1. The Glass Menagerie
By Tennessee Williams

2. Setting...
The Glass Menagerie is set in the 1930s during the Great Depression and slightly before the onset of World War II.

3. The Great Depression Began in 1929 with the stock market crash.
Many banks and business failed.
Millions of Americans lost their jobs.
Black Tuesday, October 1929 (only a few months after Herbert Hoover was elected President).
Followed by several bank failures
⅓ of the work force was unemployed by 1932 when the Democrats nominated FDR for President.
Hoovervilles!
Under the “New Deal” federal programs, the Depression finally ended in 1940.

4. The United States
1933 – Approximately 13 million Americans were out of work.
Bread lines/Soup Kitchens
Many others only had part-time jobs.
Farm income declined - Dust Bowl!
“Dirty Thirties”
100 million acres affected
1932: 14 dust storms
1933: 36 dust storms
Dust Bowl – the result of a terrible drought on the western Great Plains, also wiped out many farmers
The Dust Bowl is also often referred to as the Dirty Thirties.
Some of the reasons that the Dust Bowl occurred were over-farming, livestock over-grazing, drought and poor farming practices.
There were more than 100 million acres of land affected by the Dust Bowl.
There were 14 dust storms in 1932 on the Great Plains.
There were 38 dust storms in 1933 on the Great Plains.
More than 300,000 people moved to California during the Dust Bowl to start over because of the damage to land caused by the Dust Bowl.
Because of the Great Depression, many of the farmers who migrated to the cities to look for work due the Dust Bowl's destruction of their land could not find employment.
The Dust Bowl got its name in 1935 when an Associated Press reporter witnessed a dust storm and came up with the name.
Hundreds of thousands of people lost their life savings as a result of the bank failures.

6. Global Impact
Great Britain struggled with low growth and recession most of the second half of the 1920s.
Spain – Decline in industrial productions of 30%
Germany – comparable to the United States.
Stabilized, but then down turned again during the third quarter of 1929.
Adolf Hitler
In the decade of the 1930's, the Spanish reported a slowdown of 20%, less than the U.S , France, Germany, but it was very close to what Italy and Britain experienced.
There was a very big drop in foreign trade.
There was a drop in investments.
There was also a drop in imports.
There was a decline in consumption during the depression.
Although there wasn't much trade going on, Spain operated on flexible exchange rates during the Great Depression.
The people thought that the reason why their economy was bad was because of the resignation of the dictator Primo De Rivera on January 29, 1930
There was 4 main reasons why Spain's economy was said to have declined:
The 1st, due to changes in inputs of labor
The 2nd, due to changes in inputs of capital
The 3rd, due to changes in imported inputs
The 4th, due to changes in total factor productivity

8. Thank You, Roosevelt!
The New Deal was a series of programs, public works projects, financial reforms and regulations enacted by Democrats led by President FDR.
Between
Responded to needs for relief, reform and recovery from The Great Depression.
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms and regulations enacted by liberal Democrats led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and They responded to needs for relief, reform and recovery from the Great Depression. Major federal programs included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). They provided support for farmers, the unemployed, youth and the elderly. 

9. The Glass Menagerie
The play is based on a short story that Williams had written as a sort of homage to his sister, Rose.
While the story is not truly autobiographical, it does draw on much of the author’s experience, and the character of Tom, who is understood to be Williams, deals with the pain of his inability to help his sister.

10. Gender Roles
In this time period, gender roles were much stricter than they are today. Men generally were the breadwinners and generally the authority of the household.
Women were discouraged from “taking jobs” from men during this time even though many women needed to work to support their families. Some states even passed laws against hiring women.
There were often low wages and poor conditions in the jobs that did exist.

11. Treatment of the Mentally Ill
Mentally challenged patients were not treated well.
Lobotomy
Hydrotherapy
Shock Therapy
Electroconvulsive Therapy
Mistreatment was mostly because there was little to no information on how to treat these patients. It was just assumed that these patients did not know how to behave in public.
LB - Separated the parts of the brain. To induce sedation, two quick shocks to the heads. Roll back one of the patients’ eyelids. Insert device 2/3 the size of a pencil into the upper eyelid into the patient’s head. Guided by the markings indicating depth, use a hammer to tap the device into the partial front lobe.
HT – Cold and warm baths… Cold baths would stop blood flow to the brain. Induce fatigue and decrease activity.
ST – effective but painful. Would induce comas. Doctors believed the comas would give the patients a psychological change.
ET – Pass currents through the patient’s brain. These currents create a temporary seizure and briefly reverse symptoms of mental illness.

12. Setting Again...
Williams wrote this play after America had already entered the war, but before victory was achieved.