Narratives of Vulnerability in Museums: American Interpretations of the Great Depression 9780429888434, 9780429468698

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Narratives of Vulnerability in Museums

Narratives of Vulnerability in Museums is a study of the challenges museums face when they present narratives of instability, uncertainty, and fear in their exhibitions. As a period of sustained societal and personal vulnerability, the Great Depression remains a watershed era in American history. It is an era when iconic visual culture of deprivation mixes in the popular imagination with groundbreaking government policy and has immense potential for museums, but this is accompanied by significant challenges. Analysing a range of case studies, the book explores both the successes and obstacles involved in translating historical narratives of vulnerability to the exhibition floor. Incorporating an innovative, trans-​genre museological model, the book draws connections between exhibitions of history, art, and technology, as well as heritage sites, focused on a single era. Employing interpretations of housing, preserved and reconstructed, to discuss ideas of belonging and community, the book also examines the power of the iconic national story and the struggle for local relevance through discussions on strikes and industrial action. Finally, it examines the use of fine art in history exhibitions to access the emotional aspects of historical experience. The result is a volume that considers both how societies talk about less celebratory aspects of history, but also the expectations placed on museums as interpreters of the public narrative and agents of change. Narratives of Vulnerability in Museums makes a significant contribution to discourses of museum and heritage studies, of interwar history, of the social role of cultural institutions, and to vulnerability and resilience studies. As such, it should be essential reading for scholars and students working in these disciplines, as well as architecture, cultural studies, and human geography. Meighen Katz has lectured at the University of Melbourne, the Australian Catholic University, and Deakin University; she contributed to exhibitions at Museum Victoria; and she was the 2016 Grimwade Curator at the Ian Potter Museum of Art. She holds a PhD from Monash University and is a founding partner of Present Past Consulting Historians.

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Routledge Research in Museum Studies

20 Biculturalism at New Zealand’s National Museum An Ethnography of Te Papa Tanja Schubert-​McArthur 21 Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship A New Model for a Changing Era Haitham Eid 22 Diversity and Philanthropy at African American Museums Black Renaissance Patricia Banks 23 The Private Collector’s Museum Public Good Versus Private Gain Georgina Walker 24 Museums as Cultures of Copies Edited by Brenna Brita 25 The Personalization of the Museum Visit Art Museums, Discourse, and Visitors Seph Rodney 26 Narratives of Vulnerability in Museums American Interpretations of the Great Depression Meighen Katz 27 Museum and Gallery Publishing From Theory to Case Study Sally Hughes www.routledge.com/​Routledge-​Research-​in-​Museum-​Studies/​book-​series/​ RRIMS

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Narratives of Vulnerability in Museums American Interpretations of the Great Depression Meighen Katz

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First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Meighen Katz The right of Meighen Katz to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​60411-​7  (hbk) ISBN: 978-​0-​429-​46869-​8  (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Newgen Publishing UK

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Dedicated to my mother, Dr Geraldine Katz, and to the memory of my father, Dr Arnold Katz, who inspired me with their knowledge, challenged me with their insight, and encouraged me with their love.

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Contents

List of figures  List of abbreviations  Acknowledgements  1 Introduction: the Great Depression, museums, and narratives of vulnerability 

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2 Shaking off the Dust Bowl: strikes and the challenge of iconic history 

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3 Belonging: interpretations of home, homelessness, and neighbourhoods 

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4 The arts and the imagined audience: theatre, radio, and the emotion of vulnerability 

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5 The big ball of string: concluding thoughts 

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Index 

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Figures

1.1 Dorothea Lange, Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-​two. Nipomo, California, aka Migrant Mother (1936). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​DIG-​fsa-​8b29516 1.2 Dorothea Lange, Man With Wheelbarrow (1934). The Dorothea Lange Collection, The Oakland Museum of California. Gift of Paul S. Taylor. A67.137.7623 2.1 Arthur Rothstein, Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm. Cimarron County, Oklahoma (1936). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​DIG-​ppmsc-​00241 2.2 Dorothea Lange, Power farming displaces tenants from the land in the western dry cotton area. Childress County, Texas Panhandle, aka Tractored Out (1938). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​ DIG-​ppmsc-​00232 2.3 Russell Lee, Negro mother teaching children numbers and alphabet in home of sharecropper. Transylvania, Louisiana (1939). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​USF34-​T01-​031938-​D 2.4 Dick Sheldon, Strikers guarding window entrance to Fisher body plant number three. Flint, Michigan (1937). Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​DIG-​fsa-​8c28670 5.1 Walker Evans, Bethlehem graveyard and steel mill. Pennsylvania (1935). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​DIG-​ ppmsca-​36750

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Abbreviations

While attempts have been made to avoid the overuse of acronyms, the ‘alphabet soup’ of the Roosevelt Administration’s New Deal ensures that it is impossible to avoid the occasional inclusion. The following are those commonly used in discussions of the Great Depression. AAA CCC CWA FAP FDR FERA FSA FTP FWA HOLC NIRA NRA NYA OWI PWA RA RFC TVA WPA

Agricultural Adjustment Administration Civilian Conservation Corps Civil Works Administration Federal Art Project (President) Franklin Delano Roosevelt Federal Emergency Relief Act Farm Security Administration Federal Theatre Project Federal Writers Project Home Owners’ Loan Corporation National Industrial Recovery Act National Recovery Administration National Youth Administration Office of War Information Public Works Administration Resettlement Administration Reconstruction Finance Corporation Tennessee Valley Authority Works Progress Administration (1935–​1937), Works Projects Administration (post-​July 1937)

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Acknowledgements

Professional I have received support, financial and in-​ kind, from the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University, from the University of Melbourne’s School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, and from the Contemporary Histories Research Group, Faculty of Arts and Education, Deakin University and wish to thank all the faculty and staff involved. In addition, financial assistance was provided by the Association for Canadian Studies of Australia and New Zealand, and by the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. This project would not have been possible without the assistance and co-​operation of the museums and museum personnel that have participated, given me access, and given me permission to use the material they provided. I wish to thank personnel at the following museums (listed in alphabetical order):  the Canadian Museum of History, the Greenbelt House Museum; the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; the Michigan History Museum; the Museum of Vancouver; Museum Victoria; the National Archives and Records Administration; the National Museum of American History; the Oakland Museum of California; Old Parliament House (Australia); the Smithsonian Institution Archives; Police & Justice Museum (Sydney Living Museums). I have also benefitted from the professional support and expertise of a number of fine historians and museum professionals. First, I must acknowledge the contributions of my PhD supervisors Professor Mark Peel and Professor Seamus O’Hanlon, without whom this project would never have reached completion. At Museum Victoria, my work was made a great deal easier by the facilitation of Dr Robin Hirst, Dr Richard Gillespie, and by the continued and unwavering support of my museum mentors Deborah Tout-​Smith, Dr Charlotte Smith, Dr Moya McFadzean and Michael Reason; James B. Gardner proved to be invaluable as I negotiated the Smithsonian Institution and its various branches. Additionally, I have been encouraged and supported by Professor Joy Damousi, Professor Andrea Witcomb, Dr Steven Cooke, Dr Noah Riseman, Dr Ellen Warne, Dr Kristyn Harman, Dr Sarah

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Acknowledgements xi Pinto, Professor Andrew May, Professor Barbara Keys, Dr Una McIvenna, Professor Cathy Wolf-​Tremblath, and Dr Alexandra Dellios. I would like to thank Professor Clare Corbould for encouraging me (repeatedly) to publish this work. I  am especially indebted to Professor Kate Darian-​Smith who took me under her wing when I first arrived at the University of Melbourne and provided support in myriad ways from that point forward. Earlier versions of some of this volume appeared as an article in the Journal of Urban History 44/​2 (March 2018), 278–​297 and in The Public Historian 36/​4 (November 2014), 8–​25, both used with permissions allowed within the author’s agreement.

Personal I am grateful for the support of the following. Jack and Millie Blumenkrantz, David Brady, Dr Liam Byrne, Rebecca Carland, Shelly Cox, Dr Lachlan Grant and Amanda Westcombe, Dr Ivan Inderbitzin and Helen Davey, Lynn Hettrick, Rosemary Johnston, Drs Mike and Debbie Kaufman, Dr Barbara Lemon, Kathy Lothian, Keith and Isabelle MacCrimmon, Autumn Martin, Jamie Moore, Liahn Nortje and Benny Breytenbach, Ann Paterson, Dr Sophie Reid, Jeffrey Soares, Anne and Dr Bob Shelby, Dr Richard and Natashia Scully, Dr Maxx Schmitz, Dr Ken Setiawan, Dr Christina Spitell, Dr Chloe Ward. The women with whom I attended, and fought for, Mills College continue to inspire me in many ways large and small, especially (though not exclusively) Alexa Pagonas, Christina Hannan, Lisa Kremer, Janet McEachern, Leslie Ann Castro-​Woodhouse, Keri Sweet Richards, Thembisa Mshaka, Calia Brencsons-​ Van Dyk, Cherlene Wright, Rebecca Pazdral, Susie Harrison, Trina Cook, Blaine Peterson, Mary Lane Gallagher, Arundathi Gunawardena, Annie Stenzel, Esperanza Lucero Creighton, Leah Zippert, Lee Nespor, Colleen Alameda Smith, Harriet Carpenter, Pamela Day, Peggy Webber, Sarah Bullion, Sarah Wace, Tami Borowick, Julia Almanzan, Sara Atwell, Jeannie Vance, Sarah Wold Allcock, Erin O’Leary, Mitra Lohrasb Michnik. Dr Sharaon Crozier-​ De Rosa, Dr Jan Duke, Aleina Spigelman and Matthew Glade, Allie Ford, Hannah Fulton, Dr Claire Spivakovsky, and especially the indomitable Professor Kirsten Saxton all provided encouragement and faith when I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Thank you to the Friday Night Theatre mob for your perspective and unconditional love:  Marion Slawson, Siobhan Brophy, Kylie Watt, Bree Regester, Llawela Forrest, and Kirsten Inchley. I would like to pay special thanks to my partners in crime at Present Past Consulting Historians: Dr Bronwyn Lowe, Dr Pete Minard, Dr Tom Rogers (and Jo Kim), Dr Andre Brett, and Alex Chorowicz. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to the women of the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Mentoring Group, whose friendship and support far exceeded

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xii Acknowledgements the bounds of professional collegiality: Dr Julie Fedor, Dr Rachel Hughes, Dr Elise Klein, Dr Jordy Silvestein, and especially Dr Mary Tomsic, who read seemingly endless drafts. I am proud to be considered one of your peers. Thank you to Matthew Lee, John Peter Bolton, and Dr Pak Guan Wong for being ‘my people.’

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1  Introduction The Great Depression, museums, and narratives of vulnerability

Migrant Mother By February 1936, the Great Depression had dragged on for over half-​ a-​ decade. Herbert Hoover had come and gone, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was seeking a second term as President of the United States. In Nipomo, California, late rains had washed out the pea crop, and a makeshift camp provided sparse shelter to the now out-​of-​work farm labourers. A woman employed to document the ongoing need for the New Deal relief agencies moved amongst the tents and the mud, taking photographs. One of those photographs became the most recognisable image of the Great Depression: Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother (1936).1 (See Figure 1.1.) As a starting point for a discussion on museums, the Great Depression, and vulnerability, it is hard to go past Migrant Mother. It is indicative of so many of the narratives and so much interpretation of this era. Lange’s portrait of Florence Owens Thompson, a Depression-​era transient agricultural worker, and her children, is one of the most famous American photographs of all time. It is the cardinal image of the Farm Security Administration/​ Resettlement Administration photographic collection, a collection that Morris Dickstein argues has become, “the way we are likely to remember the Depression itself, the very look and feel of the period.”2 The photograph’s power lies in the combination of Lange’s talent and Owens Thompson’s expression, the look in her eye, the strength in her jaw, the beauty in the lines of her face. None of which, to be clear, is accidental. Lawrence Levine, Alan Tractenburg, and Kevin Starr all discuss the common visual language across the FSA collection; the photographs are consistently understood as images of resilience.3 When Lange composed the image of Owens Thompson, she was not merely capturing a moment, she was constructing an icon, a woman unbroken by circumstance, troubled yet defiant. In the first instance, a slightly different version of the picture appeared in The San Francisco News in March 1936, alongside an article on the plight of starving agricultural workers.4 The photograph that was later to become famous as Migrant Mother first appeared in Survey Graphic in September 1936, captioned “Dragging Around People,” as part of an article by Lange’s husband Paul Taylor entitled “From the Ground Up.”5 It was reprinted in Midweek Pictorial (October 17, 1936) with a headline that urged readers to

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2 Introduction “Look into her eyes!” and then appeared in the US Camera Annual (1936).6 It went on to appear in textbooks and on book covers, reproduced on posters adorning university dorm rooms and even a postage stamp. Each reproduction moved a little bit further from the activities and mandate of the Farm Security Administration and each time it reinforced an impression of stoicism as the automatic and expected response to the crises of the 1930s. When the National Museum of American History opened its Treasures of American History exhibition in 2006, Lange’s Migrant Mother was one of only three objects used to represent the 1930s. It had become a synecdoche. One photograph, albeit a beautiful and powerful one, was now shorthand for the entire American experience of the Great Depression, and that representative narrative was a picture of resilience. Amongst Lange’s prolific body of work is another photograph, entitled Man Beside Wheelbarrow (1934) (see Figure  1.2). Significantly less well known than Migrant Mother, it was not taken as part of an FSA assignment

Figure 1.1 Dorothea Lange, Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-​ two. Nipomo, California, aka Migrant Mother (1936). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​DIG-​fsa-​8b29516

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Introduction 3

Figure 1.2 Dorothea Lange, Man With Wheelbarrow (1934). The Dorothea Lange Collection, The Oakland Museum of California. Gift of Paul S. Taylor. A67.137.7623

and its imagery is much more stark. A man leans back against a barren wall, his feet in the dirt, an upturned wheelbarrow beside him. He is curled into a crouch, his head bowed, his face in his arms. It is an image of despair, of exhaustion. There is no stoicism, no sense of bracing against the tide, merely of anguish and surrender. His is equally a genuine experience of the crises of the 1930s, and it is a narrative that is often hard to find within the public history of the Great Depression. Resilience is an easier story for a museum to tell. The onset of the New Museology in the 1980s led to the reduction of the so-​called grand narratives in favour of an interpretive approach heavily influenced by social history

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4 Introduction techniques and domains. These reformations served to encourage greater inclusivity and diversity within museums, and arguably kept the institutions relevant to the historical profession and to broader audiences. However, while curatorial philosophy has shifted over the last three decades, many museums still face expectations and pressures from stakeholders –​including the general public and funding governments  –​to present celebratory narratives.7 While the players now come from a wider cross-​section of society, the scripts remain largely unaltered. The experiences privileged are those of individual, civic, or national success, survival, and, in particular, resilience. Hardship may be discussed, but it is done so within a paradigm of stoicism, perseverance, and eventual resolution. Much more elusive are those museum exhibitions which explore challenge without solution, transgression without redemption, and end on a note of sadness. Even in exhibitions relating historical crises, the primary focus is frequently not the direct experience of trauma, disaster, or challenge, but rather, examples of resilience and recovery. Situational vulnerability might be implied, but explicit interpretations of those narratives remain rare. However, vulnerability and resilience are not intrinsically linked, nor is resilience the automatic response to vulnerability. In linking them, exhibitions legitimate a specific set of expectations and reactions, in turn eclipsing a range of historical incidents and actions. In discussing the 1930s in her memoir, The Invisible Scar, Caroline Bird reminisces: You could feel the Depression deepen, but you could not look out of the window and see it. Men who lost their jobs dropped out of sight. They were quiet, and you had to know just when and where to find them … Everyone knew of someone engaged in a desperate struggle, although most of the agony went on behind closed doors. The stories were whispered. There was something indecent about them.8 This book is about the interpretation of the whispered stories. It examines the public narrative of vulnerability as created, negotiated, and transmitted by museums. Using the American experience of the Great Depression, an era of widespread and multi-​layered vulnerability, as a case study, it examines the interpretation of uncertainty and fear, and their incorporation into and alongside narratives of resilience. The remainder of this chapter will establish the conceptual foundations for discussions on vulnerability and its discourse in the public sphere, provide a brief background to the crisis of the Great Depression in the United States, outline the methodologies employed, and introduce the case studies.

Museums and the public narrative of vulnerability The role of the modern museum, particularly the history museum, might be said to be in flux. Influenced by the newer forms of social history and fresh

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Introduction 5 understandings of audience, the New Museology facilitated a late twentieth-​ century reinvention. Under this paradigm museums reduced (though never completely ceded) their positions as monolithic expressions of state power.9 The exact nature of the role of museums in the twenty-​first century, however, remains contested across the museological discipline. Certainly, museums continue to be a component within civic identity. They, and other cultural institutions and activities, increasingly replace the institutions of church and state as the tools through which cities define and market themselves.10 There is also an extensive canon on museums as repositories of memory and this is, undoubtedly, one role of museums.11 It is not, however, the sole purpose of exhibitions on the past. Museums not only commemorate; they also actively interpret. Though frequently studied in tandem, especially in examining traumatic events, there is nevertheless a marked distinction in purpose between memorials and exhibitions. Museums do not simply mark the progress of time, they engage in knowledge production, negotiation, and reflection. That is to say museum curators create knowledge through their own interpretation, they draw from existing discourses, academic and civic, and they develop strategies so that these strands of understanding coalesce. Within this practice, museums provide a public language –​textual, visual, and material in form –​through which topics, particularly problematic topics, might be discussed. This language undergoes constant testing, through self-​assessment by curators, through academic review and critique of exhibitions, and through audience reaction, either implied by attendance and absence, or by way of overt praise and protest. The museum also remains an institutional voice. However, in the past that voice tended to be understood only as the dominant discourse created by those in positions of state, economic, and knowledge-​based power. Recent museological theory has increasingly come to recognise the combined impact of intellectual context, and of audience or market concerns in the creation of exhibitions.12 UNESCO’s 2016 Culture Urban Future report identifies museums as “a new type of public space for social encounters and civic engagement” and as “exchange platforms and ‘social condensers’.”13 Museums can be understood, therefore, as sites that provide an ongoing dialogue between experts and the general public, and between multiple spheres of knowledge construction. In order to produce exhibitions that satisfy their varied stakeholders, curators balance upon a thin rope that knits together the rigor of academic disciplines with the accessibility of broadcast or web-​ based media. Thus the voice of the modern exhibition is much more likely to be of an amalgam of multiple perspectives and interests. As such to consider an exhibition is to gain insight into the character and nature of the public conversation in approaching, analysing, accepting, or rejecting particular ideas, beliefs, narratives, and groups. Museologist Jennifer Barrett positions collecting and interpreting institutions as “public intellectuals.”14 Understanding museums as fulfilling this role still acknowledges that many, if not most, exhibitions are created with either state or corporate funding (or

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6 Introduction a combination of both), and by curators with postgraduate qualifications. Simultaneously, however, this designation also acknowledges the broader contexts and concerns in which these institutions and these curators function, and which influence the decisions made in the process of publicly interpreting history and creating exhibitions. Within museums, the interpretation of vulnerability often occurs as a sub-​function of their role as social condensers. The theoretical conceptualisation of vulnerability, in academic and institutional spheres, emerges from discourses surrounding hazards, disaster prevention, and mitigation. While often framed around the evaluation of natural disasters, social aspects of exposure, resistance, and resilience are all considered within these discussions.15 This manifests in recognition of the variability in exposure between socio-​economic groups (as well as other factors such as age, race, indigeneity, and gender) and in evaluating access to crisis-​mitigating systems and institutions in the aftermath of disastrous events.16 Embedded within this analysis is a critique that in response to natural disasters, there is often a bias towards physical actions, such as infrastructure modification, rather than addressing those solutions based in social reform. The former is a visible tangible response and is less likely to find resistance at the upper echelons of power.17 Furthermore, despite a tendency to envision disaster on a very large scale, such as a famine, a pandemic, or an earthquake, there is recognition that disasters are multi-​faceted and experienced on an intimate or personal and societal or national level simultaneously.18 Thus, the framework provided by disaster studies is useful in considering a range of vulnerabilities and vulnerable populations within a museological and interpretive context. Understanding vulnerability as a combination of exposures, systematic strengths and flaws, and coping strategies and resources recognises that vulnerability is experienced more widely than just by those in the most acute, visible throws of any situation. A  sense of exposure to risk, and a knowledge that there are few, if any, functional response systems can elicit an emotional, psychological, or physical response from those who are on the fringe of a crisis rather than at its centre. Additionally the variability of exposure and coping strategies based on social factors such as economic class, ethnicity, and gender necessitate a discussion of inequality and its impacts within a larger historical narrative. Though vulnerability speaks broadly to exposure and susceptibility to risk, vulnerability and marginalisation can become understood as interchangeable. Arguably, this conflation is a limited, potentially cavalier, understanding. Modern risks such as climate change, antibiotic-​resistant ‘superbugs,’ and terrorism can create a broad and inclusive situational vulnerability that remains blind to traditional safeguards such as wealth and power. The conflation is, nevertheless, the most common framing of vulnerability within a museum context. Thus, the interpretation of vulnerability becomes an element of inclusion strategies. In this sense, an evaluation of the interpretation of vulnerability is a natural extension of work towards

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Introduction 7 making museums more inclusive, more accessible, and more equitable in their approach, their content, and their interaction with power structures.19 The strategies of inclusion rest upon the ability of a museum audience to form an empathetic or sympathetic relationship with the exhibition subject. Specific strategies vary from institution to institution but can include making museum audiences more aware of the nature of the obstacles faced by a marginalised population, or exposure to the emotional aspects of living at risk. An effective example of obstacle awareness can be found in the Getting In, a long-​term exhibition at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, Australia. The exhibition, which opened in 2003, was designed to explore the history of Australia’s immigration policies and their application. Several interactives were present within the gallery, including one in which visitors could take an English dictation test. For those attempting the test, it quickly became apparent that the complexity of vocabulary and the speed of the reading made accurate transcription difficult even for tertiary-​educated native English speakers. Through transmitting the near-​ impossibility of success, the exhibition highlighted how overwhelming such a test could have been for immigrants, even those with a functional but unsophisticated grasp of the language. An installation exemplifying techniques of emotional resonance was present in Spirit of the Blitz: Liverpool in the Second World War (2003–​2004) at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool in the United Kingdom. At the time, the Imperial War Museum in London had patrons lining up to walk through the Blitz Experience, an immersive set of a bombed London landscape, complete with voice-​over and lighting effects. The Merseyside Maritime Museum adopted a much simpler technological approach: a set of handsets, each of which played an oral history recording of a Liverpudlian’s experiences of Liverpool during the bombings. In a particularly moving account, one woman told the story of the dilemma faced by her mother on a November night in 1940 as the air-​raid sirens wailed. The youngest child, a baby, was too ill to be taken out to the public shelter, but staying in the house offered scant protection. In the end, the two elder brothers were sent to the shelter on their own, while the mother kept her daughter and the baby with her, huddled under the kitchen table. The house was not hit, and the sun rose with the expectation of a family reunion. It was not to be. The boys had been sent to the shelter in the basement of a school on Durning Road. When the school took a direct hit, the boilers exploded, sending scalding water into the shelter space. The mother had done everything in her power to protect her children from the threats of war and illness, but the danger was so all-​encompassing as to render her powerless. Visitors listened to the daughter describe her mother’s grief with tears in their eyes, pulling their own children more tightly against them.20 Though entailing far fewer whistles and bells than the Imperial War Museum, the Merseyside Maritime Museum more effectively translated the vulnerability of the Blitz by presenting its genuine emotional toll, the one element

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8 Introduction that remained largely absent from the Imperial War Museum’s otherwise detailed recreation. Through empathy, through association, through emphasising recognisable traits, attributes, skills, and emotions, museums allow modern audiences insight into the vulnerability of historical populations. In so much as museums are positioned as institutions that enhance social and civic contracts, the larger expectation is that these museum visitors will be able to transfer a recognition of historic vulnerability into modern interactions with marginalised populations. However, this leap is less than straightforward. Audiences do not always form the expected associations between the historical and the modern. Furthermore, the conscious framing of marginalised populations as sympathetic subjects can be a patronising, exclusionary process that says more about those doing the framing than about the subjects themselves. Finally, the exhibition medium is less flexible and less accommodating of radically different narratives than is always recognised. At the outset, asking audiences to see the familiar within a historical population, let alone to see themselves within that population, can assume that museum visitors possess more background knowledge, and more empathy, than they actually do.21 Asking audiences to engage in this type of identification and association as a means to interpret power relationships, such as those surrounding vulnerability, further complicates the process. These interpretive strategies usually entail a presumption of empathy and alignment with historical victims. However, such alignments are far from guaranteed, as Andrea Witcomb demonstrates while examining the use of role-​play in the interpretation of Melbourne’s historic Watch House. Witcomb is particularly interested in the prisoner/​guard relationship, and the tendency of visitors to align themselves, not with the prisoners, as the interpretive strategy intended, but with those in positions of power. As a result, the interpretive message grounded in the misuse of power became difficult to transmit. The hope that audiences will consistently develop empathy with those in powerless positions risks an ethically ambiguous outcome.22 In order to create empathy with those who are in positions of less or absent power, with those who are vulnerable, one approach is to emphasise shared characteristics or desires with those in positions of power. This occurs as much outside of the museum as within. Twenty-​first-​century civil rights campaigns such as the same-​sex marriage equality campaign illustrate this phenomenon. The bill legalising same-​sex marriage in England and Wales was introduced into Parliament at Westminster by the Conservative Party. In the United States, the US Supreme Court case to overturn California Proposition 8 was championed and co-​led by Ted Olsen, George W. Bush’s former Solicitor General. In each case, the removal of discriminatory policies was not framed simply as an act of making their respective societies more equal, but rather, because it upheld conservative values of traditional marriage models. Similar framings occur in making vulnerable populations as sympathetic as possible.

