The Influence of The Great Depression On Art World

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Introduction 

The great depression (1929-1939)  influenced arts in America almost in every aspect of its subject. Paintings, music, and theatrical arts were all effected by great depression in one way or another. For most, the time of great depression was dark, sad and empty. But for some it was the motivation to bring joy, hope and light. And most of these people who brought joy and hope in into those dark times were artists, writers, and most importantly actors. And thousands of those artists, writers, and actors, would surely give thanks to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, for starting several of his projects.

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“The Roosevelt administration, too, embraced the notion that writers and artists should immerse themselves in the details, past and present, of American life. The United States, however, lacked a strong tradition of direct federal support for the arts. This may have been due to the public suspicion of such funding, especially during the 1930s, amid the spectacle of the Nazis’ torchlight parades and their total control over radio and movies in Germany, which worried some U.S. congressmen and senators, as well as ordinary citizens, about the capacity of governments to use culture or the media to manipulate public opinion. It was therefore both unprecedented and remarkable that between 1935 and 1939 the Roosevelt administration was able to create and sustain the Federal Art Project, the Federal Music Project, the Federal Writers’ Project, and the Federal Theatre Project as part of the WPA; thousands of artists, architects, and educators found work in American museums, which flourished during the Great Depression.”

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Art

Hugo Gellert, Primary Accumlation 19 (1933)

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Michigan artist Alfred Castagne sketching WPA construction workers, 1939.

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“WPA Federal Art Project, first major attempt at government patronage of the visual arts in the United States and the most extensive and influential of the visual arts projects conceived during the Depression of the 1930s by the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is often confused with the Department of the Treasury art programs (Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture, Public Works of Art Project, and Treasury Relief Art Project), but, unlike the Treasury’s endeavours the Works Progress (later Projects) Administration Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP) employed artists with a wide range of experience and styles, sponsored a more varied and experimental body of art, and had a far greater influence on subsequent American movements. This was chiefly the result of the leadership of its national director, Holger Cahill, a former museum curator and expert on American folk art, who saw the potential for cultural development in what was essentially a work-relief program for artists.

The project employed more than 5,000 artists at its peak in 1936 and probably double that number over the eight years of its existence. It produced 2,566 murals, more than 100,000 easel paintings, about 17,700 sculptures, nearly 300,000 fine prints, and about 22,000 plates for the Index of American Design, along with innumerable posters and objects of craft. The total federal investment was about $35,000,000.”

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Music

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The Federal Music Project (FMP), part of the Federal government of the United States New Deal program Federal Project Number One, employed musicians, conductors and composers during the Great Depression.^[1] In addition to performing thousands of concerts, offering music classes, organizing the Composers Forum Laboratory, hosting music festivals and creating 34 new orchestras, employees of the FMP researched American traditional music and folk songs, a practice now called ethnomusicology. In the latter domain the Federal Music Project did notable studies on cowboy, Creole, and what was then termed Negro music. During the Great Depression, many people visited these symphonies to forget about the economic hardship of the time.

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Theater 

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“WPA Federal Theatre Project, national theatre project sponsored and funded by the U.S. government as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Founded in 1935, it was the first federally supported theatre in the United States. Its purpose was to create jobs for unemployed theatrical people during the Great Depression, and its director was the educator and playwright Hallie Flanagan.

The Federal Theatre Project employed some 10,000 professionals in all facets of the theatre, and Flanagan oversaw the organization of about 1,000 productions that were mounted in four years in 40 states, often presented free to the public. These productions included classical and modern drama, children’s plays, puppet shows, musical comedies, and documentary theatre known as Living Newspaper. Other projects included producing plays by young, unknown American playwrights, establishing black American theatre, and presenting radio broadcasts of dramatic works. The early careers of Orson Welles, John Houseman, and Elmer Rice were all associated with the Federal Theatre Project. Following a series of controversial investigations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Subcommittee on Appropriations regarding the Federal Theatre’s outspoken leftist commentary on social and economic issues, the Federal Theatre Project was terminated in 1939 by congressional action.”

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Conclusion

To conclude my blog I’d like to say that through all the darkness and sadness, artists and other great influences found a way to bring forth light and joy. Surely there was a lot of negative things happening in America during great depression, but what is positive with out negative. How good was it to be in the crowd of positive, when you know that there is so much negative in the place you live in. To be in a group of chosen artists and know that you are one of the few that are bring joy to a very sad county. Or even being a simple artists, and have an opportunity to do something you like; creating costumes, writing scripts, dancing, singing, or even doing make up and most importantly being able to make a living doing it, when most of the country is jobless, you are doing something you actually enjoy doing. My moral from this is blog is to know that even in a great depression as this there is a way to joy, as long as you are faithful.

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Work Cited

 Great Depression, federal art programs, Writers of Britannica, web 2015  

WPA Federal Art Project, Writers of Britannica, web 2015

Federal Music Project, Wikipedia, web 2015

WPA Federal Theatre Project, Writers of Britannica, web 2015