We analyze sectoral labor reallocation and the reversal of urbanization in the United States during the Great Depression. The widespread movement to farms, which serves as a form of migratory ...insurance during the crisis, is largely toward farms with low levels of mechanization. In contrast, the mechanized agricultural sector sheds workers, many of whom reallocate into low-productivity or subsistence farming. The crisis perverts the normal process of structural change in which workers displaced by farm equipment are released into more productive occupations, suggesting that macroeconomic fluctuations are an important factor determining the labor market consequences of technological change.
Abstract
We evaluate the impact on earnings, pensions, and further labor market outcomes of two parallel educational reforms increasing instructional time in Swedish primary school. The reforms ...extended the annual term length and years of compulsory schooling by comparable amounts. We find striking differences in the effects of the two reforms: at 5% the returns to the term length extension were sizeable and benefited broad ranges of the population. The compulsory schooling extension had small (2%) albeit significant effects, which were possibly driven by an increase in post-compulsory schooling. Both reforms led to increased sorting into occupations with heavy reliance on basic skills and the term extension reduced the gender gap in employment and earnings.
This book examines a remarkable political phenomenon--the dramatic shift of black voters from the Republican to the Democratic party in the 1930s, a shift all the more striking in light of the ...Democrats' indifference to racial concerns. Nancy J. Weiss shows that blacks became Democrats in response to the economic benefits of the New Deal and that they voted for Franklin Roosevelt in spite of the New Deal's lack of a substantive record on race. By their support for FDR blacks forged a political commitment to the Democratic party that has lasted to our own time. The last group to join the New Deal coalition, they have been the group that remained the most loyal to the Democratic party. This book explains the sources of their commitment in the 1930s. It stresses the central role of economic concerns in shaping black political behavior and clarifies both the New Deal record on race and the extraordinary relationship between black voters and the Roosevelts.
During the late 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) developed a series of area descriptions with color-coded maps of cities that summarized mortgage lending risk. We analyze the maps to ...explain the oft-noted fact that black neighborhoods overwhelmingly received the lowest rating. Our results suggest that racial bias in the construction of the HOLC maps can explain at most 4 to 20 percent of the observed concentration of black households in the lowest-rated zones. We also provide evidence that the Federal Housing Administration had its own mapping strategies when evaluating mortgages and relied relatively little on the HOLC maps.
During the Great Depression, young radicals centered in New York City developed a vision of and for America, molded by their understanding of recent historical events, in particular the Great War and ...the global economic collapse, as well as by the events unfolding both at home and abroad. They worked to make their vision of a free, equal, democratic society based on peaceful coexistence a reality. Their attempts were ultimately unsuccessful but their voices were heard on a number of important issues, including free speech, racial justice, and peace.
A major contribution to the historiography of the era of the Great Depression, Fighting Authoritarianism provides a new and important examination of U.S. youth activism of the 1930s, including the limits of the New Deal and how youth activists continually pushed FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, and other New Dealers to do more to address economic distress, more inclusionary politics, and social inequality. In this study, author Britt Haas questions the interventionist versus isolationist paradigm in that young people sought to focus on both domestic and international affairs. Haas also explores the era not as a precursor to WWII, but as a moment of hope when the prospect of institutionalizing progress in freedom, equality, and democracy seemed possible.
Fighting Authoritarianism corrects misconceptions about these young activists' vision for their country, heavily influenced by the American Dream they had been brought up to revere: they wanted a truly free, truly democratic, and truly equal society. That meant embracing radical ideologies, especially socialism and communism, which were widely discussed, debated, and promoted on New York City college campuses. They believed that in embracing these ideologies, they were not turning their backs on American values. Instead, they believed that such ideologies were the only way to make America live up to its promises. This study also outlines the careers of Molly Yard, Joseph Lash, and James Wechsler, how they retracted (and for Yard and Lash, reclaimed) their radical past, and how New York continued to hold a prominent platform in their careers. Lash and Wechsler both worked for the New York Post, the latter as editor until 1980.
Examining the Depression decade from the perspective of young activists highlights the promise of America as young people understood it: a historic moment when anything seemed possible.