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Introduction 9 As will be discussed within the chapters of this book, the interpretation of vulnerability within Great Depression exhibitions had to contend with a long-​established view of those affected by the crisis as stoic, stalwart, and brave. This paradigm of resilience was created in the 1930s by New Deal propaganda, and more recently by modern myths of the ‘Greatest Generation.’ The Great Depression has, at times, been viewed as a watershed moment in American attitudes to poverty, encompassing a shift towards a position that was more sympathetic, less judgemental. This transition is attributed to a range of factors, including the broader demographic of those in need, and to the policies regarding the distribution of relief enacted by Franklin Roosevelt’s Federal Relief Administrator, Harry Hopkins. Furthermore the hardship faced by those who were educated, skilled, and formerly successful workers could be held in counterpoint to stereotypes of those without work as degenerates and miscreants.23 That said, whether these adjustments are indicative of a transformation or merely represent a temporary modification is subject to debate. Memories are short and public opinion is fickle. James T. Patterson observes that by the late 1930s, opinion polls were beginning to resurrect the old stereotypes by distinguishing between the genuinely unemployed and those “loafing” on relief.24 Meanwhile, on the West Coast, there is evidence that throughout this period the ‘Okies,’ the Dust Bowl migrants, were stereotyped and discriminated against specifically because of their poverty.25 Given these potentially inimical attitudes, the relief agencies sought to personify aid recipients as commendable, even as they sought assistance. People who were suffering from the effects of financial crisis but met it with an attitude of resilience, resistance, and seeming reluctance to accept hand-​outs made sympathetic examples for the public. Those who had given up under the weight of despair, who were no longer capable of helping themselves, might be conceived of as weak and, therefore, were not as easily subjected to scrutiny. As discussed at the beginning of this chapter, these attempts to create sympathetic resilient recipients of government aid gained potent and lasting visual form in the photographs of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), now a mainstay of museum exhibitions.26 The inclusion of FSA photographs within exhibitions is not, however, the only example of the creation of more palatable vulnerability. Interpretations of Depression-​ era housing instability and homelessness also foreground aspects of those experiences that most closely align with middle-​class and upper-​class relationships to home, shelter, and community and thus with the (perceived) largest cross-​ section of the museum audiences.27 Museum narratives of vulnerability are, from an interpretive perspective, related to exhibitions of controversial or contested history and to dark tourism. All deal with subject matter that is less than celebratory or that has the potential to render audiences uncomfortable, angry, or upset. All entail finding a balance between acknowledging the unpleasant aspects of historical events on the one hand and alienating stakeholders on the other.

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10 Introduction Several of the exhibitions within this study coincided with what were dubbed the History Wars. While the tone and tenor of the national story had a long tradition of debate within academia, in the last decade of the twentieth century these critiques and arguments moved increasingly into public forums. Had these discussions simply been an intellectual debate, it might have proved to be an invigorating exercise. Instead, they became highly charged political point-​ scoring, and most critiques  –​whether of museum exhibitions or classroom curriculums  –​accused those behind the interpretations of promoting a left-​wing, politically correct agenda to the detriment of the national psyche. Few if any of those pointing fingers acknowledged that the sanitised, celebratory narratives they demanded were equally, if not more, reflective of a particular political agenda. History at its most intellectually rigorous and complete is messy, and well-​produced history eschews any attempt to fit it into neat convenient boxes. As the New Museology developed, it espoused calls for exhibitions that acknowledged a wider range of experiences, including the experiences of those who had suffered from violence, racism, poverty, sexism, etc. Such experiences rarely blend easily into a celebratory national narrative. At its height, this resistance to contested historical narratives caused the preemptive closure of the Smithsonian’s 1995 exhibition on the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan at the conclusion of World War II.28 While cancelling of the Enola Gay exhibition was the most publicised incident within the History Wars, these pressures, attacks, and interference were not limited to American museums. The National Museum of Australia faced a string of debates prior to opening and in its early days including the accusation that it was subscribing to a “black-​armband” view of the national narrative particularly in regards to interpretation of the massacres of Indigenous Australians by white settlers.29 The curators who participated in the research leading to this volume made little specific reference during interviews to the History Wars with regards to their own exhibitions. One curator noted that the press had drawn parallels between the National Archives’ exhibition on the federal arts projects and ongoing Congressional debates regarding National Endowment for the Arts funding. The exhibition itself, however, never suffered threat of censure or closure.30 Nevertheless the pressures associated with telling the history of difficult experiences must be acknowledged as part of the larger interpretive landscape in which some of the exhibitions on the Great Depression were conceived and brought to the gallery floor. The threats to funding or institutional freedom are not, and have never been, the only challenge in considering difficult or controversial history. As this volume will discuss, the competing sensitivities of various stakeholders, each with a desire for a narrative to be shaped in a particular way, coupled with curatorial desire not to run roughshod over those who traditionally have a less audible voice make the construction of historical interpretation a precarious business. Additional curatorial concerns regarding the creation of spectacle and a fear that their work might appeal to the ghoulish rather

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Introduction 11 than intellectual impulses adds further hurdles to the interpretive process. Certainly sites and narratives of traumatic history are often associated with dark tourism, particularly if said narratives are interpreted in situ. Interpreting the experiences of those who were subjected violence, disaster, and trauma presents something of an ethical minefield. Museums and heritage sites, while informative, are still also sites of leisure, and there are justifiable concerns about trivialisation or tacit endorsement of suffering as well as the connections, however unintentional, between atrocity and commodification that that many of these sites unavoidably occasion.31 Interpretations of vulnerability add another tier to the already-​multi-​ layered concerns of historical interpretation. As touched on above (and discussed in greater length in subsequent chapters), established techniques of museum exhibitions often invite visitors to find a point of identification with historical players. However, any such identification still allows most visitors a level of detachment. As confronting as the experience they are encountering may be, the bulk of visitors are coming to terms with a set of foreign circumstances and while they may willingly engage in moments of suspended disbelief or imaginative association, they also remain aware that they themselves did not live through incarceration or genocide or deprivation. Acknowledgement of vulnerability rather than trauma, however, cuts closer to home for a wider cross-​section of the population. They may not have experienced the specific vulnerability being interpreted, but recognising the presence of forces beyond an individual’s control, particularly forces with the ability to do harm or create upheaval, is not so easily distanced. In this light, it is no wonder that stakeholder expectations continue to coax museums towards foregrounding resilience and victory over adversity rather than recognition that not all problems have ready-​made solutions. Finally, there is the medium of exhibition itself. As with any medium, exhibitions have their strengths and weaknesses. There continues to be some lack of understanding, even amongst well-​educated stakeholders, as to how this medium functions most effectively and what its limitations might be. This oversight has been exacerbated by a discourse in which everything from menus to home décor to skin care products are now ‘curated’ in a way that belies only the most superficial application of the curatorial process. Though, increasingly, academic historians have become au fait with the work of professional curators, exhibition reviews and article referee reports still surface demanding that curators include approaches that are ill-​suited to a museum. Key amongst these oversights is the failure to recognise that exhibitions are not encyclopaedic and rely on indicative objects, images, and narratives so as not to overwhelm audiences. Furthermore, while new technologies have allowed for multiple levels of interpretive text, an exhibition will never be as detailed as a book. As every museum studies student and junior curator is repeatedly told, attempts to simply transfer text from book to wall invariably result in a poor exhibition.

12

12 Introduction Without doubt, exhibitions can be used to provoke questions, to initiate critical conversations, and to reveal uncomfortable or unpleasant historical narratives. The best curators regularly seek these ends and achieve these aims. That said, they are often achieved through small variations, in which the familiar is used to provide a foundation to the unsettling. Attempts to change the landscape in large scale can leave audiences bewildered and resistant, ultimately undermining any laudable goals. Even minor shifts often perplex audiences. Richard Sandell cites the case of nude portrait of a disabled woman taken by a disabled photographer, seemingly an exemplar of self-​ representation. When included in a gallery exhibition, the portrait became the subject of complaints from audience members who believed they were confronting an image of exploitation.32 The best-​crafted exhibition must still contend with the preconceptions of its audience with regards to difference and these preconceptions can be the undoing of any new approach. The following chapters celebrate the strengths of museum interpretation, the combination of material culture, text, images, immersive space, and technology, and the myriad ways in which these have been employed to make experiences of vulnerability transparent and emotions of vulnerability accessible. At the same time, they locate the analysis of these case studies firmly within the framework of the exhibition medium in order to understand whether the expectations placed on museums within broader civic national strategies of inclusion are realistic.

The American experience of the Great Depression The Great Depression is an era that lends itself well to interpretations and understandings of vulnerability. The lasting images of the era are of breadlines, soup kitchens, and shantytowns, all indicators of extreme vulnerability. What makes the Great Depression so potent for this study, however, is not just the degree of vulnerability, but also the variety. It is an era in which one did not have to be at the very knife-​edge of homelessness, unemployment, or poverty to experience the instability and uncertainty of vulnerability. Within the American experience of the 1930s are a section of the population whose lives were torn asunder by the crisis. But they are not alone in experiencing vulnerability within the Great Depression era. Across the Depression-​decade, Americans experienced not only a long-​reaching, wide-​ ranging economic crisis, but also related population shifts, family reorganisation, and a changing relationship between citizen and government. All of these experiences serve to illustrate that an understanding of vulnerable populations must encompass those who are exposed to risk, those whose lives are shifted, though not necessarily destroyed, and those who are frightened by the possibilities, alongside those who ultimately succumb to any given threat. Discussion of Depression-​era vulnerability therefore also includes those who looked upon the bent shoulders of the suffering and wondered if they would be next.

 13

Introduction 13 One of the myths of the Great Depression is that when Wall Street crashed in October 1929, the Depression descended on the United States, like a malevolent beast blacking out the sun. In truth, the effect was a gradual creeping malaise that functioned more like a disease, slowly spreading and contaminating society until its symptoms erupted in epidemic proportions. The 1929 crash (which itself took several days) may be regarded as a trigger, or as an unavoidable symptom, but even after the stocks plummeted the impact on ordinary Americans was not immediate. It took until 1931 for the Depression to have grown to a degree that might properly be referred to as ‘Great.’33 Over that time, production and wages slowly dropped, unemployment grew, and the associated negative side effects on standards of living, hunger, ill health, and loss of shelter spread. At first, factory workers may have shrugged off the initial effect as unrelated to them; one autoworker was quoted as querying, “What t’ell does the stock market have to do with us Overland hunkies? I ain’t buyin’ no General Motors common or Willys-​Overland preferred, are you?”34 What they were to find out was that the first domino had been knocked over, and soon the cascade would begin. From late 1929 to early 1933, the US economy was subjected to a series of drops and plateaus, often marked by waves of bank failures that did not level off until 1933.35 In the period from August 1929 to March 1933, the industrial production index dropped 52.6 per cent, 33 per cent of banks failed, the money supply dropped 35 per cent, and unemployment rose from 3 per cent to 25 per cent.36 In the first quarter of 1930, General Motors’ earnings dropped from $61.9 million to $44.9 million.37 Less disposable capital (or perceived disposable capital and available credit) caused automotive sales to plummet. This reduced the demand for steel, which in turn reduced the need for coke, sending whole swaths of the coal industry into near-​starvation.38 By 1933 in West Virginia, a state dominated by the coal industry, 50 per cent of the mines had closed and 135,000 families, most poor to begin with, were driven to destitution.39 Slowly the web spread. Businesses began to fail: 26,355 failed in 1930, and by 1932 the rate was 154 in every 10,000, a rate that was unequalled in the United States at any other time in the twentieth century. In total about 300,000 businesses failed between 1929 and 1933.40 By 1933, Ford had laid off 66 per cent of its Detroit plant workers, Westinghouse and General Electric were at 50 per cent of their pre-​crash employee figures, and the national unemployment rate reached 24.9 per cent, though some states such as Oregon reached that milestone as early as the beginning of 1930.41 Wage cuts were also common. Some firms resisted this trend out of the remnants of the welfare capitalism paternal philosophy, and through the realisation that consumerism was an antidote to recession.42 US Steel, for example, attempted to maintain both wages and a large percentage of its workforce by implementing shorter hours and work rotations but, by the fall of 1931, the company announced a 10 per cent wage cut, and by the

14

14 Introduction end of 1932, wages for the steel industry had dropped to roughly a third of their 1929 rates.43 By mid-​1933, US Steel no longer had a single full-​time employee.44 Unemployment fell disproportionately hard on the young, the old, non-​ whites, and immigrants. When federal relief was introduced under Roosevelt, African-​Americans, who made up roughly 10 per cent of the national population, accounted for 20 per cent of those requiring relief.45 Women working in industry were often the first laid off since they were perceived, correctly or not, to be secondary wage earners within families. However, some women fared slightly better than their male counterparts as the occupations in which they dominated, such as teachers and telephone operators, suffered lower unemployment rates than manufacturing.46 The effects of unemployment were broader than statistics alone reveal. It prevented advancement and thus limited skill sharing and training within industries, causing potentially long-​term detrimental effects, particularly on the railroads.47 Rising unemployment rates led to the deportation of Mexican workers, including the illegal deportation of those who were United States citizens.48 Though most stories of Wall Street brokers throwing themselves from skyscrapers after the crash are apocryphal, the overall suicide rate did rise from 13.9 to 17.4 per 100,000.49 Certainly the effect on the family unit was profound. Increased numbers of elder children who could not find work near home left the family so as not to be a burden.50 Men, who had asserted their place as the leaders of their households with their daily departure for work, now found themselves with nowhere to go. Medical professionals saw a rise in impotence cases and sex lives further suffered through reluctance to have more children to support, and as financial security as the basis for marriage evaporated.51 Governor James Rolph’s California Unemployment Commission reported in November 1932: Numerous houses remain physically intact, but morally shattered. There is no security, no foothold, no future to sustain them. Savings are depleted, and debts mount with no prospect of repayment … Physical privations undermine body and heart. The peace and harmony of the home vanish. The effect upon children differs, but is invariably detrimental.52 For the most vulnerable loss of income led to the loss of home and secure shelter. Homeless shelters in St Louis reported a 280 per cent rise in the number of occupants from 1930 to 1931, while Minneapolis reported a 421 per cent surge in a similar period. But these figures are dwarfed by Detroit and Cleveland, both of which experienced increases between 700 and 750 per cent.53 The attempts to assist those in need were hampered by the overstretched resources of local authorities and charities, as well as by antiquated and arcane residency requirements for relief.54 When the Roosevelt Administration took office in 1933, sociologist Nels Anderson

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Introduction 15 estimated, based on a three-​ day census, that there were one-​ and-​ a-​ half million homeless people living in the United States.55 Shantytowns, known colloquially first as ‘Hobo Jungles’ and then as ‘Hoovervilles,’ sprang up in most major American cities. New  York had numerous shantytowns:  in Central Park, in Brooklyn, and along the East River, to name but a few. In Seattle and Portland, the homeless constructed villages on the waterside wastelands. In San Francisco’s ‘Carbarn City,’ old decommissioned trolley cars were used for shelter, while across the bay in Oakland large unused concrete sewer pipes did similar duty.56 To some degree, the encampments of the urban homeless reflected the continuing shift across the interwar years from rural to urban populations, but they also indicated the very lowest levels of poverty, those who could not find shelter even in the infamous tenements.57 The official reactions to the residents of the Hoovervilles vary city to city and within cities depending on the sites of encampment. At some sites in New York City, officials chose not to enforce the statutes that could have been used to disband the shantytown but a group of squatters in Central Park was forced to move to allow clear space for work projects.58 Private citizens similarly demonstrated a range of responses that stretched from acts of violence to acts of spontaneous charity.59 In the distribution of organised relief, however, many of the homeless fell into the gaps between the purview of existing systems. Neighbourhood intervention amongst the working class, such as soup societies, played an important role as a form of ad-​hoc relief in the early days of the Depression. However, transients from other cities, or simply other parts of the same city, lacked these strong community ties as a source of support.60 Most civic or state relief required residency as a key qualification for entitlement. As those without work or shelter took to the road and the rails hoping a new town might mean better opportunity, their numbers overwhelmed those limited charity organisations that did not require pre-​existing ties to the region. The Hoover administration tried to combat the crisis through traditional means; a top-​down strategy of helping business in the hope that private enterprise would solve the problem and private charity would catch those left behind. But the economy did not respond, and from all corners of the nation, social welfare agencies, whether run by the churches, state and local government, community associations, or private foundations, reported the same lack of resources to cope with the crisis.61 They had been created to care for small numbers of the ill, the elderly, and the homeless; they had neither the structures nor the resources to alleviate a national, let alone international, economic catastrophe.62 In New York City, the $79 million spent on relief in 1932 amounted to only one-​twelfth of the lost wages experienced by New Yorkers. In Chicago in 1931, relief spending accounted for only one-​twentieth of the income lost by the estimated 624,000 people out of work.63 Furthermore, the shrinking tax base made it impossible for the states and cities to re-​equip themselves

16

16 Introduction as the crisis worsened.64 Some states such as Pennsylvania faced legal blockades to the amount of debt they could incur, or adjustments that could be made to income tax to raise relief revenues.65 In the last gasps of welfare capitalism, companies such as General Electric, Westinghouse, Du Pont, and particularly Western Electric and International Harvester attempted to support their employees through loans and other relief projects.66 But these programs combined amounted to coverage for less than 1 per cent of the workforce.67 Ultimately the “poor [kept] the poor,” whether through neighbourhood support or through the job sharing and rotations that resulted in lower wages in an attempt to stave off wider redundancies.68 It is one of the misconceptions of history that leaders who prove to be ineffectual, such as Herbert Hoover, are assumed to have been immobile. Ergo, there is a danger in assuming that President Hoover’s response to the Depression was one of callous disregard for the unemployed. Hoover had proved himself in earlier capacities to be a man of great empathy. Under President Wilson he ensured the delivery of food to occupied Belgium during World War I, and under his predecessor Calvin Coolidge, he was the engineer (literally and figuratively) who choreographed the provision of rescue and relief to flood-​stricken communities during the disastrous Mississippi River flood of 1927.69 Indeed, prior to the Depression, Herbert Hoover was considered to be an expert on the subject of relief.70 This begs the question, what went so drastically wrong with Hoover’s response to the Depression? One factor was certainly that the rampant unemployment of the 1930s presented a markedly different type of crisis than had Belgium or the Mississippi Valley, and a markedly different type of victim. The unemployed worker came to crisis slowly, not through war or natural disaster, with a decidedly less concrete enemy than an occupying army or a rising flood tide. Hoover never quite adapted to this new crisis. He was a prisoner of the ideologies of the 1920s.71 He was a man of his time, but as history proved, what the emergency required was a man willing to move beyond the boundaries of accepted practice and scale. John M. Barry labels Hoover a “brilliant fool,” a man who had a magnificent ability to strategise and implement solutions but who was undone by an unwillingness to accept arguments and evidence that countered his own theories.72 Such condemnation is well reflected in Hoover’s response to the Depression. There is much to suggest that he never fully grasped the enormity of what was occurring in his country. This is not to imply that he took the crisis lightly; commentators have made reference to the worry and strain evident about the president’s person.73 Rather, the reality of what the financial crisis meant on a day-​to-​day basis for ordinary citizens escaped him. Like many politicians of his day, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Hoover worried that direct relief would create a category of “idle poor,” undermining the perceived antidotes of self-​reliance and local government.74 Unlike Roosevelt, however, Hoover’s public statements and his private writings combine to indicate his inability to recognise that the point of no

