1929 - 1945 the glamor years1929 - 1945 the glamor years
  Streamlined StyleDuring the Iate 1920s huge changes had taken place in the way new American technological goods, particularly automobiles, were sold and consumed.
Since the early years of production at Henry Ford's Highland Park factory from 1912 until the mid 1920s - the design of his "Model T" had remained... Read More
In 1933 General Electric launched a new, "streamlined" refrigerator, designed by Henry Dreyfuss, which instantly made its competitors look oldfashioned. Westinghouse employed Donald Dohner as an... Read More
The fashion image most associated with the 1930s - a decade of Depression, unemployment, fascism and the approach of war - is probably the glamorous Hollywood pale satin evening gown, a bias-cut creation slithering to the floor, lowbacked and clinging... Read More
Women's magazines proliferated during the 1930s and contributed to the greatly increased circulation of fashion images, which could be copied by local dressmakers. Fan magazines and studio publicity also promoted "Hollywood" styles.
There was a vogue for movies set in department stores, beauty salons or fashion houses. These films acted... Read More
Even more important than Hollywood's influence on clothes was the way in which the movies popularized cosmetics. In the 18th century and earlier, powder and paint had been freely worn, but for most of the 19th century makeup had been taboo for respectable women. Read More
For a few years during the war the British people seemed willing to forgo the delights of fashion, novelty and status symbols and accept the idea that mass-produced, standardized high-quality products could provide it with all the items of furniture and clothing that it needed.
Shortages of timber and cloth, and the need to use Iab or to produce war material rather than consumer ... Read More
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 Crooners and SwingOn 7 November 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash, the song Happy Days Are Here Again was registered for copyright. This glaring contrast heralded the escapism of which the music of the next few years is often accused. With a few exceptions (the most famous being Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?), the most widely heard music of the 1930s... Read More
The improvement in the quality of broadcast sound that followed the introduction of the electric microphone in the mid- 1920s led to a corresponding rise in the quality of radio receivers. It became possible to discern greater delicacies of instrumental sound and of the singing voice, particularly in the middle range. Read More
As the United States pulled out of the Depression, a more vigorous style of band music began to be widely heard. Reviving fortunes far the record industry - in particular Decca's introduction of a cheap (35-cent) record - played a part, but radio... Read More
"Give My Regards to Broadway" - George M. Cohan's 1904 song, in the show Little Johnny Jones, already reflected the New York theater district' s preeminence in the musical stage. Behind it lay a formidable concentration of money. As Tin Pan Alley ... Read More
 Sports and NationalismThe Depression left an uneven pattern of poverty and prosperity. Like the rest of the service sector and the mass entertainment industry, spectator sports expanded during the Depression, as those who could afford it grasped the alternative vision of fun... Read More
There was still opposition, on both moral and biological grounds, to women competing in vigorous sports. Sports heroines such as the Americans Mildred "Babe" Diedrikson and "the world's fastest woman", Helen Stevens, who disavowed conventional images... Read More
The 1936 Olympics were the first Games to be televised, although only to 160,000 people in and around Berlin. They became a stage for the incitement of nationalism and ritualistic struggle of one nation... Read More
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 The Studio System By the time of the Wall Street Crash in 1929 Hollywood had switched over entirely to "talkies", but even six months later no more than half of the 22,624 movie theaters in the United States... Read More
Few Americans understood the economic causes of the Crash, but there was a widespread view that the Depression was a result not so much of the unstable economic expansion of the Jazz Age as of its hedonism. The movies themselves... Read More
To provide a comprehensive service to its exhibitors, a studio also needed to keep a stable of stars representing each of the most prominent... Read More
January 1938: Warner Bros announced they had bought Roland Brown's story, Angels with Dirty Faces, for $12,500, as one of the three movies starring James Cagney that they would make... Read More
The influence of American culture in other countries was not always welcome. In the 1930s Japan was the most prolific filmmaking country in the world, producing 400 to 600 features a year.
Like Hollywood, Japanese cinema had its established genres. The most popular were historical films, swordfight action dramas appealing... Read More
The United States, the largest consumer economy in the world despite the Depression, remained immune to cultural incursions from abroad... Read More
"If it's December 1941 in Casablanca," Humphrey Bogart asks Dooley Wilson, "What time is it in New York? I bet they re asleep in New York.I bet they're asleep all over America." Working with the... Read More
Among the combatant nations of World War ll, only the Soviets had a cinema which was dedicated completely to the war effort, with all its production geared "to help in the moral... Read More
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