Paper 3 draft

Mike Tramontelli 3/3/09
AMST 072W Prof. Palmer

“For machineless men generally, it is both necessity and pleasure to assist, and be assisted by one’s neighbor.” (Susman 156) The ideology of the thirties was to lend a helping hand to our fellow Americans in need and provide aid to the soldiers overseas. Susman argues that in countries less developed than the United States, people are more willing to be selfless and extend a metaphorical olive branch to people who less fortunate. Due to the unregulated corporate activity, a series of unfortunate events during twenties lead to the depression of the thirties, but that didn’t stop the American people from uniting as a collectivist society in order to rid the ills of an economic tailspin. Hoover said in closing the Presidential campaign of 1932: “This campaign is more of a contest between two men. It is more of a contest between two parties. It is a contest between two philosophies of government…” (Hoover 1938). Hoover was a proponent of government that took a “hands off” approach while Franklin Delano Roosevelt employed the polar opposite role of government, “hand on” in order to increase efficiency and aid America in its escape of its current economic rut. Susman argues that the new technologies that were invented in the 1930’s—radio, photographs, and better distribution of the print media—allowed Americans, all over the country, to visualize the attitudes of people who were suffering from the economic woes of the era as well. The CCC, a public works programs created by FDR, was thoroughly documented and their photographs. The Wilfred Mead CCC Work Project photo didn’t just depict a valiant looking American male hold a sledge hammer, it portrays the iron will of the American workforce and its steadfastness to support the polices implemented by the New Deal. The harshest economic times America faced was in the 1930’s and in the struggle for economic prosperity, the visual and print media supported FDR’s notion of social welfare liberalism to the laissez-faire liberalism present by Hoover.

“It seems that things are in a rut, fixes, settled, that the world has grown old and tired and very much out of joint. This is the mood of depression, of dire and weary depression.” (FDR 1). Even though a somber mood was shrouding every American, the collectivist ideals, instilled by the New Deal, gave Americans hope and a yearning to get up and work in order to restore our country. Hoover thought that by permitting the corporation to continue on the same path that America would come out unscathed. American citizens liked that under Hoover, they were more free to choose various options and have a sense of individuality without the shroud of government looming over them. But for what were the American people able to choose. Hoover argued that New Deal polices are “substituting personal power and centralized government for the institutions of free men.” (Hoover 3). However, Hoover does fail to realize that the main reason why the country is in an economic recession is the unfair, unreasonable, and extremly corrupt tactics that corporation employed in order to make money. Corporations, which were left unregulated, didn’t afford their workers any suitable benefits for basically slaving away all day. Susman argues that “the shift to a culture of sight and sound was of profound importance; it increased our self awareness as a culture; it helped create a unity of response and action not previously possible.” (Susman 100). The advent of media technology made it almost universal for an American citizen in Utah have access to the same news printed for city dwellers. Increased knowledge of the economic hardships and having the ability to access data regarding the two vastly different schools of liberalism gave the American people a shared set of knowledge in order to make better informed decisions than in the past.

I'm following the pattern that was presented on the assignment sheet.