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Introduction 17 return had been passed; neither self-​help nor local charities could adequately address the crisis. For example, Hoover looked at the apple sellers who had appeared on city corners and failed to see the final desperate attempts to earn some small pittance. Instead, he concluded that those selling apples had chosen to do so in lieu of other work because it was more profitable.75 He confidently declared to the press that, “Nobody is actually starving.”76 Malnutrition, however, and its attendant ill health were on the rise amongst the unemployed and their children.77 The New York City school system, for example, reported 20,000 malnourished children amongst its students.78 In the end, Hoover proved to be swimming against the tide. By June 1932, the breakdown in relief had become so acute as to reach the point of no return. Mayors of 28 major cities issued a joint missive demanding federal assistance. Fears of rioting spread, and Chicago’s mayor, Anton Cernak, went to Congress to inform the legislators that to keep order he needed either federal funds or federal troops.79 Leaders of churches and of industry similarly demanded that Washington act.80 On July 21, 1932, after many revisions, and one presidential veto, the Wagner-​Garner Bill became the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932. Within it were provisions of $300 million in loans to the states for relief and another $300 million for public works.81 By March 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt assumed the presidency, fully 80 per cent of unemployment funding came from the federal government.82 In analysis of Hoover’s presidency, Robert McElvaine argues that without Hoover, popular acceptance of the New Deal might not have been forthcoming. “Before people will accept what they see as extreme programs,” he proposes, “moderate ones must be seen to be insufficient.”83 By this logic, while Hoover made many mistakes, his mistakes opened the door for the successes of Roosevelt. Indeed, Hoover eventually began to move, however tentatively, towards many of the ideas that marked the New Deal.84 In that light, perhaps his greatest mistake was his failure to understand that caution was not a luxury at his disposal. During the 1932 presidential election the country swung decisively to FDR.85 When faced with the same crisis, the former governor of New York did not, at least during the first 100 days of his presidency, suffer from the same hesitations. The Roosevelt response to the economic crisis may be seen as coming in two waves. The first in 1933, and enacted largely during Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office, was a series of quick measures designed to halt the descent of the country. The Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) funded the states and cities in providing direct relief (or the ‘dole’). The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which created the National Recovery Administration (NRA), sought to work together with corporate ownership and with labour to revive the manufacturing industries, while the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) was charged with stabilising agriculture. It also included one of Roosevelt’s pet projects, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which put young men to work in wilderness regions undertaking

18

18 Introduction land management tasks such as flood control, clearing hiking trails, and constructing fire breaks.86 The second wave, in 1935, enacted the landmark Social Security Act, ended FERA and several other associated small agencies, and created the Works Progress Administration (WPA). This legislative tangle should not at any time be considered to represent a fully thought-​out strategy. Even Roosevelt’s advisors, the so-​called ‘Brains Trust,’ could not always fully explain how the ‘alphabet soup’ of agencies worked together.87 Sometimes they did not, as the goals of one agency could undermine another. For example, rising agriculture prices and thus food prices could impact upon the effectiveness of the relief payments from FERA.88 By the middle of the 1930s Roosevelt’s relief and welfare agenda had a combination of agencies and the Social Security Act to aid those rendered vulnerable by the Depression, and in some cases, those who would have been vulnerable regardless. General unemployment relief was conducted through the provision of work. This work was supplied through the WPA, the CCC, the National Youth Administration (NYA), and, for skilled workers in the construction and building industry, the Public Works Administration (PWA). For those who could not work, the Social Security Act made a number of provisions. Unemployment insurance helped those temporarily out of work, while old-​age pensions provided for retired workers. The Social Security Act also defined three categories of additional relief: the aged who might not, for a number of reasons, qualify for the old-​age pensions, the blind, and families with dependent children.89 There is debate about how much these agencies did to relieve the overall crisis. At no point in the 1930s did the unemployment rate fall below 14 per cent, still roughly one in seven.90 Indeed, the Administration was always somewhat less than fully committed to any of its programs, driven on the one hand by a need to reduce the effect of the crisis, but tempered in those notions by a fear of creating a permanently dependent sector of the population.91 As a result, even some of the work programs were wound up quickly despite success, labelled as stopgaps rather than long-​term solutions. There is, however, anecdotal evidence to suggest a positive psychological impact.92 The advent of work programs such as the Public Works Administration and the WPA succeeded not only in putting people back to work, but also in allowing them to retain some dignity, some sense of accomplishment, whilst still receiving a hand up. While Hoover clearly failed to solve the Great Depression, the question remains, did Roosevelt succeed? The general consensus is no. The change in the United States’ economic fortunes came ultimately not from New Deal reforms and programs but as a result of the outbreak of World War II.93 The combination of supplying the Allies and domestic military build-​up caused the US government to spend money at even higher levels than they had during the New Deal and that spending ultimately re-​fired and restored the American economy.94 By 1943 unemployment levels had dropped to below

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Introduction 19 the 1929 mark.95 The consensus, in the 1940s and in current thinking, however, is that the New Deal stopped the economic spiral of descent.96 By preventing an even worse situation the Roosevelt administration also precluded a radical revolution from either the far left, as had been seen in the USSR, or the far right, such as those in Germany, Italy, and Spain.97 McElvaine suggests that the New Deal also developed a new ideology for response to crises, one that was more cooperative and compassionate. This new ideology set the stage for government policy for the rest of the century as subsequent administrations either echoed and extended what had begun in the New Deal or reacted against its precedence.98

The research model and the selection of case studies Nine decades after the crash, one of the legacies of the Great Depression has been its ongoing use as a high-​water mark of economic alarm. A common refrain in the popular press with regards to financial markers is, “the worst since the Great Depression,” especially in discussions of unemployment.99 Its use does not imply that the general public can recall the unemployment rates of the 1930s. Rather it recognises that unemployment in that era is understood in popular imagination as catastrophic and so any subsequent financial crisis can referenced in severity against that of the Great Depression. To most people, the actual numbers do not matter; the allusion is not one of comparative figures, but of comparative fears that foreshadow widespread unemployment and the resulting breadlines and Hoovervilles. American museum audiences encountering an exhibition may not know actual facts regarding the economic crisis and its side-​effects, but they have a sense of the era. Furthermore, it is a crisis that unfolded across a modern American landscape. Vulnerabilities associated with the wars of the twentieth or twenty-​first century are situated in the mud of Europe, the jungles of Southeast Asia, or the mountains and deserts of the Middle East. But the Depression takes places in the canyons formed by New York skyscrapers; it occurs along the highways of the Southwest, in the rail-​yards of Chicago, and in the orchards of California. American museums therefore are not asking audiences to imagine a vulnerability associated with far-​flung places and peoples, but one that is bound up in the memories of people they know, and in neighbourhoods they themselves have walked. This element of familiarity does not, by any means, remove all of the obstacles to association and identification between museum audience and interpretive subject, but it does reduce the number of those obstacles. Yet for all that the Great Depression was a broad crisis experienced on national and international level, it is also one that can be contained and framed largely within one decade. Certainly, the harbingers of the Depression are visible in some regions and industries long before the Wall Street Crash, and those who suffered did not disappear with a wave of a magic wand with the onset of recovery at the beginning of World War II. Nevertheless, a consideration of the decade between 1929 and

20

20 Introduction 1939 will encompass most major events, policies, behaviours, and emotions associated with the Great Depression within the United States. This combination of familiarity, breadth, and discrete framing serve to position the Great Depression as workable model for exploring understandings and interpretations vulnerability within museums. In analysing the interpretation of vulnerability, two models of exhibition selection readily present themselves. One is to select a genre of museum, be it art museums, immigration museums, house museums, social history museums. This has been a common model for museological analysis –​the process of comparing like with like. This project employed a different research model, that of selecting a discrete era and considering its interpretation across a range of institutions. While this approach is common in examining interpretation of conflict and war, it is less prevalent in the interpretation of social history. Adopting a trans-​genre approach served to illuminate the variations and consistencies, and cross-​pollination between the interpretive genres. Within the case studies, exhibitions on technology included works of traditional art such as oil painting, interpretations of domestic and industrial spaces were found in close proximity, and a biographical museum proved to reveal as much about the perceptions of labour relations as it did about literature, its main focus. It is these connections that can be overlooked by single-​mode analysis. The exhibitions selected as key examples were staged between 1979 and 2007, dates which serve as milestones for American museological interpretation of the Great Depression. 1979 marked a major revival of interest in Depression-​era art and history, coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. Records from the Smithsonian Institution Archives indicate that amongst America’s national museums, the task of commemorating this event was largely left to the art institutions, particularly the National Collection of Fine Arts and the National Portrait Gallery. At the other end of the spectrum, the onset of the twenty-​first-​century Global Financial Crisis in late 2007/​early 2008 heralded a shift in public discourse on the Great Depression. In the 1930s, Americans had looked to the Civil War as a useable past in which strategies on crisis response could be sought. In a presumably unintentional echo of this obsession, as the financial crisis grew, the Depression era was increasingly seen as a source of guidance. For example, The New  York Times ran articles with advice on frugality from those who had lived through the Great Depression and encouraged readers to post videos of further advice and experience on the paper’s website.100 This use of the 1930s marked a significant departure in public discourse and reception of that decade. Previously the era was understood through its arts, its media, and particularly its president. It was also characterised as the fire that forged the soldiers of World War II. It was not regarded as necessarily relevant its own right. On either side of the American political aisle, the legislation of the 1930s was increasingly characterised as outdated and unfit for purpose. Ronald Reagan used his own transition from a New

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Introduction 21 Deal Democrat into a lassez-​faire Republican to explain policy, whilst even the late twentieth century Democrats such as Bill Clinton repealed key New Deal legislation; the demise of the Glass-​Steagall Banking Act was a prime example.101 Thus the exhibitions that opened after 1979 and before 2008 shared some commonalities, at least in broad stroke, in a view of the Depression era that positions that decade as interesting rather than consciously instructive. Museologically these exhibitions reflected the rise of social history narratives through the New Museology. They also coincided with the History Wars. At its height, the resistance to controversial historical narratives caused the preemptive closure of the Smithsonian’s exhibition on the atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the conclusion of World War II. Curators who participated in this research made little specific reference to the History Wars with regards to their own exhibitions. Nevertheless, those pressures must be acknowledged as part of the larger interpretive landscape in which these exhibitions were conceived and brought to the gallery floor. As sources, the exhibitions may be seen as comprising three components, which are interrogated correlatively: exhibition paperwork, interviews with museum directors and exhibition staff, and, where available, the physical exhibition itself.102 Of these, the most significant use has been made of analysis of standing exhibitions, exhibition paperwork, and institutional archival material, though curatorial interviews are certainly illuminating and in some cases proved to be essential to understanding the other components. The availability of these components varied from exhibition to exhibition and from institution to institution. In some cases exhibitions that closed before the project was begun could be nearly reconstructed through catalogues, exhibition paperwork kept in institutional archives, and interviews. In other cases, while the standing exhibition was available, repeated requests for access to archives or curators to provide added perspective were met with silence. This project was designed as an indicative sample rather than an exhaustive survey. While there were fewer exhibitions on the Great Depression than anticipated, they encompassed a range of styles and themes including interpretations of housing, art, industrial history, biography, literary history, media, technology, and performance. FDR: The Intimate Presidency at the National Museum of American History (1982) explored the communication strategies used within the New Deal and the relationship between the president and his constituents directly, and via government agencies. The National Archives’ exhibition A New Deal for the Arts (1997) also looked at the work of New Deal agencies in its interpretation of the federal arts projects, also known as Federal One. This Great Nation Will Endure at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum (2004–​2005) provided new interpretations of the production and distribution of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography project. The “1930s Section” of Michigan in the Twentieth Century at Michigan History Museum

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22 Introduction (1995–​present) was one of the few permanent exhibitions. Its interpretations of the Great Depression included a comparison of private and government relief efforts, examination of industrial action  –​particularly the Flint Sit-​ Down Strike –​and discussions of domestic space and day-​to-​day lives in the 1930s via a recreation of a bungalow, complete with front porch and garage. Several house museums are included in the analysis: the Greenbelt House Museum in Greenbelt, Maryland (visited 2007) and the Getting By tour at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum (as visited in 2009 but reflective of interpretation designed within the established bookends). Finally, there is the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California, which, while ostensibly offering a contextualisation of John Steinbeck’s books, proved to be equally illuminating on the lasting effects of 1930s agricultural strikes. Several other exhibitions from outside the United States or outside the time frame are used briefly as comparisons, and will be discussed as they are used.

Chapter outlines The discursive chapters of this book examine the interpretation of vulnerability through three distinct framings: negotiating the power of the iconic; belonging and exclusion; and making historical emotional experiences accessible. Each chapter combines exploration of the respective thematic concept with a consideration of museological practice. Chapter  2 engages with the challenges of iconic history. Often public understanding of the American Great Depression is reduced to a number of synecdoche, such as the Dust Bowl and The Grapes of Wrath, to the exclusion of a more varied set of experiences. This chapter argues that iconic history is a strategy that both assists and limits museum interpretation. Framed around the interpretation of two strikes and two sets of strikers, autoworkers in Michigan and fruit pickers in California, it pays particular attention to the challenge of balancing national and local narratives. Chapter  3 considers ideas of vulnerability and belonging through the lens of domestic space. One of the recurring motifs in the interpretation of the Great Depression was the use of housing  –​either house museums, or reconstructed rooms within larger museums –​as a setting for understanding the crisis. Equally notable as the use of housing was the absence of discussions of homelessness. While the shantytowns known as Hoovervilles regularly feature in other popular culture, often as an immediate signifier of the American Great Depression, they were a significant omission from the exhibitions. This chapter considers the interconnected themes of refuge, community, and the processes of inclusion and exclusion in the experience of vulnerability. Chapter 4 examines the interplay of the arts and emotions in interpreting Depression-​era vulnerability. Across a range of museums, 1930s arts and media were employed to interject personal and individual experience into the interpretation of the New Deal. The arts juxtapose the emotional side

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Introduction 23 of vulnerability with government policy, and they assist museum visitors in forming an imagined view of their Depression-​era counterparts. Some of the most successful exhibitions were those that employed this strategy. At closer examination, however, these exhibitions also revealed the challenges in making media the subject of museum interpretation. This chapter explores the advantages and the shortcomings of this approach. It particularly focuses on the Federal Theatre Project, one of the most innovative and revelatory facets of 1930s fine arts. For all its value, the Federal Theatre did not fit easily into the exhibition genre, and its interpretation raises issues about the absent narrative or artefact. The concluding chapter draws together the threads of the case studies discussed, and speaks to the strategies through which the museums have engaged with vulnerability. It also acknowledges that aspects of the exhibition medium are perhaps less well-​suited to this task, at least as expectations are currently contrived. It discusses future implications for the museum sector with regards to understandings of civic participation and inclusion, and as contributors to the public discourse on vulnerability and resilience.

A brief note on nomenclature Historians alternately designate the period as ‘the Great Depression,’ ‘the 1930s,’ ‘the Thirties,’ and ‘the New Deal.’ Each of these terms encompasses a number of associations as well as an inter-​changeability of use across publications. Even the decade itself is not concrete; a ‘long’ 1930s might be seen to encompass the onset of the agricultural crisis in the 1920s and to extend to the United States’ entry into World War II at the end of 1941. For the sake of clarity, within this book, the designations will be as follows. The 1930s can be seen as the specific historical period that encompasses the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Thirties. The Great Depression references the socio-​economic crisis and its effects, and attempts to resolve it. The New Deal is a term derived from FDR’s nomination acceptance speech in which he promised “a new deal for the American people,” and refers to Roosevelt’s presidency and the actions of his administration.103 The Thirties can be understood as a cultural designation that takes in the ideologies and artistic expression of the period. All of these delineations –​chronological, cultural, economic, or political –​incorporate a degree of fluidity and intersection. The culture of the Thirties, for example, encompasses elements of the New Deal such as the Federal Arts Projects. As for the long or short version of the decade, most of the exhibitions considered within this volume do incorporate the crash of 1929, and as such so does this volume. The end point for the decade is much less standardised amongst exhibitions. There is some discussion in the featured exhibitions of the transition into World War II, such as the use of factories to create an ‘arsenal of democracy’ and the incorporation of government photographers into the Office of War Information. By and large, however, the focus remains on the period that

24

24 Introduction ends in late 1939 and so that will be employed as an outer boundary, if a permeable one, of the period under discussion. When brevity is called for, either ‘the 1930s’ or ‘Depression-​era’ will be used as a shorthand designation.

Notes 1 Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams:  The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 250; Cara A. Finnegan, Picturing Poverty:  Print Culture and FSA Photographs (Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Books, 2003), 97–​102, 140–​142; Levine, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 284. 2 Morris Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark:  A Cultural History of the Great Depression (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 95; The agency colloquially known as the FSA changed its name a number of times. The agency was formed as the Resettlement Administration in 1935. It was reconfigured into the Farm Security Administration in 1937. In 1942 the photography unit of the FSA was absorbed into the Office of War Information (OWI). The most common shorthand seems to be to refer to the collection as the FSA photographs regardless of when the image was actually taken. Anthony Badger, The New Deal:  The Depression Years 1933–​ 1940 (London:  Macmillan, 1989), 148; Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, 28, 41; Charles Hagen, “Things Which Should be Photographed as an American Background,” in American Photographers of the Great Depression, no editor listed (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), vi, viii; Library of Congress, “FSA-​OWI: About the Collection.” http://​memory.loc.gov/​ ammem/​fsahtml/​fabout.html. 3 See Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 283; Alan Trachtenberg, “From Image to Story:  Reading the File,” in Documenting America, 1935–​1943, ed. Carl Fleischhauer and Beverly W.  Brannan (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press in association with the Library of Congress, 1988), 49; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 252. 4 Starr, Endangered Dreams, 250. 5 Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, 97–​102, 140–​142. 6 Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, 97–​ 102, 140–​ 142; Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 284. 7 Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark, The History Wars (Melbourne:  Melbourne University Press, 2003),192–​193; Carolyn Strange and Michael Kempa, “Shades of Dark Tourism: Alcatraz and Robben Island,” Annals of Tourism Research 30/​ 2 (2003), 397. 8 Caroline Bird, The Invisible Scar (New  York:  David McKay Company Inc., 1966),  22–​23. 9 Peter Vergo (ed.), The New Museology (London: Reaktion Books, 1989). 10 UNESCO, Culture Urban Future:  Global Report on Culture for Sustainable Urban Development, 2016,19, 98–​ 99:  Javier Jimenez, “The Economics of Museums and Cities,” in Cities, Museums and Soft Power, ed. Gail Dexter Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg (Washington, DC:  The AAM Press, 2015), 43–​ 44; Federica Olivares, “Museums in Public Diplomacy,” in Cities, Museums and Soft Power, ed. Gail Dexter Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg (Washington, DC:  The AAM Press, 2015), 51, 53.

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Introduction 25 11 See, for example, Museums and Memory, ed. Susan Crane (Palo Alto, CA:  Stanford University Press, 2000); Silke Arnold-​ de-​ Simine, Mediating Memory in the Museum:  Trauma, Empathy, Nostalgia (Basingstoke:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Places of Public Memory:  The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials, ed. Greg Dickinson et  al. (Tuscaloosa, AL:  University of Alabama Press, 2010) to name but a few. 12 Jennifer Barrett, Museums and the Public Sphere (Chichester: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2011), 148; Gail Dexter Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg, “Introduction,” in Cities, Museums and Soft Power, ed. Gail Dexter Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg (Washington, DC: The AAM Press, 2015), 10–​12. 13 UNESCO, Culture Urban Future, 98–​99; 65; also Jimenez, “The Economics of Museums and Cities,” 44. 14 Jennifer Barrett, Museums and the Public Sphere, 143–​163. 15 Mark Pelling, The Vulnerability of Cities: Natural Disasters and Social Resilience (London: Earthscan Publications Ltd, 2003), 48. 16 Pelling, The Vulnerability of Cities, 49–​ 54; Ben Wisner, Piers Blaike, Terry Cannon, & Ian Davis, At Risk:  Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2003), 6–​7, 11. 17 Pelling, The Vulnerability of Cities, 49; Wisner et al., At Risk, 7. 18 Wisner et al., At Risk, 5. 19 See, for example, Museums, Society Inequality, ed. Richard Sandell (Oxon: Routledge, 2002), also Richard Sandell, Museums, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference (Oxon: Routledge, 2007). 20 Observed during author’s visit, April 2004. 21 Joan Faber McAlister, “Collecting the gaze: memory, agency and kinship in the Women’s Jail Museum, Johannesburg,” Women’s Studies in Communications 36/1 (2013), 5. 22 Andrea Witcomb, “Using immersive and interactive approaches to interpreting traumatic experiences for tourists:  Potentials and limitations,” in Heritage and Tourism:  Place, Encounter, Engagement, ed. Russell Staiff et  al. (London: Routledge: 2013), 154–​155; McAlister, “Collecting the Gaze,” 5–​7. 23 T.H. Watkins, The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression (New  York:  Henry Holt and Company, 1999), 171–​ 172; Badger, The New Deal, 200. 24 James T.  Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty 1900–​1994, 3rd edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 46. 25 Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty 1900–​1994, 46. 26 Levine, The Unpredictable, 283; Trachtenberg, “From Image to Story,” 49; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 252. 27 American museum demographic studies are often more concerned with participation changes according to age and ethnicity than class. Changing Faces: Museum Visitorship and Demographic Change, a white paper produced by the Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Policy and Analysis in August 2006, serves as a case in point. However, a curator at the Smithsonian described the National Museum of American History as “largely a museum of the middle class and higher, interpreted from the point of view of those classes.” Curatorial interview by author, September 7, 2007, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC. 28 For more on the Enola Gay controversy and the American History Wars in general, see History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past, ed.

