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG99/anderson/appalachia/frame.html
Magazines

Portrait of America: Survey Graphic in the 1930s
An anthology of articles and images from The Survey Graphic, a popular public
forum for discussions about unemployment, labor unrest, race relations,
healthcare, and technological change.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Davis/survey/home.html

Fortune Magazine in the 1930s
Site exploring the response, especially of the graphic artists and editors who designed
the covers of the magazine, to the Depression.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/fortune/intro.html

Vanity Fair
Consideration of Vanity Fair not only as a reflection of its time, but as a
conscious effort to shape attitudes and beliefs during the Great Depression.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/AM803_02/frame.html

Urban and Urbane: The New Yorker Magazine in the 1930s
An exploration of the New Yorker Magazine and the appeal of this intensely local
magazine to a national audience.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/NewYorker/newyorkerhome.html

The Saturday Evening Post covers
Gallery of Post covers reflecting the strong general desire to hold on to traditional
values in the midst of crisis.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/OBJECTS/VI/cover.html

Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro
A hypertext of this famous edition of Survey Graphic
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/harlem/

Three articles from the May, 1933 edition of Survey Graphic:
- Archibald Macleish, Liberalism and the Anti-Fascist Front
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/survey/macleish.html
- H. G. Wells, The Informative Content of Education
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/survey/wells.html
Arthur Kellogg, Minds Made by the Movies
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/survey/kellogg/survey1.html
Comics

Comic Strips of the 1930s
A look at Krazy Kat, Dick Tracy, Popeye, Little Orphan Annie, Buck Rogers and
Superman.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/comic/cartoon.html

Superman
Includes Superman's first appearance in Action Comics #1.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/superman/home.html

Some Say it With a Brick: George Herriman's Krazy Kat
An exploration of Herriman’s treatment of class, ethnicity, gender, race, sexuality
and technology.
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/crocker/
Sports

Babe Ruth
The construction of Babe Ruth as an American cultural icon.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/yeung/Baberuth/home.html
Advertising

The Art of Persuasion: American Graphic Design Comes of Age
The transformation of modern European design ideas by American designers.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/PRINT/adweb/home.html

Advertising and Marketing of Colonial Williamsburg During the Great
Depression
The role of marketing and advertising in the creation of Colonial Williamsburg in
he national imagination.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG99/dunnington/intro.html
The Ad Machine in Action: Cigarettes and Art in Advertising
Explores the cigarette tag as the root of modern advertising.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG00/3on1/tobaccoads/home.htm
THE 1930s ON THE AIR
http://xroads.virginia.edu/g/1930s/RADIO/audio_guide.html
On the Air: 1930s Serials
Clips from the following classic 30s radio programs:
Amos ‘n’ Andy
 Little Orphan Annie
 Jack Benny
 Burns and Allen
 Dick Tracy
 Fibber McGee and Molly
 The Lone Ranger
 Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy
 Uncle Remus
 Buck Rogers (Episodes 2 and 4)
 Superman (Episodes 3 and 10)
http://xroads.virginia.edu/g/1930s/RADIO/audio_archive/radio/radio.html
FDR Speaks
I’m going to link to Paul’s intro to the FDR clips – there’s a problem with it now.
A Day in Radio
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s2/Radio/day/radio.html
September 21, 1939, WJSV, an AM radio station in Washington, D.C., recorded the
entire 19 hours of its broadcast day. That whole day is presented here.
The Free Company
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/RADIO/Free/main.html
Complete broadcasts of the ten half hour programs in this series of dramas loosely based
on the Bill of Rights, includes:
 The People With Light Coming out of Them
 The Mole on Lincoln’s Cheek
 An American Crusader
 One More Free Man
 Freedom’s a Hard Bought Thing
 His Honor, The Mayor
 A Start in Life
 The States Talking


