The Great Depression on Film is a unique guide to how the Great Depression was represented and is remembered, making it an excellent resource for students or anyone interested in film history or U.S. history. Each film is set in a different sector of American life, focusing on such topics as white supremacy, political protest, segregation, environmental degradation, crime, religion, the class system, and popular culture in the U.S. during the 1930s.

This book is indispensable for clearing away misconceptions fostered by the movies while acknowledging the power of film in shaping public memory. The book separates fact from fiction, detailing where the movies are accurate and where they depart from reality, and places them in the larger context of historical and social events. Eyewitness or journalistic accounts are referenced and quoted in the text to help readers differentiate between ideas, attitudes, and events presented in the films, as well as the historical facts which inspired those films.

Features

• Provides readers with a history of the Great Depression as it played out in the lives of many classes and groups of people in the U.S.
• Presents a cultural overview of America during that critical time, going beyond politics to include popular music, entertainment, religion, literature, and sports
• Dives into an exemplary study of the difficulty in dramatizing history on film along with the way film images displace actual history in popular memory
• Gives a detailed overview of how Hollywood cinema represented and misrepresented life during the Depression