26

26 Introduction Edward T. Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1996). Also Graeme Davison, “A historian in the museum: the ethics of public history,” in The Historian’s Conscience: Australian Historians on the Ethics of History, ed. Stuart Macintyre (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004), 49–​63. 29 Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clarke, The History Wars (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003), 162–​163, 191–​215. 30 Curatorial interview by author, September 6, 2007, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. 31 See John Lennon and Malcolm Foley, Dark Tourism (London:  Continuum, 2000); McAlister, “Collecting the Gaze”; Strange and Kempa, “Shades of Dark Tourism”; Kevin Walby and Justin Piché, “The polysemy of punishment memorialization: dark tourism and Ontario’s penal history museums,” Punishment & Society 13/​4 (2011), 451–​472; Jacqueline Z. Wilson, Prison: Cultural Memory and Dark Tourism (New  York:  Peter Lang, 2008); Andrea Witcomb, “Using immersive and interactive approaches to interpreting traumatic experiences for tourists: potentials and limitations,” in Heritage and Tourism: Place, Encounter, Engagement, ed. Russell Staiff et al. (London: Routledge, 2013). 32 Sandell, Museums, Prejudice and the Reframing of Difference,  13–​15. 33 Irving Bernstein, A History of the American Worker 1920–​1933: The Lean Years (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books Inc., 1970 edn), 312; David M. Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression: Freedom From Fear Part One, two-​ volume repr. (Oxon: Oxford University Press, 2004), 93. 34 Watkins, The Hungry Years, 37, citing Jack Conroy, “Hard Winter,” The American Mercury, February 1931. 35 Randall E.  Parker, Reflections on The Great Depression (Cheltenham:  Edgar Elgar Publishing, 2002), 7–​8. The role of bank failures as a harbinger of a new wave of decline gives added weight to two of FDR’s first acts in 1933, the bank ‘holiday’ in March 1933, in which banks were closed to stop any further runs, and the implementation of banking reform including the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Company (FDIC) to restore consumer confidence. 36 Parker, Reflections on the Great Depression, 8. 37 Watkins, The Hungry Years, 41. 38 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 169–​170. Caroline Bird describes coal towns in Harlan County, Kentucky in which not a single potential worker was employed and the people subsisted on the blackberries and dandelions that they could scrounge from the surrounding countryside. Bird, The Invisible Scar, 26. 39 Watkins, The Hungry Years, 45. 40 Watkins, The Hungry Years, 43. 41 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 166; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 44. Unemployment estimates for the 1930s, especially the early 1930s, should be understood to be just that:  estimates. Accurate figures were not collated under President Hoover. William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, rev. edn (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1986), 71. On the other hand, some would argue that the estimation of 25 per cent was conservative. A  table prepared for the Committee on Economic Security under FDR estimates that, while the average rate of unemployment for “gainful” workers was 25.8 per cent between 1930 and 1933, the national rate in 1932 was 34.5 per cent, and 33.2 per cent in 1933. Committee on Economic Security,

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Introduction 27 “Table  5  –​Estimates of average non-​agricultural employment and unemployment, by States, 1930–​1933,” Social Security Online, www.socialsecurity.gov/​ history/​reports/​ces/​cesbookt5.html. 42 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 319–​320; David Brody, American Workers in the Industrial Age:  Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1980), 67. Welfare capitalism was a philosophy adopted by some large firms in the 1920s to provide greater worker benefits and safety nets in an attempt both to ensure worker loyalty and to improve their public image. The Great Depression eradicated most remnants of these programs but a few firms such as Western Electric and International Harvester managed to maintain some tenets throughout the crisis. See also Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal:  Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–​ 1939, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), ­chapter 4, 238–​246. 43 Brody, Workers in Industrial America, 67; Robert S.  McElvaine, The Great Depression: America 1929–​1941, rev. edn (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1993), 74; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt: Volume I 1919–​1933: The Crisis of the Old Order, rev. edn (Boston: Mariner Books, 2003), 249. 44 In 1929, full-​ time employees had numbered 224,980. Irving Bernstein, A History of the American Worker 1933–​1941: A Caring Society: The New Deal, The Worker and The Great Depression (Boston:  Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985), 18. 45 Even in areas where African-​Americans made up a larger percentage of the population, they were still over-​ represented by 100 per cent on relief rolls. Bernstein, The Lean Years, 318; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 164. 46 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 318; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 164. 47 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 318. 48 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 164; Cohen, Making a New Deal, 242–​243. 49 Watkins, The Hungry Years, 54. 50 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 247–​249. 51 Cohen, Making a New Deal 247–​248; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression,  55–​56. 52 As quoted in Bernstein, The Lean Years, 322 (abbreviation mine). 53 Kenneth L. Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road: The Homeless in American History (Oxon: Oxford University Press, 2002), 193–​194. 54 Peter H.  Rossi, Down and Out in America:  The Origins of Homelessness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1989), 18; Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 194–​195. 55 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 210. 56 Watkins, The Hungry Years, 62. 57 David E.  Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States 1920–​1940:  How Americans Lived Through the “Roaring Twenties” and the Great Depression, rev. edn (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004), 260; Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America, First MIT paperback edition (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1983), 195. 58 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 201–​ 202; Thomas Kessner, Fiorello H.  La Guardia and the Making of Modern New  York (New  York:  McGraw

28

28 Introduction Hill Publishers, 1989), excerpted as “New Deal City,” in The American Urban Reader History and Theory, ed. Steven H.  Corey and Lisa Krissoff Boehm (New York: Routledge, 2011), 224. 59 Watkins, The Hungry Years, 60; Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 201–​202. 60 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 199. 61 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 322. 62 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 302. 63 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 88; Bernstein, The Lean Years, 298. Cohen, Making a New Deal, 241–​242. 64 Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 172. 65 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 88. 66 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 290; Cohen, Making a New Deal, 243–​246. 67 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 88. 68 Brody, Workers in Industrial America, 68; Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 172. 69 John M.  Barry, Rising Tide:  The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (New  York:  Simon & Schuster, 1998), 266, 287–​ 289; Bernstein, The Lean Years, 248. 70 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 287. 71 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 262. 72 Barry, Rising Tide, 262. Also McElvaine, The Great Depression, 60; Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 245. 73 Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 243. 74 McElvaine, The Great Depression, 61, 80; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 91; Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 171. 75 Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Great Depression 1929–​ 1941 (London: Hollis and Carter, 1953), 195; Bernstein, The Lean Years, 294; Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 241. The selling of apples, and other regional fruits, on street corners was more of a boon to the orchard conglomerates than it ever was a source of real relief to the unemployed. T.H. Watkins, The Great Depression: America in the 1930s (Boston: Back Bay Books, 1993), 63. 76 Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 242; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 86. 77 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 330–​331; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 80; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 86; Schlesinger, The Crisis of the Old Order, 171; Bird, The Invisible Scar,  34–​38. 78 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 86. 79 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 465–​467. 80 Bernstein, 466–​467; Brody, Workers in Industrial America, 74. 81 Bernstein, The Lean Years, 467–​470. 82 Anthony Badger, FDR: The First 100 Days (New York: Hill and Wang, 2008), 58. 83 McElvaine, The Great Depression, 69. 84 McElvaine, The Great Depression, 70. 85 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 91. FDR won both the popular vote (22,800,000 to 15,750,000) and the Electoral College (472 to 59) in the largest landslide victory since 1864 with the Democrats simultaneously gaining 90 seats in the House of Representatives, and winning 28 of the 34 contested Senate races. Watkins, The Great Depression, 113; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 134.

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Introduction 29 86 For a detailed discussion of each agency see Bernstein’s A Caring Society; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt Volume II 1933–​1935: The Coming of the New Deal, rev. edn (Boston: Mariner Books, 2003); Badger’s FDR: The First 100 Days, and The New Deal; and William E.  Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932–​1940 (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963) and The FDR Years: On Roosevelt and His Legacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995). 87 Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 33; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 262, 326–​327, Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 244. 88 Bernstein, A Caring Society, 34. 89 Bernstein, A Caring Society, 148. 90 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 166. 91 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 267. 92 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 265. 93 Badger, The New Deal, 309–​311; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 363; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 320–​321. 94 McElvaine, The Great Depression, 320. 95 Eric Rauchway, The Great Depression & The New Deal:  A Very Short Introduction (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2008), 127; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 320. 96 Badger, The New Deal, 310–​311; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 379–​380. 97 Badger, The New Deal, 310–​311; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 379–​380; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 336. 98 McElvaine, The Great Depression, 324–​335, 337–​341. 99 For example, see Heather Stewart, “We Are in the Worst Financial Crisis since Depression, Says IMF,” Guardian, April 10, 2008; Jon Hilsenrath et al., “Worst Crisis Since ‘30s, With No End Yet in Sight,” Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2008; Dennis Cauchon, “Employed See Tough Times, Too; Analysis: Workers Fare Worst since Depression,” USA Today, June 12, 2009. 100 Joyce Walder, “Making Ends Meet in the Great Depression,” The New  York Times, April 2, 2009; The New  York Times, “The New Hard Times,” www.​ nytimes.com/​packages/​html/​national/​thenewhardtimes/​index.html#/​trailer. 101 Ronald Reagan, “FDR Seen through Reagan’s Eyes,” U.S. News and World Report, February 1, 1982; Paul Krugman, The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 (London: Penguin Books, 2008), 163. 102 Exhibition staff refers to curators, conservators, designers, web designers, and education officers. Who was interviewed varied from museum to museum based on the institution and availability of staff connected to an exhibition. 103 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Nomination Address,” Democratic National Convention of 1932, Chicago, July 2, 1932.

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2  Shaking off the Dust Bowl Strikes and the challenge of iconic history

Perhaps no single site better encapsulates the American relationship with the history of the Great Depression than President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s memorial in Washington, DC. One of the four major presidential memorials operated by the National Park Service in the capital, the memorial is a multi-​roomed man-​made canyon adorned with quotes, waterfalls, and statues. While the other great presidential memorials in DC, the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and the Washington Monument, are all structures of a grand scale featuring single statues of the great men, Roosevelt’s memorial takes a different approach. The president is there, along with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, but so too are the American people. George Seagal’s statues depict several versions of ordinary citizens during the 1930s:  a rural couple, the man in overalls; men standing in a breadline, heads slightly bowed; and a man beside a radio, leaning forward, arms on knees as he listens to FDR’s Fireside Chat. These are the icons of the American Depression, the breadlines, the rural experience, the benevolent president and the radio through which he spoke to, rather than shouted at, a nation. So clearly are they part of the interwoven understanding of the Depression and Roosevelt’s presidency that they appear within his memorial as clear symbols, accompanied by little, if any, interpretation or explanation. Historic icons are imbued with a range of powers –​some beneficial, some detrimental. The most potent risk is that by relying on the icons of history, a process of exclusion and ultimately erasure will take place. Once complex history is reduced to narrow images, characters, or narratives, it is inevitable that those aspects, those people, that do not easily fit within the constructed image will fall by the wayside. The nature of exhibitions, however, prevents museums from the luxury of wholesale rejection of historical iconography. As a medium that is representational rather than encyclopaedic, exhibitions necessitate the creation of a shorthand in which one or two objects, images, or people stand as signifiers for much broader collections and experiences. For this coding to be effective, it must be jointly understood by audience and creator, and in establishing these lines of communication, the familiar, the iconic, is undeniably valuable. The iconic provides audiences with a starting point of reference, a foundation against which to steady themselves as the

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 31 curator draws them into unknown territory. Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not run the individual New Deal programs –​that was left to administrators and public servants, such as Harry Hopkins, the head of the WPA. But in an exhibition on the WPA, a photograph of Hopkins will require explanation and interpretation in ways that photograph of FDR will not. Thus, Roosevelt’s image represents not just the man but the US Government as a whole during that period. Familiar and iconic elements within an exhibition further work towards the creation of a receptive audience. They allow visitors to bring their own knowledge base into play, creating a sense a conversation rather than a lecture. One of the challenges for museums in interpreting the myriad experiences of the Great Depression broadly, and vulnerability specifically, is incorporating enough iconic material to create effective communication without allowing the complexities of history to become obscured by familiar myths. This chapter examines museum engagement with iconic history, a strategy that simultaneously assists and limits exhibition-​based interpretation. It also considers alternative narratives and how they work in this environment. Through the stories of auto workers in Flint, Michigan and Dust Bowl migrants-​turned-​fruit pickers in central California, Depression-​era industrial action is explored. In each case, the museums have endeavoured to bring together local experience and national iconic narratives. In the first instance, in Michigan, the combination is effective, but in California the interpretation appears coloured by local politics, ultimately to its detriment. This chapter demonstrates the impact historical iconography and specificity of place have upon public narratives of vulnerability, often in quite subtle, almost imperceptible ways.

The construction of Great Depression iconography An Oklahoma farmer and his sons press forward against the blowing dust. The littlest boy covers his eyes with his arm, but his father and brother walk upright, unshielded (see Figure 2.1). Here, in Arthur Rothstein’s 1936 photograph, is the quintessential American Great Depression iconography, both in the setting and in the behaviour of the farmer and his elder son. It is a common reduction to fit the American Great Depression into the intertwined synecdoche of the Dust Bowl and The Grapes of Wrath. This impression amalgamates visual iconography and iconic narratives. The latter are not quite myths, which implies a falsity or exaggeration. Rather, they are continual retelling of a particular set of experiences until they take on the perception of universality. The narrative in this case is the displacement of Southern and Midwestern agricultural workers and their exodus to the fruit orchards and vegetable fields of Washington, Oregon, and especially California. It is the story of the Joads in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, and that of the Migrant Mother, Florence Owens Thompson, whose face and fate were captured by Dorothea Lange. The intersection of these stories is more construct than coincidence.

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32  Shaking off the Dust Bowl

Figure 2.1 Arthur Rothstein, Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm. Cimarron County, Oklahoma (1936). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​DIG-​ppmsc-​00241

John Steinbeck knew Dorothea Lange, and her husband Paul Taylor. Lange provided photographs to illustrate Steinbeck’s early reports on the experiences of the Dust Bowl migrants, published as Their Blood is Strong (1938).1 It was also Lange who introduced Steinbeck and Farm Security Administration filmmaker Pare Lorentz (Lange had been an advisor on Lorentz’s 1936 documentary The Plow That Broke the Plains).2 Interaction with Lorentz helped Steinbeck shape the structure and imagery of The Grapes of Wrath.3 Finally, when Hollywood director John Ford began to shoot the film adaptation of Steinbeck’s book, Lange and Lorentz’s work influenced the choice of landscape against which Ford filmed.4 In 1938, prior to writing The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck had travelled through the migrant camps of California’s central valleys alongside Life magazine staff photographer Horace Bristol.

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 33 The trip was intended to lead to either an article for Life or a photobook.5 Though neither eventuated, the magazine kept Bristol’s photographs on file and reprinted them twice in relation to The Grapes of Wrath. The first time was when the novel was published, as evidence of its truth. The second, significantly, occurred after Ford’s film was released, showing parallels between the Hollywood production and real ‘Okies.’6 Reinforced by so many separate media, visual and literary, this Dust Bowl backdrop and its inhabitants continued to resonate, and these images became the quintessential and omnipresent representation of the era.7 Modern fictional renditions of the Great Depression continue to reinforce and reiterate the use of these tropes. Consider, for example, the 2003–​2005 HBO drama Carnivàle, set in the 1930s Dust Bowl, though cloaked in magical realism. In an early scene the main character’s farm is repossessed and ‘tractored,’ ploughed right up to the doorways of structures. The sequence echoes a scene in Grapes of Wrath, and Dorothea Lange’s photograph Tractored Out, Childress County, Texas (1938) (see Figure  2.2). Throughout the series, Carnivàle’s sets and costumes, even the very way the characters move through spaces, all have the look and feel of Lange and Rothstein’s photographs come to life.

Figure 2.2 Dorothea Lange, Power farming displaces tenants from the land in the western dry cotton area. Childress County, Texas Panhandle, aka Tractored Out (1938). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​DIG-​ppmsc-​00232

34

34  Shaking off the Dust Bowl In the 1930s a profound shift occurred in American society, through which photographs became crucial to the ways in which Americans attempted to cope with crises –​first the Depression and later World War II.8 It was an era when existing periodicals began to reproduce high-​quality photographs in large numbers, and when new publications emerged to celebrate photographs as an art form, or to use photo essays as a new form of narrative. Simultaneously, the federal agencies of Roosevelt’s New Deal undertook multiple large-​scale photographic projects. Numerous agencies, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the National Youth Administration, and the US Department of Agriculture, engaged photographers to document their activities. The WPA also supported a number of established photographers under the Federal Art Project.9 The most famous and prolific of the New Deal photographic units was a subsection of the Resettlement Administration/​Farm Security Administration (FSA). Though the photographs are often collectively referred to as the FSA collection, the Historical Section (as the photographers were known) was actually part of three agencies. The bulk of the most famous images were taken under the auspices of the Resettlement Administration between 1935 and 1937. In 1937, the Resettlement Administration became the Farm Security Administration. At the commencement of American combat participation in World War II, the Historical Section photographers were absorbed into the Office of War Information, where they remained until the section was disbanded in 1945. The collection of images produced throughout this period was extensive and the Library of Congress file for the Historical Section alone includes over 175,000 separate black-​and-​white negatives, as well as roughly 1,600 colour images.10 As with many government agencies of the period, the Historical Section photographers were hired to document the Resettlement Administration’s endeavours and to establish a file for in-​house publications and pamphlets, from which newspapers and other writing on the agencies could also draw.11 This was no mere photo bank, however. The Resettlement Administration was a controversial agency. Rexford Tugwell, the agency’s head and a member of Roosevelt’s ‘Brains Trust,’ was considered by critics to be a radical, and the perceived Marxist overtones of some of his plans alarmed the conservative Congress.12 Part of the photographers’ brief, therefore, was to illustrate the need for, and the achievements of, the agency to its Congressional masters and to the public in general.13 Tugwell appointed his former student Roy Stryker as head of the Historical Section. Stryker then assembled a remarkably talented group of photographers. Some of them, such as Arthur Rothstein, he trained. Others, including Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Russell Lee, were established artists in their own right. Stryker’s photographers sought to establish within the American psyche the image of a sympathetic aid recipient. They worked in counterpoint to popular existing tropes that cast the poor, particularly the Southern poor, as dirty, lazy, of diminished mental capacity, and incestuous or otherwise

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 35 sexually perverse. These stereotypes had been popularised in Erskine Caldwell’s novel Tobacco Road (1932) and further reinforced in the 1937 collaboration between Caldwell and his wife, photographer Margaret Bourke-​ White, entitled You Have Seen Their Faces.14 In attempting to cast the Dust Bowl migrants in a more benign light, the FSA photographers constructed images that emphasised admirable qualities, stoicism, resilience, determination, motherhood.15 Russell Lee’s photographs are indicative of these visual characterisations. For example, You Have Seen Their Faces offered up the image of an African-​American child reclining, listlessly staring into space. Russell Lee photographed two African-​ American children sitting up in straight-​back chairs while their mother taught them from a makeshift blackboard (see Figure  2.3). In another Bourke-​White image, an impoverished Southern woman sits in squalor on a disintegrating mattress. Russell Lee showed sharecroppers’ children washing their hands, or combing their hair. He photographed an “FSA … client with three sons” on a porch, all four standing straight, their hair combed, their jaws lifted, their shoulders back. Other FSA clients were shown sitting in a tidy living room, him reading the paper, her knitting.16 The people in these photographs are clean, fastidious when given the opportunity they keep a tidy house; they read, and they teach their children to do so. Bourke-​White and Caldwell positioned their book as a critique of the sharecropping system and its effects on those caught within it, and in that sense were guided by some of the same principles as the FSA photographers. But there is element of spectacle present in their photographs that is not found in Lee’s images. Bourke-​White’s photographs distanced the subjects and placed them outside the mainstream, emphasising their difference from ordinary life. Lee’s photographs brought the subjects closer, made them recognisable, rather than highlighting their strangeness. Both Lee and Bourke-​White’s images are constructed to trigger forms of sympathy, but Lee’s are simultaneously intended to elicit approval. Documentary work can be understood as reflecting two distinct impulses. One is purely a factual record, but the second is an attempt to promote understanding by conveying layers of an experience, in particular the emotional or felt aspects.17 With regards to the nature of documentary, FSA photographer Dorothea Lange explained: A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph per se. [The documentary photograph] carries with it another thing, a quality [in the subject] that the artist responds to. It is a photograph which carries the full meaning of the episode or the circumstance or the situation that can only be revealed  –​because you can’t really recapture it  –​by this other quality … The documentary photographer is trying to speak to you in terms of everyone’s experience.18 Lange’s last sentence is particularly telling, for it proposes that the photographer is drawing the universal out of the unique. The majority of

36

36  Shaking off the Dust Bowl

Figure 2.3 Russell Lee, Negro mother teaching children numbers and alphabet in home of sharecropper. Transylvania, Louisiana (1939). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​ OWI Collection: LC-​USF34-​T01-​031938-​D

Americans were not on the knife-​edge of 1930s deprivation, they were not living a migrant’s life in makeshift shelter, but Lange and Lee and the other FSA photographers wanted their audience to see themselves within those migrants. They wanted their audience to connect to the vulnerability the migrants experienced. In order to ensure that connection, the photographer emphasised their subjects’ embrace of mainstream lifestyle and values: clean hands, combed hair, literacy, protective motherhood. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum exhibited the FSA collection in 2004–​2005 in This Great Nation Will Endure: Photographs of the Great Depression. One of the exhibition’s interpretive techniques was a series of computer installations that allowed visitors to see iconic photographs alongside other shots taken at the same time. When the photograph known as Migrant Mother is understood as the last of a series of six images of Florence Owens Thompson, the conscious construction of visual language and messaging becomes much more apparent. The frame is tightened in each subsequent photograph within the series. Items that might elicit censure, such as dirty laundry and an older teenaged daughter

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 37 (indicating sexual activity at a relatively young age by her mother), are all pushed beyond the lens. The children are positioned as sheltering in their mother as she embodies a visual reference to the Madonna.19 The photograph, therefore, is as much indicative the mores and idiom of the perceived audience as it is a document of 1930s poverty.

The use of Depression-​era photography in museums Americans in the 1930s encountered the photographs taken by Roy Stryker’s team in a number of ways, incorporating publication and exhibition. The photographs appeared as illustrations on official government publications, but they also appeared in the commercial and academic press, particularly Survey Graphic, an illustrated journal of progressive social reform.20 Life, far and away the most popular of the pictorial magazines, usually eschewed the Historical Section in favour of in-​house photographers. The FSA images were regularly used to illustrate articles in Life’s rival Look, which had a circulation peak of 2 million in 1937 and an average of 1.5 million.21 FSA photographs appeared in US Camera, including the prestigious 1939 annual in which the FSA was given a special section, championed by celebrity photographer Edward Steichen, and captioned with audience responses from the 1938 First International Photographic Exposition at New York’s Grand Central Palace.22 Although the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) tended to overlook the FSA photographers, other than Walker Evans, within its New  York gallery, it did include them in touring shows, and other exhibitors showed the photographs in significant numbers.23 Throughout 1936, the work of the Historical Section photographers appeared in exhibitions at fairs, expositions, citizens’ and educators’ meetings, and at the Democratic National Convention.24 The Grand Central Palace show in 1938 included 81 FSA images, and from that show 50 were used in a MOMA touring exhibition, Documents of America: The Rural Scene.25 In 1941 mural shows using FSA photography were put up in the New York Museum of Science and Technology at Rockefeller Center, and in Grand Central Station.26 If Roosevelt was indeed trying to convince his nation that “the only thing … to fear is fear itself,” then photography went after that fear, exposing the spectres to light.27 In the first few years after the 1929 Wall Street Crash, the Depression was omnipresent though often invisible, like a miasma creeping through the streets, unseen but harmful. It was, as Fredrick Lewis Allen wrote in the late 1940s, “a negative phenomena,” an absence of people and activity.28 As photography became more prevalent, particularly documentary photography, images began to fill the void. The images were not comforting, nor were they intended to be. But they made the crisis tangible and the tangible could be addressed, possibly even defeated. Susan Sontag characterises the photographic image, its capture, and its dissemination as, “a social rite, a defense against anxiety, a tool of power.”29 Certainly, whether it is the trick

38

38  Shaking off the Dust Bowl photography that returned dead sons to their mothers’ sides after the devastation of World War I, or the near-​ubiquitous images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, there is a repeated ritual of the powerless turning to pictures as though those images could restore a sense of order. Pete Daniel, former president of the Organization of American Historians and one of the curators of the photographic exhibition Official Images: New Deal Photography, speculates as to the desire for photographs on the part of Depression-​era Americans, proposing that, in the absence of material goods, the images mimicked solid objects. Daniel echoes Sontag in suggesting that there was some comfort to be found in the “matter-​of-​fact” presentation of the crisis through photographs. Finally, he argues that “the appeal of photography contained contradictory impulses: to document and transform, to gain familiarity and distance [emphasis in the original].”30 Official Images was one of a number of exhibitions that took place between the 1980s and the first decade of the 2000s that aimed to re-​ contextualise the FSA photographs. These included Documenting America, 1935–​1943 at the Library of Congress in 1988, and the afore-​mentioned This Great Nation Will Endure at the Roosevelt Presidential Library. Held at the National Museum of American History in 1986, Official Images used some FSA photographs but also included a cross-​section from the US Department of Agriculture, the National Youth Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and art photographers funded by the WPA such as Bernice Abbot, Arnold Eagle, and Dave Robbins. The key strategy was to exhibit the well-​ known photographs alongside “neglected” works from the other agencies in order to position the Historical Section photographs within the larger documentary impulse of the New Deal.31 As Daniel stated: We were certain that such neglected photographs would be able to teach us about the Depression years and push our understanding of documentary photography beyond the FSA.32 The very need for an exhibition that consciously foregrounded other agencies’ work indicates the power of the FSA images to obscure alternative narratives and understandings of the Depression era. Ironically, perhaps, some felt that the neglected photographs made the exhibition a hard sell. The then-​editor of Smithsonian Magazine thought the exhibition would be worth highlighting in the magazine but had reservations as to whether it warranted a longer feature piece. He commented: The pictures that pack the most wallop –​and I guess that isn’t surprising –​ are the ones from the FSA, which of course are the most familiar. The other agencies’ work … [doesn’t] have the same impact overall.33 Beyond re-​contextualisation, Official Images also sought to come to grips more fully with the use of images in exhibitions. One of the stated goals was

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 39 to “mount an exhibition that will set new standards in combining academic questions and artistic photographic exhibitions.”34 The exhibition proposal also queried whether “this method of presenting documentary photography as a series of questions transmitted to visitors” would be effective, or “will they simply look at the photographs?”35 Though the exhibition paperwork provided no subsequent answer to this question, its presence amongst the planning documents expresses the core curatorial concern with regards to the photographs. That the power of the image  –​and many of these are powerful, poignant images –​will drown out the historical complexity and, despite curators best efforts, limit museums to reiterating narrow interpretations of the period.

