Download Blogging the Great Depression: Primary Sources from the

History Telling
TAH Grant
Professional Development Workshop
September 13, 2008
Looking at Objects Then and Now
• What is your object made out of?
• What is its physical characteristics?
• Who made this object? Is it man or machine
made?
• Who do you think owns/uses/likes/dislikes this
object?
• What is the function of this object?
• Why does this object have value? Is it monetary,
sentimental, both?
• When do you think this object was made?
• Where was your object made?
“One Third of a Nation…”
The Federal Theater Project
• Established August 27, 1935
• Part of the WPA (the Works Progress Administration)
• The role of the FTP, similar to that of the WPA, was to
provide work for unemployed artists
• Hallie Flannigan became director in 1935. Consistently
accused of communist and socialist agendas, especially
through the political slant of Living Newspaper plays.
• Famous artists: Arthur Miller, Orson Welles, Elia Kazan,
Arthur Arent.
• The FTP met with the same fate as Hallie Flannigan and
Congress disbanded the project for un-American
activities.
• Funding was cancelled on June 30, 1939
Federal Theater Project Cont.
“Before the creation of the Works Progress Administration and the
Federal Theatre Project, various drama units were established in
1934 by Harry Hopkins through an earlier Federal agency, the Civil
Works Administration.”
“Subsequently, $27,000,000 of $4,800,000,000 made available by the
Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935 was set aside for
Federal Project Number One, the four arts projects. In October,
1935, $6,784,036, based on estimated theatrical unemployment,
was allotted to the theater. With this commitment of funding,
representatives of the Federal Theatre director throughout the
country, set up classification boards, auditioned theatre personnel
and started theater groups, in cooperation with local Works Progress
Administration offices and with the United States Employment
Service.”
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/ftwpa.html
Federal Theatre Projects in 1936
(http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/ftwpa.html)
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265-6902-804 Experimental
Theatre
" 805 Living Newspaper
" 806 Negro Theatre
" 807 Popular Price Theatre
" 808 Marionette Theatre
" 810 Vaudeville and Circus
" 811 Teaching of Theatre
Technique
" 812 C.C.C. Theatre Project
" 814 Play Bureau
" 815 Federal Theatre Workshop
" 817 Administrative
" 819 Technical Coordinating
" 820 Financial Coordinating
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" 821 Theatre of Dance
" 855 Radio Coordinating
" 868 Touring Unit #1
" 885 Business Coordinating
" 891 Classical Theatre
" 899 Material and Supplies
" 901 Personnel
" 902 Theatre Management
" 903 Touring Unit #2 (Macbeth)
" 904 Suitcase Theatre
" 905 Kings and Queens
" 921 Children's Theatre
" 922 Manhattan and Bronx
" 923 Yiddish Theatre
" 926 Federal Theatre National
Publications
Living Newspapers
• Thoroughly researched plays
• Subjects taken directly from newspapers
focusing on current events
• The content was meant to be informative even if
politically slanted to the left
• “Arthur Arendt wrote “…One Third of a
Nation…”
• Taken from FDR’s second inaugural address
• Opened in 1938, ran for 230 shows, was
considered the most successful…
…but not as politically charged as some
previous plays?
Living Newspapers, Cont.
“The Living Newspaper is a dramatization of a problem –
composed in greater or lesser extent of many news
events, all bearing on the one subject and interrelated
with typical but non-factual representations of the effect
of these news events on the people to whom the
problem is of great importance. ”
Arthur Arent (author, One Third of a Nation…)
“…they seeks to dramatize a new struggle – the search of
the average American today for knowledge about his
country and his world; to dramatize his struggle to turn
the great natural and economic forces of our time toward
a better life for more people. ”
Hallie Flanagan (director, Federal Theater Project)
Wagner- Steagall Act
• The Housing Act of 1937
• Provided federal funds for PHAs: public
housing agencies
• Detractors worried about the intrusion of
government legislating the private sectors
• Eventually led to Slum Clearance.
Review from The Times
“The Living Newspaper concludes this
stimulating lesson in a social problem by
demanding the New Deal stop trying to
balance the budget. The Federal Theatre’s
Newspaper will have none of that inhuman
nonsense.”
Review by Richard Watts, Jr.
“Although partisan, they are careful not to seem unfair, and
so they do not attempt to lay the blame for inadequate
housing on facilities on the shoulders of individual
villains. They are, of all things, passably courteous to the
tenement landlords, showing them as natural products of
an existing condition rather than melodramatic ogres.
That, however, does not prevent them from satirizing,
with the vigorous cartoon skill of the Living Newspaper,
the historic landlords of Manhattan and the inadequacies
of the investigations into conditions following slum fires
and plagues.”
January 18, 1938
The Living Newspaper
Nation Wide Plans For New Dwellings
Make Subject News
“Just as “…one third of a nation…” was
ready to open, Mayor LaGuardia
presented plans for two huge low-cost
slum-elimination projects to Nathan
Straus, Administrator, Unites States
Housing Authority”
Writing Your Script!
Act I:
• Document Based Analyses:
Group discussion:
• Who are the characters in your documents?
• What is the setting in the documents?
• What is the problem or conflict depicted?
Act II:
• Bringing the Documents to Life—Setting the Stage:
In your play, who are your characters?
What is the setting?
What is the problem or conflict your scenario is depicting?
Is there a resolution or compromise? If so, what is it?
• Creating Your Scenario:
Write a one page/two minute script, including dialogue, bringing to life your
resources!
Don’t forget to plan how you will present your script to your audience!