MORRIS DICKSTEIN
Depression Culture:
The Dream ofMobility
Like the turbulent sixties, the 1930s belong not only to history but to
myth and legend. For many the period remains a byword for economic
crisis, a permanent warning of what could happen again. For the resur–
gent right it represents the beginning of the hated welfare state. For
others, who of course were young then, it remains the time of their
lives, a period of remarkable political excitement and cultural buoyancy
intimately connected with the social stresses of the times. The 1929 Crash
was on everyone's mind when stocks plummeted in the fall of 1987; it
remained an unspoken fear during the long, intractable recession that be–
gan in 1989 and lasted through the early '90s, leaving many without jobs
and with diminished hopes. Fears of both recession and inflation have
become a constant in American thinking. In recent years we've witnessed
the contraction not only of American industry but of the old sense of
unlimited possibility: the career open to talents, the promise of American
life. My concern here is not with jobs but with the state of mind that
goes with lower economic horizons.
The mood of the D epression was marked not only by hard times
and a coming world crisis but by all the attempts to· cheer people up -
or else to sober them up to face what was happening. Though poor
economically, the decade was rich in both popular fantasy and trenchant
social criticism. This is a fundamental split of Depression culture: on one
hand, the widespread effort by writers and thinkers to grapple with un–
precedented economic disaster, to explain and understand it; on the
other hand, the need reflected in the popular culture to produce art and
entertainment that would distract people from their trouble, which be–
came another way of coming to terms with it.
Thanks to the intersection of new technology and deep human
needs, the thirties proved to be a turning point in American popular
culture. Radio came of age, binding audiences together with common
distractions that matched their anxieties. Photography, photojournalism,
and newsreels provided the visual images that even those great radio
voices - H .V. Kaltenborn from Spain, Edward R . Murrow from
London, Orson Welles from Mars - could not convey. This was also the
era that saw the consolidation of the Hollywood studio system and the