The limitations of the Dust Bowl narrative The FSA photographs are beautiful, familiar to audiences and, as the products of government photographers, rights-​free. The sheer beauty of many of these images demands some further consideration. At times, the discourse surrounding, for example, Lange’s Migrant Mother, seems to overlook the obvious. The photograph is analysed in terms of bureaucracy, of motivations, of ethics, of iconography.36 Although these are all vital discussions and add to levels of knowledge and understanding, in navigating the debates that swirl around this image, it must also be acknowledged that it is a startlingly beautiful portrait. Perhaps because this beauty is a result of Lange’s talent rather than her intent, the aesthetics are used as a starting point, a given, before launching into other topics. For a museum, in contrast, those aesthetics are a component of the image’s effective use. As discussed previously in this chapter, and in the Introduction, there are a number of reasons why this has become the quintessential representation of the American Great Depression. On an emotional level, there is the identification with motherhood, and the echoes of a longstanding tradition of religious iconography. As an historical artefact, its repeated use in newspapers and periodicals during the 1930s distinguishes Migrant Mother from many images that have surfaced only as authors and curators return to the FSA file looking for new readings and interpretations. On a purely practical level, photographs produced by a federal agency and held by the Library of Congress may be easily, and relatively inexpensively, reproduced. All of these are valid arguments, but the image is also used recurrently because Migrant Mother is beautiful. Remarkably, the photograph’s beauty has not been significantly dulled by its reproduction. Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is, in the original, striking. But through constant reproduction into advertisements, onto pencil cases and coffee cups, and deconstructions that include moustaches, cat faces, bubblegum, victory signs, and Lego sets, the image has become somewhat banal. Migrant Mother has been subjected to less irreverence; perhaps there is a greater reticence in reconfiguring the depiction of a real person, especially a real person in distress. When Migrant Mother is reconstructed, it has

40

40  Shaking off the Dust Bowl tended towards modifying the iconography to represent a different racial group, or a modernisation, such as the addition of a WalMart uniform.37 There is still appropriation in such acts. Arguably, it is appropriation that acknowledges the image’s power in channelling ideas about poverty and exploitation. Perhaps it is the strength and anxiety that are clearly at war in Thompson’s expression, perhaps it is the way her children shelter in her, perhaps it is the pensive hand to the jaw, which suggests thoughts unshared. But even with reprint and reconstruction, familiarity does not breed contempt and the photograph defies the eye’s ability to skim. For a museum, the power to draw the gaze, to make the viewer stop and actively look, is essential. Exhibitions toss forward hundreds of visuals, images, and objects, for audiences to absorb, process, and compress into meaning. Such processes are guided by the curators, aided by text panels and labels, and borrow from Sergei Eisenstein’s notion of discourse created through juxtaposition. When all is said and done, though, the curator is still dependent on the cooperation of the audience. If visitors simply cast their eyes about and do not engage, communication will not occur, knowledge, understanding, and empathy will not be expanded, and the exhibition will not succeed. Thus, the photographs that make up the FSA collection, particularly the iconic images such as Migrant Mother, are a tempting inclusion when interpreting the Great Depression. They are visual documents of the New Deal’s grand experiment in government-​based social support. They were taken with a view to elevating rather than humiliating those within the frame. They are able to capture audience attention either through recognition or through spectacle. They appear to be the ideal object. As enticing as the images may be to a curator, inherent risks remain when incorporating the FSA photographs into exhibitions. Key amongst those risks is a limitation in conveying place and locale, and the promulgation of the paradigm of passive resilience. As discussed earlier in this chapter, the dominant visual impression of the American Great Depression shrinks into a narrow corridor of highway travelled by the Joads, and their real-​life counterparts, stretching from the Dust Bowl to agricultural zones of the coastal states. This perception of Depression is largely reinforced by the FSA collection, the bulk of which consists of images of rural poverty. There are some urban pictures in the FSA file taken later in the 1930s and into the early 1940s, as section head Roy Stryker re-​envisioned the project as a photographic record of American life. Additionally, Lange shot independently, and as an FSA photographer in San Francisco, and Evans, Lee, and Rothstein worked in Chicago and New York. That said, within the file as a whole, these are the exceptions rather than the rule. The majority of the images were taken in rural America, and in very small towns. Certainly, the most well known and most of the iconic photography of the 1930s is set far beyond the city limits.

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 41 The framing of the Depression through primacy of the rural photographs excludes a range of Americans and, for the purposes of this discussion, a range of Depression-​era vulnerabilities. One of the key exclusions is the urban poor, and, by extension, immigrants and urban-​dwelling African-​ Americans. Carol Finnegan examined this exclusion in her discussion of the use of FSA images by the 1930s periodicals. She highlighted a photo caption in a Look magazine article on tenant farming that read: This is no child of destitute European peasants. He is an American whose parents work all day in the fields of our ‘Sunny South.’38 He is an American. One strategy in the multi-​faceted attempts to create sympathy for the Dust Bowl migrants was to stress that they were the inheritors of the nineteenth-​century pioneers’ desire to drive westward. The rural poor were characterised as American, Anglo-​Saxon, and Christian, which was understood to indicate that they were not European, particularly Eastern or Southern European, and they were not Jewish.39 The urban poor were African-​Americans who had left the Southern fields to seek work in the cities and industrial centres like Chicago. America’s favourite radio show Amos’n’Andy featured characters with this backstory, played for laughs by white actors. Actual African-​Americans were over-​represented amongst those out of work and needing assistance. There are rural African-​Americans featured in the FSA collection, but their dominance obscures the significant migration of Southern black Americans off the land and into the cities, while privileging a narrative of white internal migration. The urban poor were also immigrants, the Italians, Greeks, Poles, Slavs, and Russian Jews who crowded the city tenements, particularly in New  York’s Lower East Side. These groups were perceived to be more receptive to communism and were associated with fears of a Bolshevik revolution. Xenophobia, racism, and anti-​Semitism combined to create, if not an undeserving poor, then one that elicited less sympathy in Middle America. Lines were drawn, however subtly, that distinguished African-​Americans and immigrants from the white tenant farmers who had been pushed off the land, and onto the highways, by dust, Depression, and mechanisation. If greater diversity of race, and even geography, can be achieved by using lesser-​known images within the FSA collection, a larger challenge remains: conveying that the response by those who were most vulnerable was not as uniform as these images suggest. The FSA photographs challenged the prejudicial assumption that economic deprivation could be attributed to a lack of moral fibre amongst those suffering. In the place of these stereotypes, the FSA substituted images of Americans who were vulnerable yet recognisable, in need of assistance yet sympathetic. Californian historian Kevin Starr refers to the construction of photographs in this way as the creation of the “redemptive image.”40 Lawrence Levine makes a similar case, in discussing the iconic within 1930s photography, arguing that, “the image of victim was

42

42  Shaking off the Dust Bowl never sufficient; it had to be accompanied by the symbols of dignity, inner strength and self-​reliance.”41 In the intervening years since the New Deal, however, the reproduction of these images is rarely accompanied by reference to the specific belief system in which they stood as a counterpoint. Migrant Mother, for example, was used on a postage stamp in 1998. While now almost museum pieces themselves, in the period of common usage, stamps as a medium were ubiquitous and devoid of any additional text. The image’s use in this way increased its visual familiarity but failed to simultaneously increase familiarity with the circumstances and philosophy of its creation. Through this type of reproduction, the FSA images have become understood as universal markers representing a much broader scope than their original content or creators intended.42 Yes, these universal markers present an embodiment of resilience, but it is often a silent and passive resilience. The people within them were depicted as waiting. They were patient, they were strong, but they were also dependent on middle-​class and upper-​class reformers to enact change on their behalf. That change began with the photographer in the act of image creation and was amplified through the reception and action of the audience. The only actions acknowledged on the part of the photographic subjects were geographic migration within the United States. Beyond that, it is their stillness and through that stillness their stoicism –​the refusal to cry, to cower, to react –​that the photographs celebrate. On the one hand, there is an acknowledgment of the breadth of the crisis and the reality that most individuals were powerless to change their circumstances through singular action. On the other, within this framing, there was, and is, no allowance for collective agency on the part of those rendered most vulnerable. Associating passivity with vulnerable populations continues to have currency and influence. Twenty-​first-​century disaster researchers note disciplinary trends that have tended to “emphasise people’s weaknesses and limitations, and … [show] people as passive and incapable of bringing about change.”43 The Dust Bowl narrative in its iconic form is one of resilience but not resistance. It begins with multi-​faceted vulnerability to climatic and economic forces. The solution proposed when faced with these assaults is flight rather than fight. If Lange’s Man Beside Wheelbarrow captured one little-​ discussed response to vulnerability, that of despair, then the other end of the spectrum, anger, similarly lacks contemplation within this model. The privileging of quiet stoicism within these images served to erase both those who succumbed to despondency, and those whose reaction to vulnerability was to push back against the system. Fashioning a sympathetic aid recipient demanded that they be understood as reflecting the best of America and within those parameters there could be absolutely no hint of political radicalism. One interpretive narrative of the 1930s suggests that era was a watershed because of changes in the ways American society viewed those who were vulnerable. They were no longer seen as inherently defective but rather

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 43 at the mercy of larger systems beyond their control. Certainly this was the approach taken by Roosevelt’s head of relief, Harry Hopkins. Given the scale of the human disaster, Hopkins instructed government social workers to desist in evaluating the character of claimants and to simply ensure the distribution of relief.44 It is this philosophical shift that is reflected in the FSA images. But historians of the Depression-​era have been reluctant to mark this decade as a wholesale turning point.45 In considering the legacy of the New Deal, the case has been made that, far from eliminating a distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, the dual systems of Social Security and welfare further enshrined it.46 However, the 1930s did entail a clear paradigm shift with regards to the nature of industrial work and the organisation of labour. Industrial action during the Great Depression reframed the relationships between American workers and employers for at least four decades. The lasting impacts of these actions are a prime example of a narrative obscured by the focus on rural experience and the emphasis on passive resilience rather than active resistance. The Depression years were a crucial era for the American union movement. Contrary to a common assumption that a scarcity of employment ensures a passive workforce, the 1930s were characterised, coast to coast, by industrial action: from longshoremen in San Francisco, to teamsters in Minneapolis-​St Paul, to textile workers in New England and the South. The strikes were often violent, involving clashes with either National Guard or private enforcers that, at times, led to fatalities.47 Across the country and across industries, strikers put their lives on the line for a demand that remained markedly the same. They called for the right to organise themselves into recognisable unions with self-​ selected representation.48 They called for the right to create their own security against vulnerability by being allowed to negotiate as a group rather than as individuals. These conflicts provide a counter-​narrative to the imagery of passivity and that of flight. It is a narrative not of stoicism but a demand for change as voiced by those at the lower socio-​economic levels of American society. This is vulnerability engendering confrontation. In addition, a discussion of the loss of work in the 1930s necessitates a discussion of class, though perhaps not in a way that is immediately apparent. Reports on the loss of work from during the Depression often refer to a sense of shame amongst the unemployed workers.49 A psychiatrist in the Pennsylvania coalfields, Dr Nathan Ackerman, said of the unemployed miners he examined: These men suffered from depression. They felt despised, they were ashamed of themselves. They cringed, they comforted one another. They avoided home.50 An investigator for programmes within the Federal Emergency Relief Act detailed similar reactions, and further observed that the only relief for

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44  Shaking off the Dust Bowl self-​blame was to physically encounter large numbers of fellow workers in similar circumstances.51 Several studies of working-​class population during the Great Depression, however, offer an entirely different perspective. These propose that, from the outset, self-​ indictment was a less-​ than-​ universal experience, particularly amongst unemployed blue-​ collar workers.52 Kenneth Kusmer highlights the soup societies, the neighbourhood-​based response that occurred in cities, at least early in the Depression. This, he argues, is not the response of a community in which shame is associated with unemployment. Instead, unemployment is simply equated with need.53 Cohen also argues that when the Roosevelt administration shifted its focus from direct relief to work-​based relief, there were active attempts to stigmatise the dole amongst working-​class people, suggesting that this was not the prevailing mindset at the time.54 American industrial workers had limited expectations of job security, and were more inclined to blame the loss of work on the government, industrial management, or other forces beyond their own control.55 What made the Depression particularly disastrous for these workers was not the isolated experience of unemployment, but that unemployment was so widespread it overwhelmed those relief institutions, such as churches or ethnic organisations, on which working men and women had previously relied.56 The association of unemployment with profound shame was more notably common amongst the middle classes, or white-​ collar workers.57 White, educated professionals were inclined to see themselves as the dispensers of charity rather than as its beneficiaries. As such, the necessity of seeking relief was potentially a much greater act of surrender.58 What emerges, therefore, is a varied perception of guilt based largely on pre-​existing class conditions. This debate about the degree of self-​blame in no way negates the extent of desperation that was felt by the unemployed, particularly the long-​ term unemployed, regardless of class or nature of previous work. From a museological perspective, though, it importantly foregrounds class as a variable to historical experience alongside race and gender.59 Furthermore, it calls into question the unspoken assumption that the middle-​class experience can be understood as the universal one. Interpretations of labour, strikes, and the tensions associated with a perceived communist presence occurred in a number of exhibitions. Chapter  4 will discuss the presence of these themes within the Federal Theatre Project and how those ideas are subsequently incorporated into understandings of the WPA. The rest of this chapter considers the interpretation of industrial action within two regional institutions, the Michigan History Museum in Lansing, Michigan and the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California. The Michigan case study, which presents the 1936–​ 1937 Flint Sit-​Down Strike, will illustrate the challenges associated with finding ways to make the local audible above the more iconic Dust Bowl story. In contrast, the National Steinbeck Center illuminates how the lasting hurts of local struggles can colour an exhibition, even when the narrative appears to be more general in its scope.

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 45

Industrial resistance: the Flint Sit-​Down Strike The Flint Sit-​Down Strike begins with a conflict not simply between labour and management, but also a conflict between two labour federations, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Committee for Industrial Organizations (CIO). The CIO had split from the AFL in 1935 and was seeking to establish itself as full-​fledged rival.60 Two key pieces of legislation enacted in the 1930s aided the CIO in this pursuit. The first was the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. When the Supreme Court struck down Title I  of this act as unconstitutional, the right to organise was re-​ enshrined, along with the addition of a mechanism for investigation and enforcement, by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act.61 While there had been limited precedents during World War I and in the 1920s, never before had the American federal government made such an inclusive declaration ensuring the majority of workers had the right to organised self-​representation at all times. The codification of these rights at a federal level re-​energised the American labour movement and gave rise to widespread industrial action. The CIO leadership seized on the passing of the Wagner Act as their moment to unionise the mass-​ production industries.62 In particular, they targeted US Steel, and the ‘Big Three’ in the auto industry:  Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors (GM).63 Given the repeated use of armed violence in the face of union organisation, Ford remained an almost unassailable target. Thus, the leadership turned its attention to GM.64 General Motors was, at that time, the largest of the American automobile companies. It had operations that, while centred in the Midwest, stretched from coast to coast. The corporation had consistently made a profit beginning in 1921, and managed to do so even during the worst year of the Depression in 1932.65 Not only was GM the largest of the automakers, it was one of the largest corporations in the United States, period.66 If GM could be successfully unionised, it was presumed that other corporations would follow suit. On December 30, 1936, GM workers in Flint, Michigan began a sit-​ down strike in GM’s factories. They took over all of what was known as the Fisher No. 1 plant and the second floor of the smaller Fisher No. 2. Workers in other plants from Ohio to Wisconsin quickly followed suit. Though not every plant’s workforce went on strike simultaneously, the loss of key plants broke the supply chain, preventing required parts to be passed through the production system. By the end of the first week of January, GM was effectively, if temporarily, out of the car-​making business.67 The grievances of the auto workers were multi-​fold, but one of the most pressing was the ‘speed-​up.’68 Loathed by workers, the speed-​up was a policy that decreed that in order to maintain a consistent wage, manufacturing workers were required to complete an increasing number of pieces in the same allotment of time. The increased targets often exceeded actual human

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46  Shaking off the Dust Bowl capability and thus resulted in a wage cut.69 The major goal of the strike, however, was not alleviating poor conditions per se. The major goal was the right of the United Auto Workers, a CIO union, to exclusively represent workers in negotiations with GM about conditional grievances.70 Until GM agreed to organisation by the United Auto Workers their facilities in Flint, Michigan, in Cleveland, Ohio, and, eventually, in a total of 20 factories, would not be their own. Though not new to the 1930s, the sit-​down was particularly characteristic of that decade. It was a strategy used by workers worldwide. From Scotland to Salonika, from Yugoslavia to India, workers were sitting down to shut down factories, mills, and mines.71 The sit-​down had a number of attractive qualities as opposed to picketing. It effectively ceased production, but through occupation rather than blockade. Blockades could be crossed, but occupation ensured that ‘scab’ labour could not be brought in as an alternative workforce. In addition, once occupation had taken place, using force meant attacking a building rather than a picket line, and that risked lasting damage to the means of production.72 The sit-​ downs, therefore, resulted in significantly less injury than other American strikes in the 1930s and, notably, no deaths.73 The Flint Strike stretched through January and into early February. Inside the factories, roughly 5000 workers were organised into smaller, manageable groups. They rotated through strike duty, sleeping (which they did in the car and truck bodies), other support work such as cleaning, as well as recreational and educational periods.74 Outside, another 200 support workers, many of them women, provided supplies, including three hot meals every day.75 GM tried to discredit the workers; it tried court injunctions to have them removed. On January 11, 1937, in what came to be known as the ‘Battle of the Running Bulls,’ police and GM guards attempted to wrest control of Fisher No. 2. Rather than succeeding, they instead surrendered the first floor and gate of the factory.76 The newly elected Governor of Michigan, Frank Murphy, deployed the National Guard. Unusually for a man in his position, however, Murphy used the guardsmen only to keep the peace, not to strike-​break. He further ordered them to take all measures to avoid bloodshed.77 In addition, Murphy declared the strikers’ families eligible for relief, reducing the financial burden of continuing action. It was not the response GM had hoped for.78 Negotiations moved first to Lansing, the capital of Michigan, and then to Washington, DC. It was at this point that the Roosevelt Administration, represented by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, became involved.79 Left with few alternative strategies, GM capitulated. The company faced the prospect of ever-​ decreasing sales, while their competitors continued to roll cars off the line. Meanwhile, a resolute United Auto Workers made it clear that in spite of a new legal injunction, it would take violence to remove the strikers from the factories without an agreement. Rumours that other industries were contemplating signing agreements with the CIO

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 47 further pressed GM’s hand.80 The United Auto Workers were granted six months of exclusive bargaining rights in 17 General Motors factories.81 On February 11, 44 days after they’d occupied the factories, the workers, who had been guaranteed that they would keep their jobs, exited victorious. The CIO had successfully brought the right to organise to the assembly line. Having seen what occurred in Michigan, the steel industry agreed to unionisation without similar industrial action.82 Tire manufacturers Goodrich and Firestone signed agreements after strikes in 1938, and as did General Electric.83 Thus, the ripple effects from the auto workers’ strike were felt nationwide and across multiple industries, making it one of the key events in the advent of a new era of unionisation in the United States.

