By Andrew Blackman
"USA250: The Story of the World's Greatest Economy" is a yearlong WSJ series examining America's first 250 years. Read more about it from Editor in Chief Emma Tucker.
They were terrible times. They were wonderful times.
The Great Depression spawned mass unemployment and economic hardship, but it was also the era of Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington, William Faulkner and John Steinbeck, "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz."
Why did such a difficult time for the American people coincide with such a flourishing of creativity? And why did Americans continue to pay to entertain themselves while they were forced to cut back on so much else?
"A lot of it was about escapism," says Robert S. McElvaine, professor of history emeritus at Millsaps College. "People want to get away from their problems at any time, but especially during the Depression when people's problems were so much worse. A car, a radio and going to the movies were things that people would almost rather go hungry than go without."
Hollywood thrived in this tough decade partly by catering to people's need for fantasy and escapism, through screwball comedies, adventure stories and the elaborate musicals of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Meanwhile, the studios' publicity departments worked hard to build a fan base for the glittering stars of the era, like Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, with dozens of fan magazines dishing out carefully curated details of their lives.
Cinemas played their part by keeping prices low, offering double features for just a quarter, and running midweek promotions like "dish night," when cash-strapped audiences could pick up a free piece of dinnerware, like a bowl, while attending a movie. One of the biggest stars of the era was Shirley Temple, a sweet, ringleted child who comforted audiences by mending rifts in families and melting the hearts of tough guys.
Sticking it to the man
However, the Golden Age of Hollywood wasn't all about escape and comfort. The movies of the 1930s also resonated with audiences by speaking to the harsh times people were living through, either directly or indirectly. As the unemployment rate surged to 25% and bread lines snaked around cities across the country, anger spread against the bankers and big businesses that were seen as responsible for the 1929 stock crash. Many of the movies of the era picked up on this theme and offered people solace by turning the tables -- especially the new genre of gangster movies.
"Audiences loved gangsters because they were fighting back at the man," says Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, professor of media studies at the University of Texas at Austin. "They were the new American heroes."
In movies like "Little Caesar," "Scarface" and "The Public Enemy," ambitious men from humble backgrounds manage to fight their way to higher positions in crime organizations, before being crushed at the height of their success. The trajectory was familiar to many moviegoers from their experience in legitimate organizations, when the success of the 1920s gave way to the job losses and suffering of the Great Depression.
The theme of underdogs fighting back against powerful characters was compelling for 1930s audiences, and the same thread runs through other genres. As odd as it might seem to put Mickey Mouse alongside "Scarface, " Fuller-Seeley believes the appeal to Depression-era audiences was the same: "Mickey was this little mouse who was endlessly adaptable and full of gumption. He could beat up a big cat."
One of Disney's biggest Depression-era hits was "Three Little Pigs." Fuller-Seeley says that "singing 'Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?' really caught on in popular culture as a way of trying to thumb your nose at the Great Depression." Then, toward the end of the decade, Superman came on the scene as a comic-book hero devoted to righting wrongs. One of the earliest comics, in 1938, involved Superman exposing the negligence of mine owners who endangered their workers.
Stories of struggle
One of the bestselling novels of the era was "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck, a tale of Chinese village life that won the Pulitzer Prize and helped Buck win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1938.
"The struggles of these ordinary farming folk in rural China really rhymed with what was suddenly happening to farming folk in the U.S.A.," says Peter Conn, emeritus professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania.
Another Nobel laureate, William Faulkner, set his novels in the post-Civil War South, but Depression-era readers could identify with the bankrupt economy, the impoverishment of farmers and the political disruption, Conn says.
Other successful novels of the 1930s dealt with the Depression more directly. John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" dramatized the suffering and exploitation of farmers migrating to California from the drought-ridden Dust Bowl of Oklahoma.
All that jazz
In the world of popular music, especially jazz, the 1930s stand out for their creativity and sophistication, as well as the sheer number of iconic performers and classic tunes.
"The 1930s were a peak moment where the greatest, most innovative jazz had a large place in the commercial popular-music world," says Loren Schoenberg, senior scholar at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. "You had the flowering of Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and others."
The lyrics of most popular songs of the era had little to do with the economic reality most Americans were experiencing in the 1930s. "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" was a rarity in describing a jobless man begging for change, but most jazz standards and popular songs stuck to the perennial themes of love and romance.
Radio days
Although dances and big-band performances were popular, most Americans discovered the music of the era in their homes, through the radio. For people with limited disposable income, radio offered an affordable form of entertainment, and the medium experienced its heyday in the 1930s.
Millions of Americans tuned in, not just for the music but also to follow adventures like "The Lone Ranger," laugh at the self-deprecating humor of Jack Benny, or hear President Franklin D. Roosevelt address the nation through his fireside chats.
The government's New Deal programs also supported artists, musicians, writers and others through tough times. The Farm Security Administration funded photographers like Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange to document the conditions of impoverished farmers, and the Works Progress Administration employed thousands of artists, writers, actors and musicians -- many of whom later had successful careers, such as Saul Bellow and Ralph Ellison.
"It was a brief, but in my view shining, moment in the relationship between public support and artistic expression in the history of America, " says Conn. "And it also brought theater to small towns all over America, which was its major accomplishment."
As the decade drew to a close, Hollywood experienced what many critics view as its greatest year, with hits including "Gone with the Wind," "Goodbye, Mr. Chips," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Of Mice and Men," "Stagecoach," "The Wizard of Oz" and "Wuthering Heights." With their mix of social realism, symbolism and pure escapism, the movies of 1939 embody the same themes that kept audiences flocking to the cinema and other forms of entertainment throughout the decade.
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March 21, 2026 10:00 ET (14:00 GMT)
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