Examines how Hollywood responded to and reflected the political and social changes that America experienced during the 1930s.In the popular imagination, 1930s Hollywood was a dream factory producing ...escapist movies to distract the American people from the greatest economic crisis in their nation's history. But while many films of the period conform to this stereotype, there were a significant number that promoted a message, either explicitly or implicitly, in support of the political, social and economic change broadly associated with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programme. At the same time, Hollywood was in the forefront of challenging traditional gender roles, both in terms of movie representations of women and the role of women within the studio system. With case studies of actors like Shirley Temple, Cary Grant and Fred Astaire, as well as a selection of films that reflect politics and society in the Depression decade, this fascinating book examines how the challenges of the Great Depression impacted on Hollywood and how it responded to them.Topics covered include:How Hollywood offered positive representations of working womenCongressional investigations of big-studio monopolization over movie distributionHow three different types of musical genres related in different ways to the Great Depression – the Warner Bros Great Depression Musicals of 1933, the Astaire/Rogers movies, and the MGM 'kids' musicals of the late 1930sThe problems of independent production exemplified in King Vidor's Our Daily BreadCary Grant's success in developing a debonair screen persona amid Depression conditionsContributors Harvey G. Cohen, King's College LondonPhilip John Davies, British LibraryDavid Eldridge, University of HullPeter William Evans, Queen Mary, University of LondonMark Glancy, Queen Mary University of LondonIna Rae Hark, University of South CarolinaIwan Morgan, University College LondonBrian Neve, University of BathIan Scott, University of ManchesterAnna Siomopoulos, Bentley UniversityJ. E. Smyth, University of WarwickMelvyn Stokes, University College LondonMark Wheeler, London Metropolitan University
This article discusses the importance of residential architecture in the traditional areas of Bogotá during the 1930s and 40s. To do so, 17 buildings (of 44 identified) are analyzed that were built ...between 1935 and 1949 in Las Nieves neighborhood. The purpose of the paper is to understand their origins and the design strategies used in three areas: the block, the building, and the apartment. Urban regulations were also reviewed due to the important role they played in the production of this type of architecture. Lastly, we suggest a classification to understand how the first examples of collective housing in Bogotá proceeded.
Este artículo abre la discusión en torno a la importancia de la arquitectura residencial producida en los sectores tradicionales de Bogotá durante los años treinta y cuarenta. Para ello se analizaron 17 edificios (de 44 identificados) construidos entre 1935 y 1949 en el barrio Las Nieves, a fin de reconocer su origen y las estrategias de diseño empleadas en tres ámbitos: la manzana, la edificación y la unidad. En complemento, se revisó la norma urbana, dado su papel determinante en la producción de esta arquitectura. También se propuso una clasificación para entender la manera en que operaron las primeras muestras de vivienda colectiva construidas en la ciudad.
To estimate the impact of federal spending on state incomes, we develop an annual panel data set between 1930 and 1940. Using panel methods we estimate that an added dollar of federal spending in the ...state increased state per capita income by between 40 and 96 cents. The point estimates for nonfarm grants are higher and for AAA farm grants are much smaller and negative in some cases. The spending led to increase in durable good spending on automobiles but had no positive effects on private employment.
Danish Modern explores the development of mid-century modernist design in Denmark from historical, analytical and theoretical perspectives. Mark Mussari explores the relationship between Danish ...design aesthetics and the theoretical and cultural impact of Modernism, particularly between 1930 and 1960. He considers how Danish designers responded to early Modernist currents: the Stockholm Exhibition of 1930, their rejection of Bauhaus aesthetic demands, their early fealty to wood and materials, and the tension between cabinetmaker craft and industrial production as it challenged and altered their aesthetic approach. Tracing the theoretical foundations for these developments, Mussari discusses the writings and works of such figures as Poul Henningsen, Arne Jacobsen, Hans Wegner, Nanna Ditzel, and Finn Juhl.
Problems with mortgage financing are widely considered to be a major cause of the recent financial meltdown. Several modern programs have been designed to mimic the Home Owners' Loan Corporation ...(HOLC) of the 1930s. We analyze the impact of the HOLC on the nonfarm rental and owned home markets for over 2,800 counties in the United States in the 1930s. In sparsely populated counties, where financial markets were not as well developed as in larger cities, the HOLC stimulated demand for owned housing more than it influenced supply. In rental markets the HOLC appears to have contributed to an increase in supply.
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