Interpreting the Sit-​Down Strike at the Michigan History Museum When asked about interpreting the Great Depression, curators at the Michigan History Museum told a story about a group of visiting high school students. As they were shown the 1930s section of the museum, one student raised his hand and asked which part of Michigan had been in the Dust Bowl. The education officer explained that Michigan was too far north; the Dust Bowl referred to the drought and topsoil losses in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Far from being mollified, the young man looked more confused, and protested, “I thought we were talking about the Great Depression.”84 This is the challenge of regional interpretation of the 1930s in a microcosm: a misunderstanding that the Depression was the Dust Bowl and vice-​ versa. It creates the appearance that to be outside of the drought-​stricken region was to be beyond the reach of the crisis. In reality, not only did Michigan experience the crisis and the subsequent New Deal, it was the site of a crucial moment in Depression-​era industrial history. Presenting the strike at Flint as a facet of Americans’ experience of the Great Depression allows for a more complex, multi-​layered narrative, including the potential for an entirely new perspective on Americans’ reactions to their own vulnerability. Creating effective interpretation of this episode, and its implications, entails negotiating a balance between national and local narratives whilst considering the lingering emotional baggage that often surrounds strike history, long after the events have concluded. The Michigan History Museum interpreted the state’s twentieth-​century history through a series of chronological galleries developed in the late 1980s and early to mid-​1990s. The 1930s were divided into a number of sub-​sections, the first and largest of which was devoted to the automotive industry, including the reconstruction of a United Auto Workers’ union hall. The next section consisted of a long corridor (actually a walled-​in balcony) lined with a series of display cases facing one another. One side detailed the New Deal and Michigan state programmes, while those opposite offered quotes and objects related to private citizens’ actions in response to the

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48  Shaking off the Dust Bowl crisis. At the far end of the corridor, the interpretive space widened and discussion turned to rural experiences and the effect of the Depression on Great Lakes commerce. A  large Depression-​era mural rescued from the Capitol during building refurbishments covered the end wall. Finally, slightly off-​set to the right, the visitor encountered the Bungalow installation. This partial house reconstruction featured several interior rooms, a front porch, and a garage that housed a hand-​built roadster.85 Taken as a whole, the exhibition managed, in a compressed space, to present interpretations of work and home life, government response, soup kitchens, sport, industry, industrial action, bank closures, and the memories of the famous, such as a young Malcolm X, and of everyday ‘Michiganians.’ From the outset of development, however, interpreting the 1930s at the Michigan History Museum engendered a tension –​sometimes productive, sometimes less so –​between the local and national scripts. An initial proposal from an external design firm produced a vision of the Depression that was equally any American metropolis and none of them.86 Frustrated by such a generic approach, the in-​house team reworked the material to create an exhibition focused more fully on local experiences. In doing so, the curators at the Michigan History Museum did not omit the national story of the 1930s, nor did they incorporate it only when it was to be found on their doorstep. They did deny it exclusivity and dominance. The long corridor, initially dismissed as almost unworkable space, proved to be ideal as it allowed for cases interpreting national and local versions of the same themes to speak one another. This layout provided immediate and constant juxtaposition of New Deal policy and programmes with that of individual and non-​governmental experience. Within this model, the federal contextualised the local, while the local grounded the federal. It was an exhibition in which the personal infiltrated the general on multiple levels, some more immediately apparent than others. Most obvious were the first-​person recollections presented on exhibition panels, but there was a strong personal connection behind the scenes as well. At the time of development, the museum did not have an extensive social history collection and objects had to be sourced from a range of donors. This included curatorial homes, and those of their families, particularly when rectifying key absences. A box bearing the Blue Eagle of the National Recovery Administration had been kept not as an historical artefact but by one curator’s father as the storage container for his toy trains. The Tinker Toys that were strewn before the hearth in the Bungalow were the relics of another curator’s childhood.87 Calls for public donation brought in collections as well as single artefacts. The Bungalow, for example, was dressed with many objects from the house on which it was originally based, including a family photograph. As a result, it was an exhibition to which the local public had deep ties. Here was an exhibition constructed not only about, but also with the direct contribution of, the local community. It was an exhibition that integrated national and local. Deep-​seated stakeholder investment is not, however, without its own

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 49 challenges, particularly when interpreting difficult history such as that of strikes. “Labor is a hard thing to get, mostly it is relationships, conversations, organizing”  –​so observed one of the curators at the Michigan History Museum.88 Similarly, labour historian Lizabeth Cohen noted that the difficulty in understanding industrial action lies less with the events themselves than with grasping the significance of participation for those involved.89 Curating an exhibition about labour entails taking a conversation, a most elusive event, and encapsulating it and its implications in a physical medium. If that was not hard enough, the gallery at the Michigan History Museum is not just exhibiting labour, it is exhibiting a strike  –​and strike history lingers uncomfortably within communities, melding memory, history, and emotion.90 At the local level, a strike is not just about the result, good or bad, but the conduct, effect, and repercussions of that strike, often manifested in very basic and personal ways. As such, telling the story of the Flint Sit-​Down Strike is, on face value, simple enough, but telling it in a museum with close ties to local stakeholders is not. First, there is the necessary recognition of the difference between interpreting labour through production, and interpreting it through organisation. Both are aspects of American industry, but while production is a tangible process, unionism is much less so.91 The artefacts of production, machines, tools, and their output, all lend themselves towards display, providing scale is not an issue.92 Labour negotiation often lacks similar physical artefacts. One possibility is to display ephemera such as union buttons and badges.93 Certainly these items indicated an increasing sense of collective identity amongst workers. The wearing of a union button was often an act of defiance, one that could cost a worker their job.94 Even before the strike, the presence of union badges in GM plants was an early indication that the auto workers were losing their fear of the spies planted on the factory floors by management.95 But these badges are small objects requiring additional textual or visual interpretation. They are significant but lack the resonance and immediate impact of an iconic object. Interestingly it was the FSA collection, and a series of images of the Flint Strike taken by Dick Sheldon, that provided a possible solution. One of Sheldon’s photographs shows strikers guarding the windows in Fisher No. 3 (see Figure 2.4). The museum was able to obtain similar windows from the Flint site and these were incorporated into the exhibition. As well as providing a physical connection to the men within the plant, this inclusion allowed the museum to draw in the experiences of women involved in the strike. An interpretive panel linked the windows to an incident in which police fired tear gas into an occupied building. The women, picketing outside at the time, smashed the panes in order to allow the men inside to breathe despite the fumes.96 The windows also functioned as an element of transition within the museum space. Through the glass panes, the visitor looked down onto another gallery and the depiction of a Ford assembly line

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50  Shaking off the Dust Bowl

Figure 2.4 Dick Sheldon, Strikers guarding window entrance to Fisher body plant number three. Flint, Michigan (1937). Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division FSA-​OWI Collection: LC-​DIG-​fsa-​8c28670

from earlier in the century. The window served as a link between labour and industry and between different eras of Michigan’s auto-​making history. As multi-​layered as the windows may be, the most effective exhibition element in the interpretation of the Flint Strike was the recreation of the interior of United Auto Workers Local 7 Union Hall. This inclusion of the Union Hall provided a setting for the conversation of organisation, and grounded the exhibition in the larger genre of industrial interpretation. In the United States during the 1960s and 1970s, a transition occurred in the public history interpretation of machinery. The rise of industrial heritage sites meant that machines began to be interpreted in the cultural context of mill or factory floor, rather than treated as large objects d’art.97 The United Auto Workers Local 7 Hall evokes this same tradition. If the machines of labour are best understood in the environment of production, then the unionisation of labour is similarly aided by interpretation in the environment, or a recreation thereof, in which the processes took place. Doing so gave a cultural resonance to the interpretation of the union. Furthermore, it couched union activity in the same language of interpretation

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 51 that the curators had applied to production earlier in the museum through the Ford assembly line. In her assessment of industrial museums, specifically textile museums, in New England, Mary H. Blewett levelled several critiques about the relationship between social history and industrial exhibitions/​ museums. In particular she decried a lack of recognition of “economic system[s]‌” and a failure to tie the local to larger “regional, national or even global context” or to other industries.98 An exhibition in Lawrence, Massachusetts on the 1912 Bread and Roses strike was particularly singled out by Blewett for its failures in this aspect.99 The Union Hall largely managed to avoid this pitfall. As with all of the interpretation of the Great Depression within the Michigan History Museum, it balanced the local perspective with that of the larger region and nation, and contextualised the Michigan experience within broader discourses. Flint is a particularly significant episode in this process as it represented a moment of export rather than import. In other words, it was not the narrative of federal agencies operating in Michigan, but rather of a national focus on events occurring within the state; events that ultimately had implications across the nation. Additionally, within the Hall, the narrative of the Flint Strike was understood as part of American labour history. Panels detailed the unsuccessful 1913 strike against Studebaker led by the Industrial Workers of the World, aka the ‘Wobblies,’ while others explored the effect of the Wagner Act and the National Labor Relations Board. The schism between the AFL and the CIO was explained, as was the eventual reunification in 1952. Finally, the impact the victory at Flint had upon negotiations at other sites and in other industries was explored.100 Thus the Flint Strike was positioned as a component to larger national narrative, but one with specific local ties and implications. Careful not to present union activity as the exclusive domain of white males, the curators consciously diversified the story. African-​American participation was included, as was that of women. Significantly, the exhibition did not shy away from critique; voices that were opposed to the union were also present. Though not numerous, the acknowledgement of dissent played a vital role in capturing the impact of a strike upon a community. The lyrics of the union anthem “Which Side Are You On?” written by Florence Reece, wife of a United Mine Workers organiser, during the 1931 Harlan County Strike exemplify the divisiveness of strikes: If you go to Harlan County There is no neutral there You’ll either be a union man Or a thug for J.H. Blair. Which side are you on? Which side are you on?101

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52  Shaking off the Dust Bowl It is this divisiveness, this lack of neutrality, that can have enduring implications for communities, and for public historians attempting to interpret the events. James Green found that in Lawrence, Massachusetts, some 67 years after the Bread and Roses Strike, the son of the printer who made the strike leaflets still feared that there would reprisals and boycotts against his business, should his father’s involvement be revealed.102 As late as 1979, moves by the Michigan Historical Commission to install a commemorative plaque for the Flint Strike proved to be controversial.103 As ongoing financial repercussions identified in Lawrence, Massachusetts indicate, money has an effect on the telling of history, and on which perspectives are foregrounded or silenced. The fiscal realities for museums, in which diminishing government and foundation funding is coupled with the high costs of major exhibitions, have opened the door to corporate sponsorship, even for large national museums such as the Smithsonian.104 At the time that the Michigan in the Twentieth Century galleries were developed in the 1980s and 1990s, the most obvious source of corporate funding in Michigan was the automotive industry. To be clear, sponsorship relationships do not inherently entail oversight on content. However, critical analysis demands at least some query as to the extent of corporate influence and attendant toll on historical accuracy from approaching the auto industry for donations, while interpreting strikes in automotive factories. Despite the potential for a whitewash, the Michigan History Museum proved able to present a remarkably balanced view of the strikers and the automakers. The Ford family’s generosity in the sponsorship of Diego Rivera’s 1932–​ 1933 Detroit Industry murals at the Detroit Institute of Art was noted.105 So, too, were the events at Ford’s River Rouge complex in March 1932, when thugs hired by the corporation fatally fired upon Hunger Marchers.106 Henry Ford’s callousness towards the unemployed, his insistence that there was work for those who wanted it even as his factories downsized, and his refusal to recognise the United Auto Workers until 1941, and then only under government duress, were also included on panels.107 The curators are to be commended for maintaining historical integrity. That said, must the relationship between corporate stakeholders and difficult history always be adversarial or obstructionist? One member of the museum staff recalled accompanying a GM executive through the exhibition, and what ensued is revelatory. The executive in question walked through the displays, read the panels, then sat and watched the short film on the Flint Strike that played in the Union Hall. When it was finished, he turned to the museum staff member and informed them proudly that his father had been one of the strikers. Such were the social structures of company towns, that in the rising tides of the postwar economy, sons of assembly workers were able to attend university and join the white-​collar ranks of the corporations. This man saw the exhibition not as a condemnation of his corporation, but an acknowledgement of the achievements of his father. Amongst those achievements was the creation of conditions and opportunities that had allowed the son to succeed.108

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 53 Engaging in questions of marginalised populations, of vulnerable populations, comes with an inherent risk of controversy.109 These groups are often politicised in the ways in which they speak about themselves, and through those discourses that are created about them. There are times when audiences would appear to prefer the simple, the iconic, and the palatable to more complex and uncomfortable historical interpretation. At these times, presenting accurate history is a thankless profession. Yet, as the experience of the Michigan History Museum exemplified, it is possible to succeed in broaching difficult and sensitive history to a range of stakeholders without unleashing a flurry of controversy or punitive budget cuts. In the case of Flint, the museum successfully grounded the political in the personal, the national in the local, and it is the small stories that appear to have won the day. In doing so, the curators presented what could be considered a model of best practice for interpretation of strike history, and of 1930s resistance in the face of vulnerability. However, if local variables are significant in determining interpretation, similarly those same variables can impact upon the adoption of apparent best practice. What works very well in one location may not be possible in others. Obvious determinants include physical environment and variations in available space and collections. Equally potent, however, are variations in the local socio-​political climate, and the degree to which any given community is open to an interpretation. A move from Michigan to California illustrates how, in the interpretation of labour, models are not necessarily transferrable.

California, communists, and Steinbeck If the Michigan History Museum provides an example of how to do things well, a less fruitful example is to be found in California. Despite their physical distance, there are aspects of common historical experience, at least in the 1930s, which facilitate a comparison between Michigan and California. In both states, the Great Depression narrative remains fairly visible even unto the present day. Certainly, in San Francisco, two of the city’s most iconic structures, the Golden Gate Bridge and Coit Tower, were Depression-​era projects, as are several other landmarks such as Aquatic Park. San Francisco was also the site of a protracted and violent longshoremen’s strike in 1934 that briefly spread to a general strike.110 Moving out of the northern California cities, and travelling south and east into the San Joaquin, Sacramento, and Imperial Valleys, one enters the imagined landscape of the Great Depression. This is the promised land that called to the Dust Bowl migrants. These are the rolling hills, orchards, and fields immortalised by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath and In Dubious Battle. This is the backdrop to so many of Dorothea Lange’s images. And in Salinas, John Steinbeck’s hometown, is the National Steinbeck Center, a small museum celebrating the author’s life and work.

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54  Shaking off the Dust Bowl Within these valleys, the nature of irrigation and water rights means that since the mid-​nineteenth century, this region has been the domain of agribusiness.111 The crops grown have seasonal periods of high labour intensity, generally around the harvest. Agricultural corporations have long been the employers of minorities and migrants, whether Chinese, Mexican, Filipino, or, in the 1930s, those displaced from the South and Southwest.112 In that sense, not much has changed. California agribusiness is, to this day, reliant on an over-​supply of seasonal labour in order to keep costs low.113 Modern researchers noted high levels of malnutrition amongst migrant farm workers in the 1990s, and continued high percentages of disenfranchisement, problems that concerned reformers in the 1930s.114 The region has always maintained a symbiotic and simultaneously antagonistic relationship with its migrant workforce. The WPA Guide to California (1939), one of a series compiled by the Federal Writers Project during the Depression, described the migratory workers in the following way, stressing the necessity of their presence alongside their constant status as outsiders: In addition to the permanent employees the valley uses a great deal of seasonal labor that forms a constant problem. The migratory worker, constantly on the move to catch the harvest season of one crop after the other –​peaches, walnuts, apricots, grapes, celery –​never stays long enough in any area to establish himself as a citizen. He lives apart from other residents, occasionally in barracks behind the fields and orchards, more often in crude shelters of his own devising along the river bottoms. Because there are too many that want work, the migrant cannot command an adequate return for his labor. The inhabitants of the towns do not know him and his family and local governments feel no responsibility for him. No one knows how to help him with his problems and no one knows how to get along without his help.115 In 1939, writer and reformer Carey McWilliams published the lyrical but scathing account of California agribusiness Factories in the Field. In it he described the migrant workers and their strikes in this following manner: As one contingent of recruits after the other has been exhausted, or has mutinied, others have been assembled to take their places. Although the army has been made up of different races, as conditions have changed and new circumstances arisen, it has always functioned as an army … It has had many savage encounters, with many droughts and floods and disease; and occasionally, it has fought in engagements that can hardly be called sham battles, as its casualties have been heavy.116 During the 1930s the central valleys were, as McWilliams alluded, the site of particularly ugly labour clashes, in which vigilantism contributed to the

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 55 violence. The WPA Guide devoted a quarter of its page on Salinas to a lettuce pickers’ strike in 1936.117 General Pelham D. Glassford, former Chief of Police of Washington, DC, who had been sent to mediate one such conflict, declared the Imperial Valley to be, governed by a small group which, in advertising a war against communism, is sponsoring terrorism, intimidation and injustice … It is time the Imperial Valley awakens to the fact that it is part of the United States.118 The 1935 Wagner Act, the foundation for much of the progress in workers’ rights, exempted agriculture from its provisions.119 As such, despite the CIO’s victories in industry, agricultural workers did not gain true labour representation until the rise of the United Farm Workers in the 1970s. John Steinbeck wrote about the agricultural strikes and clashes during the 1930s in several of his novels. Through friends, he met a number of the organisers of the Communist Party-​backed Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union, which, in 1932, moved into the central valleys from headquarters in San Jose.120 The strikes and strike leaders were the major focus of In Dubious Battle (1936) and they are touched upon again in the strife that follows the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Reportedly, neither the man nor his works were especially popular in his hometown of Salinas. His depictions of brutal hiring practices, desperate conditions, and abysmal wages associated with seasonal agricultural work led to a ban on his books at a neighbouring library. On occasion locals also fed his prose to the bonfire.121 Despite the ambivalent relationship between the town and its famous son, the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas positioned itself as a contextualisation of Steinbeck’s work within its historical times. However, the interpretation that was offered in its galleries in 2007 appeared to be less a genuine contextualisation than an attempt to make Steinbeck, and his work, more palatable to those in the surrounding communities that he had critiqued through his novels.122

In Dubious Battle The layout of the National Steinbeck Center divided the museum by Steinbeck’s works; each publication had its own section, placed more or less in chronological order. There was some variation in size and a degree of overlap, such that aspects of interpretation of the 1930s were shared between In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath. The novel In Dubious Battle follows two union organisers, Mac and Jim, through an escalating pickers’ strike in a California valley. The violence surrounding the strike, as well as the suffering experienced by the striking migrant workers, grows exponentially throughout the novel, culminating in Jim’s death.

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56  Shaking off the Dust Bowl The National Steinbeck Center’s interpretation of In Dubious Battle suggested that the novel was fictionalised journalism. It claimed that Steinbeck remained objective in viewing agricultural strikes, that all parties were covered equally and all perspectives and points of view were given equal merit or critique. It is true that In Dubious Battle was not the typical formulaic proletariat novel of the period, and the communist organisers are far from the typically heroic leaders of that genre.123 However, a deviation from literary tropes does not equate with objectivity and there is a clear sympathy for the strikers within the book.124 Alongside the growers and the union organisers, In Dubious Battle presents a third party, the pickers, the foot soldiers of Carey McWilliam’s ragtag army. It is these people, stuck as they are between growers and organisers, that Steinbeck champions even though they do not appear as significant individual characters.125 And it is this exploited mass of people who were completely absent from the Center’s interpretation of this novel. Without them, without his concern for them, as a group if not as individuals, what is left is indeed a journalistic indictment of both the growers and the strike organisers. But it is not the novel that Steinbeck wrote. In seeming contradiction to the historical record of conflicts in the central valleys, the National Steinbeck Center characterised the violence in In Dubious Battle as the result of events spiralling beyond anyone’s control rather than as a tool consciously used as a means of intimidation and enforcement. Historical accounts, such as those from McWilliams and Glassford, illustrated that on either side of the political aisle there was frustration with the violence perpetrated by growers acting as self-​appointed defenders of righteousness.126 And yet, even with 70-​odd years of distance, the National Steinbeck Center sanitised the interpretation of the encounters between growers and strikers. Their accounts lacked the sense of candour that was present in the interpretation of industrial violence at the Michigan History Museum. The Center was not completely revisionist; it did acknowledge the racism that led to the deportation of Mexican workers, and it did credit Filipino workers with creating one of California’s first agricultural unions. Away from the section devoted to In Dubious Battle, the National Steinbeck Center even acknowledged the violence that accompanied agricultural strikes. Finally, buried in an unusually long audio-​video presentation related to The Grapes of Wrath, there was an excerpt from the novel that highlighted the exploitive nature of the hiring practices for pickers in the 1930s. It is significant, however, that there was a clear physical separation between the interpretation of the novel that directly engaged with the agricultural strikes as its central dramatic device, and any institutional acknowledgement of culpability on the part of agricultural owners. The Michigan History Museum succeeded by grounding the national in the personal. Though the National Steinbeck Center is an institution that is essentially public history biography, it largely opted for the abstract and superficial. While In Dubious Battle made up only a small section of the overall gallery

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 57 space, the interpretation of that book reflected a much larger pattern, in which the historical background for the novels that was provided sat very uncomfortably against the rest of the museological narrative. Beyond a strained relationship with California’s Depression-​era history, the National Steinbeck Center appeared to be reframing Steinbeck and his philosophies during the 1930s through a selective use of partial quotes taken out of context. The most telling of these comes from a letter Steinbeck wrote to his friend George Albee about In Dubious Battle. The Center provides an excerpt: … I’m not interested in a strike as a means of raising men’s wages and I’m not interested in ranting about justice and oppression, mere outcroppings which indicate the condition.127 But by taking the quote out of context, the museum changed the author’s intent. At that point in the full letter Steinbeck was not discussing the pros and cons of strikes, but of realism versus metaphor or allegory, and the way that he was using the strike as a framework to make comment on human nature.128 Furthermore, in his correspondence with Albee, Steinbeck wrote that “I had planned to write a journalistic account of a strike. But as I thought of it as fiction the thing got bigger and bigger. It couldn’t be that.” The letter, if read in full, contradicts the very approach with which the museum positioned the novel. It is confounding to find a museum devoted to literary works and biography that, in its interpretation, removed so much context in the discussion of either. In another example of the seeming rehabilitation of Steinbeck, the museum provided a long quote from the author that explained why he was not a communist. It appeared in almost floor-​to-​ceiling lettering across a wall visible from both the In Dubious Battle and The Grapes of Wrath sections. Steinbeck may not have been a communist but, putting aside the National Steinbeck Center’s version of the author, there are strong suggestions that he was a radical, or at least that he sympathised with the desire for radical change. Additionally, he shared many concerns with members of the Communist Party, particularly in response to those who were suffering during the crisis of the Depression.129 In The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad is told, “a red is any son-​of-​bitch that wants thirty cents an hour when we’re paying twenty-​five,” and, tellingly, that “we’re all reds.”130 When Steinbeck did turn to journalism on the conditions and conflicts in the region, it was as a series of articles on the suffering of the migrant workers for the San Francisco News in October 1936 (the same paper that first published Lange’s portrait of Florence Owens Thompson). This reportage formed the basis for his pamphlet with Dorothea Lange two years later, Their Blood is Strong.131 Particularly notable is Steinbeck’s conscious identification of the agricultural workers as “American people” subjected to strong-​arm tactics. This use of the national identity is especially powerful at a time in which, as

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58  Shaking off the Dust Bowl literary historian Morris Dickstein noted, “all social protest was labelled as Communist and all Communists were branded foreign agitators.”132 But the National Steinbeck Center contained no hint of any of these soft edges or grey areas. Instead, and seemingly in spite of Steinbeck’s evolving position, it perpetrated a misunderstanding of American radicalism in the 1930s, particularly American labour radicalism, fixing it within a Cold War dichotomy that firmly placed communist on one side and American on the other.

