Innovations

Many people only think of the depression when they thinok of the 30's. It dominates our cultural memory of the age. but there was something else that came out of the 30's.

There was renewed interest in mechanical innovation in 1930s cars that was not present in the 20's. The whole decade experienced a leap forward in automotive design and technical sophistication that benefits the car industry to this very day. It was 1930s cars that saw the introduction of automatic chocks, gearshifts on the sheering column, smoothly shifting transmissions, trunks that were built into the car and hydraulic brakes. It is hard to imagine a car without these features being produced today. It makes these improvements even more impressive. so many important design features came out of the 1930s car industry its hard not to wonder where we would be without that decade. .

Women in Sports

Mildred "Babe" Didrickson was not simply one the best athletes of the 1930's. she was one the greatest of all-time. She first made a name for herself during Olympic Trials. Didrikson entered as a one women team and finished first, the University of Illinois 22 member team finished second. Babe won 6 of the 8 events she competed in, and set world records in two. In the Olympics she was restricted to just three events, 80 meter hurdles, Javelin and high jump. She took two golds and a silver. After the 1932 games, she competed in exhibitions of several sports including pitching a scoreless inning against the Athletics. In the 1940's and 50's she became the best women's golfer in the world.

How did this monster of sports become a super athlete? no one knows, but how would she stack up today?

Crime of the Century

Renowned aviator Charles Lindbergh is is most recognizable from his non stop trans Atlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis.

What he is less known for is a crime that was committed on march 1st 1932. his 10 month old son was kidnapped.

while a 10 week nation wide man hunt took place their were also negotiations taking place through an intermediary known as Jafsie. the negotiations led to the pay out of 50,000$ in 10$ and 20$ gold certificates.

Although payment was made on May 12th the body of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr was found just two miles from the families home. Tracing the certificates led authorities to Bruno Richard Hauptmann. With more then 13,000 of the notes stashed in his garage he was convicted of kidnapping, extortion, and first degree murder. Hauptmann maintained through the trial and right through to the carrying out of the death sentence that he was innocent.

One thing that came from this tragedy is the Lindbergh Act making it a federal offence to kidnap a child and either cross state borders or else use any service that crosses the state boarder. including mailing ransom letters.

The loss of a child is devastating, do you think that making the crime carry a more severe punishment deterred anyone from committing it?

Cheap steak, cheap gas....why not?

	Population: 123,188,000 in 48 states
	Life Expectancy: Male, 58.1; Female, 61.6
	Average salary: $1,368
	Unemployment rises to 25%
	Huey Long proposes a guaranteed annual income of $2,500
	Car Sales: 2,787,400
	Food Prices: Milk, 14 cents a qt.; Bread, 9 cents a loaf; Round Steak, 42 cents a pound Gas: .10-.17 cents a gallon What really stands out from this list is the price of gas. A gallon of gas was between .10 to .17 cents in the thirties. Nowadays the average price of gas is around $3.90. It seems like .10 cents for a gallon of gas is nothing! The price of gas back then was reasonable for the time period. If gas has risen from .10 cents in the thirties and $3.90 currently, it makes you wonder where it's going next.

An Interesting Character

The Lone Ranger was one of America's favorite radio heroes in the 1930s. He had a sidekick named Tonto and they would gallop through everyone's living room on a mission to save the wild west. The Lone Ranger wore a black mask to hind his identity. He would yell "Hi-yo Silver, away", his horse would rare up and off they would go. The horse was of course Silver. He and Tonto, lived by a strict code of behavior, both on and off the radio. Later the show went on to TV; some where there is still reruns playing. The show stopped producing new episodes in 1957 so that is a long run for reruns. There were also movies made with the Lone Ranger as the star.

Marx Brothers

The Marx Brothers were a group of brothers with very funny names: Zeppo, Chico, Groucho, Gummo, and Harpo. With no hopes of employment with names such as those, they had no choice but to enter comedy.* The boys had a German mother and a French father and lived in New York. From 1929 to 1949, they made 13 films. The brothers did stage shows, movies, television shows, radio, and vaudeville.

"Humor is reason gone mad." --Groucho Marx (arguably the most well-known of the brothers).


The Marx Brothers were an extremely popular comedy team. In the 1930s alone, they were in a slew of famous films such as:
Animal Crackers (1930)
Duck Soup (1933)
Monkey Business (1931)
Horse Feathers (1932)
A Night At the Opera (1935)
A Day at the Races (1937)

Prior to reading about the Marx brothers, I always associated them with Marxism (the economic and socio-political worldview) and thought Groucho Marx was some often quoted but invisible cousin of Karl Marx. Clearly, this is not the case.




*This is not a fact.

"I, Too, Sing America" By Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America. 

I am the darker brother. 

They send me to eat in the kitchen 

When company comes, 

But I laugh, 

And eat well, 

And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the table 

When company comes. 

Nobody'll dare 

Say to me, 

"Eat in the kitchen," 

Then.  

Besides,  

They'll see how beautiful I am 

And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

This poem written by Langston Hughes was penned in 1925, 

so it was a bit before the thirties but remains relevant even to this day.

This is one of my favorite poems and it is about civil rights. 

Although the other inhabitants of the house are ashamed of the darker brother 

and send him to eat where he will be unseen by others, 

he still remains optimistic about a better tomorrow. 

Every person, regardless of race or appearance or anything as superficial as that, is America.

 I see the people of the house as representative of this country in that time period and 

company is representative of the self we (being the United States) choose to present to

the outside world.    

(I keep struggling with formatting and my block of text kept ending up as one very long line of text. The only way I found to separate 

text was to do this weird spacing. Sorry!)