an introduction to the great depression
Most Americans are familiar with the general story of the Great Depression: the stock market crashed in 1929, which led to bank closures, defaulted loans, and sudden poverty and unemployment. Highlights from history books include President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies and the numerous acronymic agencies his administration created. While our play doesn't focus on the effects of the Depression -- in fact, most of the Sycamores hardly seem to notice it -- it's important to understand what was going on, not only to understand the world of the play, but to understand the audience for which the play was written.
There is a great list of statistics to take a look at here. At the time You Can't Take It With You was produced, the economy was on the rise, but not full back to it's 1929 peak; the GDP was only about $83 billion, versus the $103.6 billion it was before the stock market crash. Still, that was much improved from the lowest point of the depression, when the GDP was tanked at $56.4 billion. Unemployment was in double digits, and nearly 25% in 1933.
On the civilian side of the Depression, things were bleak. People lost their savings, their homes, and their jobs. Breadlines stretched city blocks, soup kitchen tables were packed, and Hoovervilles appeared across the United States. Workers began to migrate in search of work, sometimes leaving their families to make the journey. Meanwhile America's agriculture was suffering. Drought and dust storms swept the country. In addition to these natural setbacks, the farming methods up to this point led to over-farming and land erosion, making crop growth difficult even without the lack of rain.
It was in that Depression peak year, 1933, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office. Roosevelt's New Deal policies were meant to completely turn the Depression around. In the first hundred days of his presidency, he pushed through fifteen bills to get the country on the road to recovery. His "three r's" were Relief, Recovery, and Reform: relieve suffering Americans, recover economic stability, and reform the government so this does not happen again. His methods included a lot of "guess and check" -- that is, many of his ideas were failures, and he immediately pushed them aside to try something new. His plans and method were controversial even then. and many of his New Deal bills were overturned as unconstitutional later on.
There is a great list of statistics to take a look at here. At the time You Can't Take It With You was produced, the economy was on the rise, but not full back to it's 1929 peak; the GDP was only about $83 billion, versus the $103.6 billion it was before the stock market crash. Still, that was much improved from the lowest point of the depression, when the GDP was tanked at $56.4 billion. Unemployment was in double digits, and nearly 25% in 1933.
On the civilian side of the Depression, things were bleak. People lost their savings, their homes, and their jobs. Breadlines stretched city blocks, soup kitchen tables were packed, and Hoovervilles appeared across the United States. Workers began to migrate in search of work, sometimes leaving their families to make the journey. Meanwhile America's agriculture was suffering. Drought and dust storms swept the country. In addition to these natural setbacks, the farming methods up to this point led to over-farming and land erosion, making crop growth difficult even without the lack of rain.
It was in that Depression peak year, 1933, that Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office. Roosevelt's New Deal policies were meant to completely turn the Depression around. In the first hundred days of his presidency, he pushed through fifteen bills to get the country on the road to recovery. His "three r's" were Relief, Recovery, and Reform: relieve suffering Americans, recover economic stability, and reform the government so this does not happen again. His methods included a lot of "guess and check" -- that is, many of his ideas were failures, and he immediately pushed them aside to try something new. His plans and method were controversial even then. and many of his New Deal bills were overturned as unconstitutional later on.