Red radicalism, American-​style The Depression-​ era relationship between American workers and communism does not easily fit into a simple dichotomy between American capitalism and Soviet-​ style state collectivism. There is no doubt that the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) was active in the labour movements of the 1930s. In addition, there was perhaps a greater degree of radicalism on the West Coast than in the more conservative Midwest and industrial East. For example, the Australian leader of the San Franciscan longshoremen’s uprising, Harry Bridges, was viewed by the Eastern labour leadership as something of a ‘wildcat’ and beyond their control.133 In truth, though, much as capitalism may have faltered in the 1930s, American labour changed the CPUSA more so than the CPUSA changed it. By and large, American workers were not clamouring for a revolution, they were pushing for their share of the so-​called American dream. They sought the ability to have hours of leisure and enough disposable income with which to enjoy that leisure. In order to achieve those goals, they needed to have a voice in their own working conditions. Class-​consciousness, American-​style, was not a collection of movements to destroy the institutions of state and capital, but a series of attempts to participate in those institutions.134 In Chicago, the Communist Party recognised that the practical issues of bread, insurance, and rent were much more likely to attract support amongst the working class than ideological rhetoric.135 Shifting back to the California valleys, a telling example is to be found in union organisers Pat Chambers and Caroline Decker, the loose inspirations for In Dubious Battle’s Mac and Jim. Chambers and Decker might have adopted some communist rhetoric, such as the use of ‘comrade,’ but they largely eschewed the Party doctrine and ideology in favour of the practicalities of the struggle.136 Even in strikes where the Communist Party was active, it was not at the insistence of missives from Moscow. The Cannery and Agricultural Industrial Workers’ Union, for example, did bring trained organisers such as Chambers and Decker into the California valleys. But unlike factory strikes, they were covering large areas of land while hampered by poor communication methods. The result was a leadership style that incorporated promotion from the rank-​and-​file and a resulting grassroots influence.137

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 59 Through the popularity of Steinbeck’s work, the National Steinbeck Center had an opportunity to use the author’s familiar novels as a point of audience access into complex historical narratives. However, by sanitising Steinbeck, rather than clarifying the complexities of American labour’s relationship with communist ideologies, the Center succeeded in perpetrating more myths than it dispelled. By failing to acknowledge that much of the radicalism in the 1930s was driven from a practical or humanist point of view rather than political insurrection, the National Steinbeck Center not only misrepresented the American experience of negotiations about labour, it pulled its own central figure out of his time. There is famous re-​cropping of one of Dorothea Lange’s photographs by poet Archibald McLeish for his book Land of the Free. In McLeish’s crop, black sharecroppers are removed from the frame, altering the photograph’s entire power structure. A  plantation owner, a man who exercised control over his tenants, is thus recast as an everyman, accompanied by references to the pioneers, battles from the War of Independence, and the crafting of the Constitution in Philadelphia. In a sense, the National Steinbeck Center did the same to John Steinbeck; they so removed him from his context as to leave him unrecognisable. The result was a museum that, rather than adding depth to the man and his work, rendered both in lesser form. The institution’s silence when invited to contribute a curatorial perspective means that the reasons behind these decisions ultimately remain murky. However, there is evidence to suggest that much of it has to do less with literature than with geography. Despite the appearance of the word ‘national’ in its name, the National Steinbeck Center was very much a local community institution.138 Founded in 1998, it had its origins in a relatively simple plan to add a wing to the Salinas Library and evolved through proposals for an art exhibition space and community centre into an anchor for the revitalisation of the Salinas town centre.139 Salinas is far from the first town to capitalise on a famous progeny, and while there is nothing inherently wrong in doing so, it is an approach that can be challenging to integrate with a national narrative. The Michigan History Museum succeeded through juxtaposition, by telling local and national stories simultaneously, and though finding points at which those stories intersected. The National Steinbeck Center was less successful. In critiquing the Center as a whole, in a review for The Public Historian, Victor Geraci lamented a lack of interpretation, an oversimplification of the region’s agribusiness, and a failure to assist visitors in drawing instructive parallels on “the struggles of identity and assimilation for agricultural field workers” between the era in which Steinbeck wrote and the present day.140 While Geraci’s assertions are astute, it is worth querying whether a correlation with the present day was the last thing that Salinas wanted. In an address to the Museums Australia National Conference in October 2010, the then-​president of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Morris Vogel, postulated museums maintain relevance through “dynamic tensions with

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60  Shaking off the Dust Bowl their environments  –​influencing them and being influenced by them.” In Salinas there were indications that the dynamic tension is less balanced than one would ideally hope and that that the environment in which the National Steinbeck Center operated influenced the museum more so than vice-​versa. In his review of the Center for the New York Times, Dean Murphy noted that although some growers, such as National Steinbeck Center board member Basil E. Mills, claimed that time had healed all wounds, the relationship between Steinbeck, Salinas, and agriculture remained an uneasy one.141 While John Stickler reported that $1 million of the $10.6 million capital drive for the museum came from a single agribusiness family, Murphy noted that another grower refused to donate at all because of “lingering hard feelings.”142 In interpreting the Depression-​era novels of John Steinbeck, the National Steinbeck Center had the opportunity to use the familiar as a stepping stone to the complex. Steinbeck’s work is a major component of the iconic Dust Bowl narrative. If there was ever a time that the 1930s iconography might be used to engage an audience’s interest and subsequently facilitate more explorations of unfamiliar ideas, it would be in Steinbeck’s depiction of agricultural strikes. Here were the familiar faces of the FSA images, and the familiar stories of Grapes of Wrath, as well as the lesser-​known In Dubious Battle. How interesting it could be if the museum had brought these characters to life, weaving together the fiction and historical record. Through examining the actual experiences of Depression-​era migrant workers, and the real tensions between growers and workers, there was the possibility, as occurred in the Michigan History Museum, to integrate the national and local stories. Pat Chambers and Caroline Decker could be brought out from behind the masks of Mac and Jim and used to examine the relationship between reform movements and the Communist Party of the United States of America. There existed great interpretive potential, and none of it came to fruition at the National Steinbeck Center. They neither engaged fully with the Dust Bowl narrative, nor with the underlying historical realities. Instead the exhibition offered a rather flat portrait of a complex writer, omitting many of those with whom he sympathised, and about whom he wrote.

Chapter conclusions It has ceased to be novel for museums to interpret the nature of work. Industrial sites are now increasingly revitalised as built heritage and many major museums have incorporated the machinery of industry into historical interpretations. The nature of work, or the lack thereof, in the 1930s, however, does not easily fit into these established paradigms. The work-​ based narratives of this decade are largely of negotiation more so than production:  negotiation of crises, negotiation of unemployment, negotiation of relationships between labour and employer, between citizen and government. The interpretation is therefore much less concrete than that of

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 61 industrialisation. Unlike most interpretation of industry and development, it also challenges or at the very least redefines the march of progress, framing that progress in terms of union rights rather than economic expansion. Significantly, the interpretation of industrial action challenges the notion of a universal experience of the Depression or of Depression-​era vulnerability. It refocuses attention on the less-​discussed urban experience, and necessitates recognition of the diversity of the workforce in race, ethnicity, and gender. While there has been a dominant narrative of self-​blame amongst the unemployed, there is growing acknowledgement that this was a white-​collar/​middle-​income-​group response, and that industrial workers were more likely to see fault in the system rather than themselves. The exploration of these narratives within museums broadens the cultural understandings of response to vulnerability. It moves the narrative away from the notion of a resilient but passive underclass dependent on middle-​ class reformers for change. The Michigan History Museum did present a strong model of best practice in interpreting industrial action through their treatment of the Flint Sit-​ Down Strike. The use of a recreated union hall couched the interpretation of the organisation of labour in the same language as production, echoing assembly line recreations elsewhere in the museum. The inclusion of women, African-​Americans, and voices of dissent, worked together to create a picture that had breadth and depth. In addition, the reaction of an automotive industry executive to the exhibition challenges the notion that accepting corporate funding automatically creates compromised history. The comparative shortcomings in the National Steinbeck Center’s interpretation are not included merely to direct criticism at the exhibition and its creators. Rather, the museum serves as an example that best practice, even when identified, is not immediately transferable. In theory, what was achieved in interpreting industrial strikes in Lansing, Michigan could equally be achieved in interpreting agricultural strikes in Salinas, California. In reality, there appeared to be factors that prevented such an interpretation from being attempted, let alone realised. While in Michigan the relationship between the union and the corporations has evolved over the last seven decades, in California agribusiness the faces have changed but the battle remains largely the same. There is not enough clear air in Salinas to allow a commentary on history without seeming to simultaneously critique the present. Some might argue that such a critique is always inherent in the nature of historical understanding. However, when it is as overt as it seems to be in the Californian valleys, it makes it difficult for a museum to sustain historical candour without sacrificing the necessary community relationships, and vice-​versa. In understanding the experience of vulnerability, and its interpretation, there must be an acknowledgement of the dangers of trying to pull either out of its context, whether that context is geographic or temporal. The FSA photographs transitioned from a specific type of socio-​political advocacy on

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62  Shaking off the Dust Bowl the part of one government agency to a role as the universal language of the Great Depression. From the outset the visual language of those images was far from neutral, but embedded with social practice, racial assumptions, and reactions to specific geographic experiences. To some extent, as these images have evolved, they have taken on greater meaning and cannot simply be compressed back into their original forms. Writer Eudora Welty experienced the Depression in rural Mississippi and in urban New York. A Museum of the City of New York exhibition of her 1930s photographic work quoted her recollections of the crisis: When I  was in New  York during the Depression, it was the same Depression we were feeling here in Mississippi, but evident in such another way in the city:  lines of people waiting for food and people selling apples and sitting there in Union Square, all reading the daily paper’s want ads. It was a different homelessness too from what we see today in New York.143 Welty’s comments and photographs were, like many artistic products of the period, an attempt to encapsulate in human terms the enormous crisis of the Great Depression. But Welty moves beyond simply trying to frame the crisis and observes that there is a difference between being poor in Mississippi and being poor in New York. It has become easy to lose track of the differences to which Welty refers. Interpreting vulnerability necessitates recognition of difference, and of variation. Meanwhile, Museum and heritage practice lean towards the iconic, because the iconic, at first blush, seems so well adapted to the exhibition form. Both exhibitions and the iconic compress a thousand competing experiences, narratives, objects, and images into the representative. Such compression is a necessary process within museum communication. But effective interpretation necessitates a concurrent recognition that not all understandings are interchangeable. It acknowledges a unique set of experiences tied particular landscapes, eras, and communities and is cognizant of that which is lost as well as what is gained through a reliance on the iconic image or narrative.

Notes 1 Morris Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark:  A Cultural History of the Great Depression (New  York:  W.W. Norton & Company:  2009), 125; Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams:  The Great Depression in California (New  York:  Oxford University Press, 1996), 251. 2 Arthur Krim, “Filming Route 66:  Documenting the Dust Bowl Highway,” in Place, Power, Situation and Spectacle: A Geography of Film, ed. Stuart C. Aitken and Leo E.  Zonn (Lanham, MD:  Rowan & Littlefield, 1994), 188, 190; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 254. 3 Krim, “Filming Route 66,” 190; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 254–​255. 4 Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark, 9; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 257.

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 63 5 Krim, “Filming Route 66,” 190; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 251; Samantha Baskind, “The ‘True’ Story: Life Magazine, Horace Bristol, and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath,” Steinbeck Studies 15, no. 2 (2004), 41, 47, 55, 58–​60. 6 Baskind, “The ‘True’ Story,” 41–​44. 7 Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark, 95. 8 Warren I. Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003), 160. 9 Merry A.  Foresta, “Art and Document:  Photography of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project,” in Official Images: New Deal Photography, ed. Pete Daniel et  al. (Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987), 148–​156. The Federal Art Project is discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. 10 Library of Congress, “Farm Security Administration/​Office of War Information Black-​and-​White Negatives.” www.loc.gov/​pictures/​collection/​fsa/​. 11 James Curtis, Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth:  FSA Photography Reconsidered (Philadelphia, PA:  Temple University Press, 1989), 9–​10; Cara A.  Finnegan, Picturing Poverty:  Print Culture and FSA Photographs (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2003), 32–​33. 12 Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, 112. Tugwell left the agency at the point of transition from RA to FSA. Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, 32. 13 Baskind, “The ‘True’ Story,” 58; Irving Bernstein, A History of the American Worker 1933–​1941:  A Caring Society:  The New Deal, The Worker and The Great Depression (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985), 258. 14 Starr, Endangered Dreams, 241, 254; William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, rev. edn (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1986), 222–​224; Paula Rabinowitz, “Margaret Bourke-​White’s Red Coat; or Slumming it in the Thirties,” in Looking For America: The Visual Production of A Nation and People, ed. Ardis Cameron (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 162–​ 163; Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark,  96–​98. 15 All of the documentary projects, be it You Have Seen Their Faces, James Agee and Walker Evans’ Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, or the FSA project have been the subject of critique, with questions raised as to the invasive nature of all of the work. Certainly, the better exhibitions acknowledge that none of the images are free from debates surrounding their construction. 16 See Russell Lee, Southeast Missouri Farms. Son of sharecropper washing hands. (1938). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection, LC-​USF34-​ 031213-​D; Southeast Missouri Farms. Son of sharecropper combing hair in bedroom of shack. (1938) Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection LC-​USF34-​031221 [P&P] LOT 1192; FSA (Farm Security Administration) client with three sons, Caruthersville, Missouri. (1938), Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​ OWI Collection, LC-​USF33-​011602-​M5 [P&P] LOT 1201; Tenant purchase clients at home. Hidalgo County, Texas. (1939) Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection, LC-​USF34-​032010-​D [P&P] LOT 605. 17 Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 8–​10,  62–​63. 18 Dorothea Lange, as quoted in Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime (no ed.; New  York:  Aperture Foundation Inc, 1982), 108. Bracketed amendments appear in the source.

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64  Shaking off the Dust Bowl 19 James Curtis, “Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother and the Culture of the Great Depression,” Winterthur Portfolio 21 no.  1 (Spring 1986), 9–​11, 14, 16, 17; Michael Lesy, “Visual Literacy,” The Journal of American History 94, no.1 (June 2007), 146. 20 Raeburn does caution that FSA photographs were less well known in the 1930s than they are in modern times and that the Historical Section received less press attention than the cultural agencies such as the WPA-​funded art photographers. John Raeburn, A Staggering Revolution:  A Cultural History of Thirties Photography (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 144. 21 Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, 185, 191. 22 Raeburn, A Staggering Revolution, 102–​103; Alan Trachtenberg, “From Image to Story:  Reading the File,” in Documenting America, 1935–​1943, ed. Carl Fleischhauer and Beverly W.  Brannan (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press in association with the Library of Congress, 1988), 46. 23 Raeburn, A Staggering Revolution, 104–​105. 24 P. Dixon, Photographers of the Farm Security Administration:  An Annotated Bibliography, 1930–​1980 (New York: Garland, 1983), 247–​249. 25 Dixon, Photographers of the Farm Security Administration, 233; Trachtenberg, “From Image to Story,” 46. 26 Dixon, Photographers of the Farm Security Administration, 234. 27 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “Inaugural Address,” Washington, DC, March 4, 1933. 28 As quoted by Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 67. 29 Susan Sontag, On Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), 4, 8. 30 Pete Daniel and Sally Stein, “Introduction,” in Official Images:  New Deal Photography, ed. Pete Daniel et  al. (Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987), viii. 31 “Memorandum to Arthur Molella from Pete Daniel, August 28, 1984, Subject: Exhibit Proposal on documentary photography,” “Exhibition Proposal Government-​Sponsored Documentary Photography, 1933–​1941.” Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit:  551, Box:  18/​ 45, Folder:  Documentary Photography of the 1930s. 32 “Remarks by Pete Daniel at Press Breakfast, 6/​30/​87.” From personal papers of Pete Daniel. Accessed August 26, 2007, National Museum of American History, Washington DC. 33 “Letter from Don Moser to Kathy Kuhtz, December 5, 1986.” From personal papers of Pete Daniel. Accessed August 2007, National Museum of American History, Washington DC. 34 “Memorandum to Arthur Molella from Pete Daniel, August 28, 1984, Subject: Exhibit Proposal on documentary photography,” Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit: 551, Box: 18/​45, Folder: Documentary Photography of the 1930s. 35 “Exhibition Proposal Government-​ Sponsored Documentary Photography, 1933–​1941,” Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit: 551, Box: 18/​45, Folder: Documentary Photography of the 1930s. 36 See Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, No Caption Needed:  Iconic Photographs, Public Culture and Liberal Democracy (Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press, 2007); John Louis Lucaites and Robert Harriman, “Visual

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 65 Rhetoric, Photojournalism and Democratic Public Culture,” Rhetoric Review 20 no. 1/​2 (Spring 2001); Martha Rosler, “In, Around, and Afterthoughts (on Documentary Photography),” in The Contest of Meaning, ed. Richard Bolton (Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press, 1989); Sandweiss, “Image and Artifact:  The Photograph as Evidence in the Digital Age,” The Journal of American History 94, no. 1 (2007); Robert Coles, Doing Documentary Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Starr, Endangered Dreams, 250. 37 Hariman and Lucaites, No Caption Needed, 60–​61, 66. 38 Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, 198. 39 Starr, Endangered Dreams, 252. 40 Starr, Endangered Dreams, 252. 41 Lawrence W. Levine, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 283. 42 Trachtenberg, “From Image to Story,” 50. 43 Ben Wisner, Piers Blaike, Terry Cannon, and Ian Davis, At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 2003), 11. 44 Arthur M.  Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Roosevelt Volume II 1933–​1935:  The Coming of the New Deal, rev. edn (Boston: Mariner Books: 2003), 267; Caroline Bird, The Invisible Scar (New  York:  David McKay Company Inc., 1966), 23–​24,  30. 45 See, for example, James T. Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty 1900–​ 1994, 3rd edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 46, 48. 46 Anthony Badger, The New Deal:  The Depression Years 1933–​ 1940 (London: Macmillan, 1989), 243. 47 David M.  Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression:  Freedom From Fear Part One, two-​volume repr. (Oxon: Oxford University Press, 2004), 295–​296; Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, 387–​ 389, 393; Starr, Endangered Dreams; Chapter 4. 48 Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, 393. 49 Arthur M.  Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Roosevelt:  Volume I, 1919–​1933:  The Crisis of the Old Order, rev. edn (Boston: Mariner Books, 2003), 252; Badger, The New Deal, 38, quoting Sherwood Anderson in 1936 (no source), 40 quoting Lorena Hickok in 1933 (no source). 50 As quoted in Bernstein, A Caring Society, 21. 51 Robert S.  McElvaine, The Great Depression:  America 1929–​ 1941, rev. edn (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1993), 177. 52 Kenneth L. Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road: The Homeless in American History (Oxon:  Oxford University Press, 2002), 199, 201; Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal:  Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–​ 1939, 2nd edn (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2008), 249, 265, 270–​272; Badger, The New Deal, 39–​41; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 81. 53 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 199, 201. 54 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 271–​272. 55 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 249, 265, 270–​272. 56 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 149. 57 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 271; Badger, The New Deal, 40. 58 Badger, The New Deal, 40. 59 Race and gender as historical variables will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 3.

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66  Shaking off the Dust Bowl 60 Irving Bernstein, A History of the American Worker 1933–​1941:  Turbulent Years (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1969), 400–​404. 61 For extended discussion on the National Labor Relations Act aka the Wagner Act see Bernstein, Turbulent Years, ­chapter 7 (318–​351). 62 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 300–​304. 63 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 300–​310. For discussion on the attempts to unionise the steel industry, see Bernstein, Turbulent Years, particularly ­chapter 10. 64 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 509, 516–​519; T.H. Watkins, The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression (New  York:  Henry Holt and Company, 1999), 322. 65 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 511. 66 Badger, The New Deal, 124; Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 510–​511; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 308–​309; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 323. 67 Bernstein, The Hungry Years, 525; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 313; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 325. 68 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 502. 69 The “speed-​up” was used across a number of industries, not just automakers. From textiles to meat processing to assembly of goods, any industry using the assembly line made workers vulnerable to the speed-​up. Various techniques were used to counteract it, including exaggerated slowness on the days or times that companies’ inspectors were determining the rate, or simply an across-​the-​board refusal to comply. Lizabeth Cohen notes that amongst workers in Chicago, the slur ‘Phar Lap’ was used to indicate a worker that complied with the speed-​up in the face of others’ refusal. Such an appellation might come as a surprise to Australians, whose folklore casts the racehorse Phar Lap as a Depression-​era workingman’s hero. Cohen, Making a New Deal, 202. 70 Badger, The New Deal, 123–​124; Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 509, 515, 519, 524; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 303, 308–​310; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 287–​294; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 323. 71 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 499–​501. 72 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 499; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 311; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 292–​293. 73 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 499. 74 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 526–​527; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 325–​326. 75 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 527–​528; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 326–​327. 76 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 529–​ 530; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 311; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 294; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 327. 77 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 533–​ 534; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 312; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 294; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 329. 78 Despite being by all appearances pro-​labour, Bernstein noted that Murphy counted amongst his close friends Lawrence Fisher, one of the brothers that headed the Fisher section of GM. Bernstein proposed that Lawrence Fisher did not want his factories stained either literally or figuratively with the blood of his workers. Ford reportedly suffered a public financial backlash against the company’s use of violence in strike-​breaking. Bernstein, The Turbulent Years, 516, 533.

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 67 79 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 534–​535, 541–​549; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 312–​314; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 329–​330. 80 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 541–​550; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 313–​314; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 329–​330. 81 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 550. 82 Badger, The New Deal, 124; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 314; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 294–​295; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 333. 83 Badger, The New Deal, 124; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 295. 84 Michigan History Museum curatorial group interview by author, July 31, 2007, Michigan History Museum, Lansing, Michigan. 85 The Bungalow will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3. 86 “Library, Museum & Archives Facility: Final Concept for Permanent Museum Exhibits,” Exhibition Planning Paperwork, Michigan in the Twentieth Century, Michigan History Museum, accessed on site, July/​ August 2007; Michigan History Museum curatorial group interview. 87 Michigan History Museum curatorial group interview. 88 Michigan History Museum curatorial group interview. 89 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 300. 90 James R.  Green, “Workers, Unions and the Politics of Public History,” The Public Historian 11, no. 4 (Autumn 1989), 15–​18. 91 Laurence F.  Gross, “Problems in Exhibiting Labor in Museums and a Technological Fix,” Technology and Culture 34, no. 2 (April 1993), 392. 92 Matthew W. Roth, “Face Value: Objects of Industry and the Visitor Experience,” The Public Historian 22, no.  3 (Summer 2000), 42; Laurence Gross, “International Trends in Museum Interpretation of Technology and Labor,” International Labor and Working-​Class History 31 (Spring 1987), 101. 93 Curatorial interview by author, August 27, 2007, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC; Michigan History Museum curatorial group interview. 94 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 339. 95 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 522. 96 Michigan History Museum, “The Great Depression,” exhibition panel 3.5 LP16. 97 Mary H. Blewett, “Machines, Workers and Capitalists: The Interpretation of Textile Interpretation in New England Museums,” in Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig (eds), History Museums in the United States: A Critical Assessment (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 266. 98 Blewett, “Machines, Workers and Capitalists,” 262. 99 Blewett, “Machines, Workers and Capitalists,” 285. 100 Michigan History Museum, “The Great Depression,” exhibition panel 3.5 LG2; 3.5 LG3; 3.5LP20/​24. 101 Irving Bernstein, A History of the American Worker 1920–​1933:  The Lean Years (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books Inc., 1970), 359; Studs Terkel, “Florence Reece,” in American Dreams:  Lost and Found (New  York:  The New Press, 2005), 183. 102 Green, “Workers, Unions and the Politics of Public History,” 15. 103 Curatorial interview by author, August 1, 2007, Michigan History Museum, Lansing Michigan. 104 Kevin V. Mulcahy, “Entrepreneurship or Cultural Darwinism? Privatization and American Cultural Patronage,” Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society

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68  Shaking off the Dust Bowl 33, no.  3 (Fall 2003)  168–​169; Smithsonian Institution Office of Policy and Analysis, The Cost and Funding of Exhibitions (Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution, 2002), 9–​12. 105 Michigan History Museum, “Great Depression” exhibition panel 3.5 LP1. 106 Michigan History Museum, “Great Depression” exhibition panel 3.5 ML4. 107 Michigan History Museum, “Great Depression” exhibition panel 3.5 ML4; 3.5 LP37. 108 Curatorial interview by author, August 1, 2007, Michigan History Museum, Lansing, Michigan. 109 For further discussion on public history and controversy in the United States, Canada, and Australia, Edward T. Linenthal and Tom Engelhardt (eds), History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles for the American Past (New York: Holt Paperbacks,1996); Douglas Greenberg, “ ‘History is a Luxury’: Mrs Thatcher, Mr Disney, and (Public) History,” Reviews in American History 26, no. 1 (1998) 294–​311; Graham Carr, “Rules of Engagement: Public History and the Dramas of Legitimation,” The Canadian Historical Review 86, no. 2 (2005) 317–​354; Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark, The History Wars (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2004); Matthew Trinca, “Museums and the History Wars,” History Australia 1, no. 1 (December 2003) 85–​97. 110 See Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams:  The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) especially c­ hapter 4: “Bayonets on the Embarcadero,” 84–​120. 111 Carey McWilliams, Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California (originally 1935, reprinted n. l: Archon Books, 1969); for a history of the development of Agribusiness, see especially McWilliams, Factories in the Field, 11–​65. California historian Kevin Starr estimates that by 1930, 33 per cent of all “large-​scale” farming in the United States occurred in California and by 1935, 25 per cent of the state’s farmland was held by only 2 per cent of the population. Starr, Endangered Dreams, 63. 112 Starr, Endangered Dreams, 63–​65, 223–​229. 113 Don Mitchell, “Work, struggle, death, and geographies of justice:  the transformation of landscape in and beyond California’s Imperial Valley,” Landscape Research 32, no. 5 (October 2007), 567, citing P. Martin, Promise Unfulfilled: Unions, Immigration, and the Farm Workers (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003) n.p. 114 Mitchell, “Work, Struggle, Death, and Geographies of Justice,” 567–​568, citing National Advisory Council on Migrant Health, Losing Ground: The Condition of Farmworkers in America (Bethesda, MD: Department of Health and Human Services, 1995), n.p. 115 The Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of California, The WPA Guide to California (New  York:  Pantheon Books, 1984; originally New York: Hastings House, 1939), 441. 116 McWilliams, Factories in the Field,  7–​8. 117 Federal Writers Project, The WPA Guide to California, 387. 118 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 293. 119 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 293 120 Jackson J.  Benson and Anne Loftis, “John Steinbeck and Farm Labor Unionization: The Background of ‘In Dubious Battle’,” American Literature 52, no. 2 (May 1980), 198–​200, 202.

