Depression and Censoring the American

Depression and Censoring

The American of the 1930s was a dual decade; first of the slashing of the American Dream for many Americans, regardless of race or nationality; and then a drastic reworking of the Federal and State governmental system to change and improve things. In the United States, unemployment rose to over 25% and in some countries as high as 33%. Cities that depended on heavy industry were hit hard, construction virtually stopped in many areas. Farming and rural areas suffered between a combination of falling crop prices and poor weather (and, in the United States, the dustbowl issues coming from years of poor agricultural practices). For children, the 1920s and 1930s were particularly painful, but by 1939 and the advent of America's entry into World War II, there had been significant improvements in education, social welfare, and an understanding and vocalization of the problems of childhood and adolescence as advocated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

History is important to help students understand the past, but not only as singular dates and events, but because we live in the present but have evolved because of the past. History helps us understand ourselves, people, other societies, and events that shape our world. Instead of relying on names and dates -- rote memorization and the bottom level of Bloom's taxonomy, the trend in studying social history brings the story of the common person, the everyman, and the untold millions who have not had their stories told, but have had a tremendous impact on culture and life in both the past and the present.

One such example comes from reading letters and primary accounts of segments of the population that are not always taught in textbooks. For instance, most texts talk about the Great Depression through economic and political paradigms -- how the economy, unemployment, and government changed to adapt to the conditions of the 1930s, and how Franklin Roosevelt's many ideas changed the way people looked at the government and the government responded to the needs of the citizens. We are still impacted by some of those decisions, Social Security for instance. However, the letters that children wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt took the issues of unemployment, hunger, abject poverty, and the lack of medical care from the 30,000-foot view to the personal micro viewpoint. One child, for instance, needed $7.50 to go to the doctor; another wanted $35 to go to college to better themselves. Taken individually, these are requests from real people who have real issues that can reach out through the years and touch the lives of current students.

This type of history is relevant to the classroom because it brings issues of history to life -- it shows modern students that while times have changed, people really have not. It shows them that history is not simply famous people, but made up of everyday people with everyday concerns. Moreover, many scholars believe that one of the reasons that young people do not wish to study history or social studies is that it lacks resonance for them. In particular, the emphasis on the memorization of dates has almost no correlation in learning at the and actually fails to activate a child's temporal understanding of the past, much less their interest. However, when students read primary accounts like letters, documents that show economic facts about arms buildup, government spending, letters from soldiers (Civil War, for example), they see that history is really alive, they find that the stories are relevant and exciting, and the most certainly are able to find commonality with those in the past. Uncovering these ideas, vetting sources, analyzing bias, placing events in chronological order, and understanding causality all contribute to a more historiographical manner of thinking -- both about the past, and the future. This is very important if we wish our young people to become global citizens; and is more of a mindset than a simple set of facts.

Part II -- Censorship has been part of the human experience since people gathered together in communities. The idea of political censorship is designed to keep the public either unaware of certain situations or to use propaganda to influence their viewpoint. For instance, in war, it is often the task of the media to portray the enemy as "the other" or evil so that the population can be rallied against the cause. The very crux of the argument comes to the central point of censorship -- who must be protected and why must they be protected? Ideas, political, social, or otherwise, may be the most dangerous form of literature ever. For instance, in 19th century autocratic regimes, the ideas of Karl Marx, even Voltaire, Locke, and Jefferson were seen to be subversive because they challenged the order of things, the idea that the monarchy should rule by divine right, and that certain people had, by manifest destiny, the right to be more equal than others. So, too, do images and verbiage change over time regarding public acceptance. At the turn of the century bathing suits covered almost 90% of the human body, and a day at the beach would've been far different had some of today's skimpy G-strings or bikinis shown up. Similarly, sexual activity was hinted at from the early days of film, usually with a door closing, a fade to darkness, or a blur; audiences of the 1940s would be shocked to see nudity and depiction of sex on television.

In World War II, the media had less technology to instantly beam images into the homes of most Americans. While they could have taken pictures of carnage, there was an unwritten rule that Americans wanted to see heroic events and understand warfare from a more positive approach. Censors ensured that a public relations campaign would allow Americans to support the war through donations, metal drives, purchasing of war bonds, etc. While censorship was not blatant, during these years there was a more congenial approach to what the government wanted/needed from the media. Indeed, one of the more interesting aspects of the war years and censorship was the implied agreement that the media not show President Roosevelt in his braces, or having trouble walking. This was a courtesy that would most certainly not happen in today's media market, but it was believed that the public would not handle Roosevelt's handicap, especially during the war years.

By censoring images and information from the public, someone has to decide that the public can either not handle the material or is not intellectually savvy enough to filter it. Too much information can have a deleterious effect as well; but modern censorship occurs too, in placement of stories, in showing certain events and ignoring others, and most notably in trying to find the most vivid and controversial pictures that may or may not reflect the accurate event (e.g. A street gang fight in Los Angeles out of context).