1. Joe Wang, Cierra Scott, Madeline Valdes, Melissa Potter
How did the Great Depression & the New Deal influence art & literature? Did literature during the 1930’s present a positive or negative view of American Society?
Joe Wang, Cierra Scott, Madeline Valdes, Melissa Potter

2. Edward Hopper Federal Theatre Project (FTP) 1935
NY artist
Genre: Realism
(1942) Nighthawks
WPA sponsered
Theatre production jobs
Goal: To employ unemplyed artists, writers, directors

3. Grant Wood Thomas Hart Benton
American Gothic (1930)
Facial Expression
Stress
Muralist
Realism
Midwest content/roots
Country’s New Duet Group

4. 1930s Literature: Steinbeck and Wright
Federal Works Project (FWP)
Employed writers to create guides and write about immigrants, ethnic groups, South slavery
Helped Richard Wright achieve in writing Native Son (1940)
About challenges of a man in world of racism
FWP helped John Steinbeck
Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
Focuses on Okies fleeing Dust Bowl
Okies go to California and face hardships

5. 1930s Literature: Positive View
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) –James Agee, Walker Evans
Farmers’ dignity
Our Town (1938) –Thornton Wilder
Beauty of New England
Gone with the Wind (1936) –Margaret Mitchell
Virtues of American culture

6. 1930s Literature: Negative View
Studs Lonigan Trilogy ( ) –James T. Farnell
Irish immigrant workers’ lives
U.S.A. ( ) –John dos Passos
Selfish rich class vs. nation’s promise
The Disinherited (1933) –John Conroy
Missouri coalfields violence
Self-experience

7. KEY TERMS
WPA: Works Program Admin.- employed artists to do literacy projects to educate America
Federal Writer’s Project: funded writers (part of the New Deal.)
Federal Theater Project: funded artists

8. TIMELINE 1930- 45 1936- Gone with the Wind (book) 1940- Native Sun
1935- WPA
1939- Grapes of Wrath
1936- Gone with the Wind (book)
1930- American Gothic
1940- Native Sun
1942- Nighthawks

9. Photography

10. Question 1 What is the basis of Richard Wright’s book Native Son?
A. An African American’s life in a racist world
B. Lives of Okies (people who fled from the Dust Bowl) in California
C. The hardships of farmers
D.A young boy’s adventures with a Native American
E. Wright’s tragic romantic past

11. A. An African American’s life in a racist world
Answer 1
A. An African American’s life in a racist world

12. Question 2 What genre of art surfaced in the 1930s? A. Realism
B. Modernism
C. Impressionism
D. Romanticism
E. Rococo

13. Answer 2
B. Modernism