The Miracle on the Danube
Above Suspicion
The Cavalcade of America: Myth and Reality, Hero Worship in American Radio
Abraham Lincoln and Annie Oakley, Thomas Jefferson and Geronimo, all subjects of the
Dupont Company's Cavalcade of America broadcasts in the 1930s and all suggesting
something of the complexity of the pantheon of American heroes.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG03/radio/home.html
The War of the Worlds
A Gullible Nation?: A Closer Look at a Night of Panic
The complete broadcast of Orson Welles' famous 1938 radio program accompanied by an
exploration of the cultural conditions that led to the ensuing panic.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7E1930s/RADIO/WOTW/frames.html
This Land Is Your Land: Rural Music in the Depression
This site explores the evolution of traditional rural music -- through distribution by record
and radio -- into the commercial genre of Country & Western during the Depression.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7E1930s/RADIO/c_w/cw-front.html
Amos 'n' Andy: In Black and White
An exploration of the cultural dynamics of the most popular radio show of the 1930s.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7E1930s/RADIO/amos/home.html
Woody Guthrie: This Man is Your Myth: This Man is My Myth
Woody Guthrie as a collective idealization, an iconic American figure.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7E1930s/RADIO/woody/introframe.html
Urbane Cowboys: alt.country in the 1990s
Examines alt.country’s connection to the culture and music of the 1930s
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA98/molinaro/alt.country/front.html
Hep, Hot, and Headbanging: The Retro Rebirth of Swing
A history of Swing Music through the 20th century
http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7ECLASS/am483_97/projects/graham/swingindex.html
The Visitor in Your Living Room: Radio Advertising in the 1930s
A study of radio advertising in the 30s, including the structure of the common ad, the
psychology at broadcast advertising's roots, and the radio's effect on mass culture.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/am485_98/graham/visitor.html
Superman in Identity Crisis: The Many Faces of the Man of Steel
An examination of the origins and transformations of Superman including the first 16
episodes of the radio program
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG02/superman/home.html
The Jukebox: Popular Music in the 1930s
That's right, a jukebox filled with the most popular vocals and instrumentals of the
decade.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG03/Jukebox/front.html
The Robert Johnson Notebooks
A collaborative effort examining the poetry and song of the famous blues musician,
Robert Johnson.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Music/BLUES/rjhome3.html
Jazz: Marking Time in American Culture
A web site supplement to Professor Scott Deveaux's MUSI 212: Introduction to Jazz at
the University of Virginia.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ASI/musi212/home.html
THE 1930s ON DISPLAY
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/DISPLAY/displayframe.html
The Hoover Dam: Lonely Lands Made Fruitful
Examines the epic, the aesthetic, the practical and the political aspects of this Federal
Works Project.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/g/1930s/DISPLAY/hoover/front.html
Building the Chrysler Building: The Social Construction of the Skyscraper
A look at the skyscraper poised between tradition and the future.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/g/1930s/DISPLAY/chrysler/front.html
Iconography of Hope: The 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair
Site presents the fair’s “World of Tomorrow” as well as contemporary reactions to that
world.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/g/1930s/DISPLAY/39wf/front.htm
Dumbarton Oaks: A Landscape of Cultural and Social Distinction
An exploration of this iconic model of many trends in American culture during
tumultuous 1920s and 1930s.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA99/hall/Dumbartonoaks/cover.html
Landscape of the New Deal, The Blue Ridge Parkway
Illuminates the purpose of the parkway in America as a new kind of public space.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA99/hall/Blueridgeparkway/cover.html
Some Enchanted Evenings: American Picture Palaces
A look at the ways in which movie palaces expressed the anxieties, thrills, and pitfalls of
the culture of American consumerism in the 30s.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/AM803_02/frame.html
The Performance of Race in the Federal Theatre Project
Explores black artists and roles in projects backed by the FTP.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG01/starner/~ams5k/public_html/FTP_project.html
Lesbian to Bride: Female Sexuality in the Broadway Melody Series
Examines the changing nature of sexuality in Broadway Musicals over the course of the
30s.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Manzella/broadwaymelody/musicals.html
***** Alan, what is this a part of?
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html
Modern Design and the Machine Aesthetic
Explores how the machined challenged and innovated design in the 1930s.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/Lisle/30home/modern/modern.html
Colonial Williamsburg: The Corporate Town
A look at the corporate construction of Colonial Williamsburg as well as local and
national reactions.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG99/coe/wpa_guide/wmbg500.html
Colonial Williamsburg: From Concept to Construct
A look at how Williamsburg functions as both a secular shrine to our nation’s
democratic origins and a viable community for its residents.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG99/pontius/WPA/cwtable.html
Aberdeen Gardens: Building a Community “For Blacks, by Blacks”
A history of the Newport News FSA backed community.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ug99/lane/introduction.html
“We Doin’ Alright:” The South in the Great Depression
A collection of projects examining the South during the Depression.
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CLASS/OBJECTS/V/main.html