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Shaking off the Dust Bowl 69 121 Marci Lingo, “Forbidden Fruit: The banning of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in the Kern County Free Library,” Libraries & Culture 38, no. 4 (Fall 2003), 351–​377; Dean E.  Murphy, “Steinbeck, At Last, Welcomed Home,” New  York Times, April 18, 2004. 122 In comparison with the Michigan History Museum, the National Steinbeck Center was less forthcoming with regards to researcher access. While the Michigan History Museum allowed curatorial interviews and provided archival paperwork from their exhibitions development, the National Steinbeck Center did not reply at all to multiple overtures. As such all analysis of this institution is purely from a visitor’s perspective and consideration of secondary literature. 123 Morris Dickstein, “Steinbeck and the Great Depression,” South Atlantic Quarterly 103, no.  1 (2004), 119:  Benson and Loftis, “John Steinbeck and Farm Labor Unionization,” 208–​209, 222. 124 Dickstein, “Steinbeck and the Great Depression,” 116. 125 Dickstein, “Steinbeck and the Great Depression,”118. 126 McWilliams was a leftist reformer and the more conservative Glassford had been chief of police during the violent Bonus Army eviction. 127 Museum panel, National Steinbeck Center, Salinas, California, visited by the author, September 21, 2007. 128 Benson and Loftis, “John Steinbeck and Farm Labor Unionization,” 196–​197. 129 Dickstein, “Steinbeck and the Great Depression,” 128. 130 John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: The Viking Press Inc., 1937; London: Penguin Classics, 2000. All citations refer to Penguin Classics Edition), 312, as quoted in Dickstein, “Steinbeck and the Great Depression,” 128. 131 Starr, Endangered Dreams, 232, 251–​252. 132 Dickstein, “Steinbeck and the Great Depression,” 124. Starr, Endangered Dreams, 250. 133 Starr, Endangered Dreams, 94–​95, 100–​101. 134 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 322. 135 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 263–​264. 136 Benson and Loftis, “John Steinbeck and Farm Labor Unionization,” 209–​210. 137 Benson and Loftis, “John Steinbeck and Farm Labor Unionization,” 207, quoting labour organiser Caroline Decker. 138 Murphy, “Steinbeck, At Last, Welcomed Home,” n.p. 139 John C. Stickler, “A Literary Legacy: The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas,” Museum International 51 no.  3 (1999), 46; Victor W.  Geraci, “National Steinbeck Center Museum,” The Public Historian 28, no.  4 (Autumn 2006), 118; Murphy, “Steinbeck, At Last, Welcomed Home,” n.p. 140 Geraci, “National Steinbeck Center Museum,” 118–​119, 120. 141 Murphy, “Steinbeck, At Last, Welcomed Home,” n.p. 142 Stickler, “A Literary Legacy,” 46; Murphy, “Steinbeck, At Last, Welcomed Home,” n.p. 143 Eudora Welty, as quoted on a panel in the exhibition Eudora Welty in New York: Photographs of the Early 1930s, Museum of City of New  York, November 7, 2008 through February 16, 2009. Viewed by the author, January 7, 2009. Partially reprinted in Karen Rosenberg, “Portraits Taken by the Writer as a Young Woman (in Hard Times),” New York Times, January 8, 2009.

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3  Belonging Interpretations of home, homelessness, and neighbourhoods

A first glance, it was just a back porch, not even a whole house. A whole house was unlikely to fit into this narrow, curved gallery, one of several that make up the historical interpretation in the Museum of Vancouver, so the visitor must make do with just a porch. This section of the exhibition interpreted the 1930s and this installation represented a fairly typical British Columbian working-​class house, echoing the hundreds that backed onto Vancouver’s alleyways in the interwar years. Slightly to the right was a case on the development of the ‘British Properties’ the well-​to-​do neighbourhood developed in West Vancouver by the Guinness Family in the same period. In front of the porch was the reconstruction of a ‘Hobo Jungle,’ or shantytown.1 At one side, a panel described the experience of Asian-​Canadians; allowed less access to governmental support, they often had to rely solely on their own neighbourhood benevolent associations. Finally, crucially, balanced on the railing there sat a plate with a sandwich, a reference to the practice in which sympathetic residents, particularly women, provided a form of private relief. Transients going house-​to-​house seeking work would be told to ‘come to the back,’ where they would be given a few chores and something to eat.2 The interpretation was contained and constrained, but it was a powerfully effective museological interpretation of Great Depression homelessness: the interplay of need and belonging, expressions of empathy, the provision of relief, and race and class as variables in historical experience. The use of a house, or in this case part of a house, as the set for explorations of Depression-​era experiences placed the Vancouver museum within an ongoing cultural and philosophical tradition that dates back to the 1930s. Housing, and its absence, has consistently played a major role in attempts to categorise, frame, and deconstruct the Great Depression. In his second inaugural address, Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed that he still saw “one-​third of a nation ill-​housed, ill-​clad, ill-​nourished.”3 His declaration later gave title to a Federal Theatre Project Living Newspaper, on the poor state of urban housing. From the White House to the West Coast, as Americans tried to understand the crisis of the Great Depression, as they tried to conceptualise it in human terms, they again and again returned to the issue of housing instability. In the pages of novels and across movie

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Interpretations of home 71 screens, house, and home –​be they the Joad’s empty and doomed farmhouse, Scarlet O’Hara’s rock of Tara, or the tenements of the Dead End Kids  –​ were recurring metaphors for the uncertainties felt, and comforts sought, by Americans negotiating the crisis.4 A quintessential example can be found in the farmyard scene between a tenant farmer and a bulldozer driver in an early chapter of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. The impending destruction of the farmhouse at the behest of some unknown authority, and filtered through a chain of subordinates, quintessentially captures the period’s relationship between house, vulnerability, and confusion.5 In modern interpretations, the shantytowns, what became known as the ‘Hoovervilles,’ are the urban landscape for imaginings of the most sharply affected by economic vulnerability. The threat of loss of home is equally evocative in the narratives of those who were not rendered homeless but feared that they might be. The use of domestic space to interpret the Great Depression in museums draws on these traditions, with one major qualification. The use of housing is recurring motif across a range of exhibitions and heritage sites, including, for example, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Greenbelt House Museum, and an installation at the Michigan History Museum. However, museum interpretation of homelessness is notable in its absence. The porch and accompanying Hobo Jungle at the Museum of Vancouver are anomalies, not because they interpret 1930s homelessness effectively but, rather, because they interpret it at all. The survey of exhibitions that lies at the heart of this study produced almost no correlation of Vancouver’s interpretation within the United States. Though the imagery of the Hooverville permeates a range of American cultural expressions, homelessness, especially urban homelessness, remains notably absent as a focal point in American museum exhibitions on the experience of the Great Depression. The interpretation of refuge, its presence or absence during the Great Depression is indicative of the museological approach to public narratives, not only of deprivation but also of community. Place is not incidental or simply contextual but becomes central to the way the narratives are read. In a number of cases, the physical spaces that are used in these interpretations also incorporate the surroundings of any given dwellings. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, as its title implies, positions itself specifically in New York’s Lower East Side, an area with particular importance to the construct of the immigrant-​American. The Greenbelt House Museum draws its narrative from the creation of Greenbelt, Maryland, a bedroom community on the outskirts of the nation’s capital. Based on the garden-​city model, Greenbelt was one of three towns that were constructed from scratch during the New Deal.6 Several installations within the museums similarly created a de facto sense of in-​situ history by using the exteriors of houses. These served to expand the scope of period rooms to interpretations of neighbourhood as well as of home. These explorations of community lie at the heart of the connections between interpretations of the Great Depression and contemporary museum interpretation of marginalisation.

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72  Interpretations of home UNESCO’s 2016 report on the relationship between culture and urban sustainability, Culture Urban Future, proposes that museums contribute to the larger civic project by “representing multicultural societies and giving minorities space within national narratives.”7 If, as the report suggests, cities rely on their cultural institutions such as museums to enable integration through narrative, then it is vital to consider how, and how well, this is actually being achieved. The homeless of the 1930s provide a potent case study for the challenges of integrative museology without some of the political baggage that surrounds contemporary subgroups experiencing vulnerability and marginalisation. The 1930s homeless were a group that had been forced by circumstances away from their homes as well as, in many cases, the communities with which they had the strongest ties. They were Americans, and in that measure should fall within the boundaries of community inclusion. Nevertheless, their economic status, their visible dispossession, and prejudices based on social-​geographic differences within the United States served to heighten their experience of exclusion and associated vulnerability. Examining the interpretation of this select group allows an assessment of the forces at play in museum-​based cultural and civic inclusion in order to draw some conclusions about the realities of this goal. This chapter begins with a discussion of the use of domestic space in museums in general, and then provides some background to the individual case studies of housing interpretation. It provides an evaluation of the recurring themes across these institutions and draws some initial conclusions as to the public narrative of vulnerability within domestic spaces. Then, not unlike the crisis itself, the discussion takes the house away and examines the problems of trying to interpret the myriad experiences of homelessness through a medium reliant on representative objects and narratives. Finally, it considers the challenge of spectacle, and concerns amongst curators and institutions as to the ways in which interpretations of marginalised groups can be construed as dehumanising and exclusionary, ultimately creating rather than reducing divisions.

Using domestic space to interpret the Great Depression The use of housing as a synecdoche for a variety of societal strengths and weaknesses was common practice within twentieth-​ century American public discourse. Social historian Gwendolyn Wright argues in Building the Dream that in the early twentieth century, and particularly during the period following World War I, the home became the venue for a number of negotiations around issues of stability, independence, and control, pushing the private sphere into public focus.8 In Middletown, pioneer sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd came to several conclusions about the role of the home in 1924. They found that while the automobile had superseded the garden as an ostentatious declaration of disposable income and of “one’s belonging,” and further, that the car had led to greater use of external venues for leisure,

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Interpretations of home 73 home ownership was still highly valued. In addition, the Lynds observe that, “[t]‌here is a deep-​rooted sentiment in Middletown that homeownership is a mark of independence, of respectability of belonging...”9 The multi-​faceted role of the house and home in the 1920s, particularly their symbolic roles, then became aspects in the vulnerability that grew exponentially as the Great Depression took hold. In 1930, 150,000 homes were lost to repossession; in 1931, 200,000; in 1932, 250,000.10 At the time of Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, the foreclosure rate was approximately 1000 a month.11 Simultaneously, the lack of new mortgages and thus new housing starts had a devastating effect on the construction industry, which accounted for one-​ third of the unemployed.12 If the house is a symbol of belonging to a community, then the loss of home represented a separation from shelter and, significantly, those markers of communal identity. The representations of housing discussed in this chapter may be seen to break into two categories. The Bungalow in the Michigan History Museum can be categorised as a period room. The Greenbelt Museum and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum are house museums, also referred to as historic houses, a specific type of museum that relies, at least in part, on the fact that it is in situ for its interpretive authority. These modalities are, and perhaps always have been, interrelated. Private collecting and display served to ‘museumise’ the houses of the well-​to-​do, while museums domesticised displays of applied art, placing them in period rooms so as to exemplify their use.13 In interacting with these traditions, however, the Bungalow installation in Michigan bears closer resemblance to a house museum than to traditional period rooms. While it is a reconstruction, confined within a larger institution and theoretically free of the rigid space constraints faced by house museums, the interpretative focus is not the same as most period rooms. Period rooms have typically been concerned with the preservation of a particular artistic or architectural style. And while there are elements of that preservation within the Bungalow (as there are in many house museums), the overwhelming communication goals are those associated with a social history approach, and the lives of the imagined residents rather than their interaction with the dominant style of the day. Attempts towards a working definition and intellectual model of modern house museums/​historic houses have been ongoing since a 1997 conference in Genoa, Le Dimore Storiche-​museo (Inhabiting History: Historical House Museums) and the subsequent creation of the International Committee for Historic Houses by ICOM in 1998.14 One of the most useful definitions is perhaps also the simplest, courtesy of Linda Young, who suggests that a house museum is, “a dwelling, museumised and presented as a dwelling.”15 While this evokes an allusion to stage heroines of Shakespeare in which a boy pretended to be a girl pretending to be a boy, the definition rightly encompasses a breadth of sites with shared functionality and interpretive approach including workhouses, jails, convents, and orphanages.16 Beyond

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74  Interpretations of home mere definitions and classifications, however, is a growing exploration of what interpretation within these settings entails. Particular attention has been paid to the impact of the domestic space in the interrelated understanding of objects and narratives on affective, intellectual, and physical levels. Both Pinna and Pavoni comment on the powerful way in which house museums evoke historical experience, with Pavoni asserting that: The house museum … captures the conversational and educational qualities of museums and also the communicative, cognitive and emotional connotation of the house.17 One of the challenges in interpreting the New Deal in museums is that so much of the relevant information is embedded in government policy and the recollections of Roosevelt Administration officials. Finding a way to contextualise those ideas in relatable space and familiar experience becomes an essential element to keeping audiences engaged. House Museums, as Linda Young argues, shrink the national identity and the national story.18 The values, expectations, customs, and practices of national identity are reframed so that they no longer require the corridors of power to render them transparent, now they will fit in the backyard or the bedroom; as with any other domestic product they become portable, consumable, known. The interpretive advantage of a house museum is that it provides, if not an entirely familiar space, then certainly a recognisable one.19 The result, as Risnicoff de Gorgas suggests, is “an intimate link between collective memory and personal memory,” an idea reinforced by Young in positioning the house museum as the intersection between the national story and the individual.20 When history is presented in these chameleon-​esque spaces, audiences demonstrate a tendency to accept that history as more “real.”21 Such acceptance has both positive and negative ramifications; on the upside, the perception of authenticity often leads to greater audience engagement. But, as Pavoni cautions, that audience may use fewer critical “filters” when considering the information presented in a house museum.22

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum Conceived in part as the historic home of the immigrant-​American, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum has had a long and multi-​faceted relationship to the Great Depression, though perhaps one that is not immediately apparent. 97 Orchard Street was vacated in 1935. The newly created New York Housing Authority required safety upgrades, such as fireproofing, that the owners deemed too expensive. The upper residential floors were closed, and the unaffected shop fronts were retained as the sole source of income from the building.23 In this way it might be said that the Great Depression helped create the museum. The closure turned the residential spaces into a “virtual time capsule,” which lay largely undisturbed for

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Interpretations of home 75 decades. In 1988, Ruth Abram rented space in the property for a museum dedicated to encouraging tolerance towards minority groups and discovered the building’s hidden potential.24 The original interpretation plan entailed fictional stories that described typical, though not actual, families. A  change in focus occurred when Josephine Baldizzi Esposito, whose family had been amongst the last residents in 1935, encountered the developing museum. After Esposito shared her family’s story, the decision was made to seek out information on other former residents and use actual rather than fictionalised history.25 The Baldizzi apartment, decorated according to Mrs Espositio’s recollections, and the Gumpertz apartment became part of the first guided tours in 1994.26 Shown together in what is called the Getting By tour, the two apartments juxtaposed the stories of the 1873 Depression, as experienced by the Gumpertz family, with that of the 1930s. Within the Baldizzi apartment, the tour focused only on the front two rooms, the living room and the kitchen. The front room was arranged as it would have looked just before the family moved out in 1935. The bed had already been dismantled, but amongst the personal possessions were small hints at the New Deal; a picture of FDR hung on the wall next to the bureau. In the window, flowers sat in window boxes made of the crates in which relief foodstuffs were delivered. In the kitchen, the guide pointed out the improvements over the 1897 Gumpertz apartment, examined in the first half of the tour. By 1935, there was internal running water, a sink and a bathtub that when covered did double duty as a counter, a gas stove, a gas meter for heating, electricity, and linoleum, “the covering of choice” for its affordability, cleanliness, and durability. Last but not least was the ubiquitous radio, in this case a small shelf model sitting next to the kitchen table.27 These improvements were linked to the passing of housing laws at the turn of the century illustrating the day-​to-​day impact of legislation. Also discussed was the change in attitudes to immigrants, and the onset of scientific racism through eugenics in the 1920s. The guide’s voice was supplemented and enhanced by a recording of the late Josephine Baldizzi Esposito. As visitors listened, like neighbours gathered before a wireless broadcast, Mrs Esposito recalled her mother’s emphasis on cleanliness and a weekend treat of fried egg on a roll with butter and ketchup.28 The presence of Josephine’s voice served to repopulate the building. 97 Orchard Street, with its peeling wallpaper and seemingly abandoned possessions, potentially had the air of a ghost ship –​the Mary Celeste come to rest.29 The voice of a resident, not of an actor, recalling the simple events that occurred day-​to-​day in the building, breathed absent life back into the site and its interpretation. The Lower East Side is a neighbourhood that is steeped in, and viewed through, the nineteenth-​century foundation myths of a settler society.30 The Tenement Museum actively drew that sense of significance into its interpretation, effectively illustrating Young’s suggestion of the national story

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76  Interpretations of home compacted to domestic dimensions. Ruth Abram, the museum’s founder, states that, “for a nation of immigrants there is no single site more significant than the tenement” and draws allusions to an “urban log cabin.”31 Alfred Kazin similarly waxes lyrical: I miss all those ratty little wooden tenements, born with the smell of damp in which there grew up how many schoolteachers, city accountants, rabbis, cancer specialists, functionaries of the revolution, and strong-​arm men for Murder, Inc.32 Abram and Kazin’s statements reflect the nostalgia about the Lower East Side (particularly amongst those who were raised elsewhere) that emerged in the late 1930s.33 Murder, Inc. and cancer specialists aside, the tenements did produce Robert Wagner. Wagner, the United States senator, and sponsor of the Wagner-​Steagall Act on housing reform, spent an immigrant’s childhood in the Lower East Side and East Harlem. His memories of the district are less romantic than Kazin’s, and draw an instructive link between domestic space and understandings of vulnerability: I lived among the people of the tenements. Unless you have lived among these people, you cannot know the haunting sense of insecurity which hangs over the home of a worker.34 The Tenement Museum captured the notion that one did not need to be at the very knifepoint of the crisis to experience the emotional tolls of vulnerability. Though housed, the residents of 97 Orchard St would have been amongst New York’s least privileged. Various renovations were carried out as housing reform laws were passed so that by 1935 the building had electricity, and indoor plumbing in the form of kitchen taps and a shared hallway toilet. Even so, the building still would have been cold in winter, dark in the interior hallways, and the indoor toilets were shared amongst several families. Within the specific dressing of the Baldizzi apartment, subtle elements continued to speak to the insecurity that coloured daily life. For example, the toolbox that Mr. Baldizzi carried as he walked the streets looking for work brought the financial crisis directly into the domestic sphere. In the tenements, the uncertainty of money for rent and therefore the insecurity of shelter meant that the house never fully became a refuge. This stands in contrast to the understandings of the house in the Michigan History Museum and the Greenbelt House Museum, discussed subsequently. The Greenbelt House Museum If the Lower East Side Tenement House Museum had an accidental relationship with the Great Depression, the creation of Greenbelt House Museum was a considerably more direct example of cause and effect. Without the

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Interpretations of home 77 New Deal the town of Greenbelt, and thus the museum, would simply not exist. The greenbelt towns were constructed by the Resettlement Administration led by Rexford Tugwell, a former Columbia University academic, and a member of Roosevelt’s group of advisors nicknamed the ‘Brains Trust.’35 The Resettlement Administration’s primary brief was rural relief through the provision of loans, education, and, when required and feasible, moving farmers onto more arable land.36 However, in embarking on the greenbelt town projects the agency also dipped its toe in the waters of urban housing relief.37 The proponents of greenbelt projects argued that they served the immediate and the long-​term goals of the Roosevelt administration. In the first instance, the projects would put members of the building trade, amongst the worst hit by the Depression, back to work. Second, they would create communities, away from the urban slums, designed around utopian ideas of town planning and economic cooperation.38 The plans for the greenbelt towns were influenced by the English garden town movement and, closer to home, by the communities planned by Clarence Stein:  Sunnyside in Long Island, and Radburn, which was built by the City Housing Commission in New Jersey in the late 1920s.39 These communities incorporated shared green spaces, semi-​private yards, and systems of walkways and underpasses to allow pedestrians, especially children, to remain away from automobile traffic.40 But Greenbelt was more than just an experiment in the layout of urban planning; it was intended to be an experiment in Cooperatism.41 The Cooperative movement had already been used, to some degree, in the provision of housing in and around New  York City, for example, the Bronx Coops.42 The housing in Greenbelt, Maryland was organised around a series of courts, themselves organised into five larger blocks that formed the basis for neighbourhood activities and grassroots governance.43 The town centre had a community pool, a cinema, the central school, and a cooperative grocery and drugstore. Despite concerns that agency head Rexford Tugwell’s vision veered dangerously close to socialism, and complaints from the surrounding residents of Prince George County that the government was dropping undesirables on their doorstep, construction began in 1936.44 The first families moved into Greenbelt, Maryland in September 1937.45 The selection of the families might today be called social engineering. This was not merely a case of rehousing those most in need, but of selecting those who would best fit the goals of a cooperative community. The first 885 units available to rent attracted 5,700 applicants sorted through review and interview.46 In order to qualify, a family had to be white, headed by someone no younger than 21 years of age, of “modest income” (an adjustment from the original “low income”) and of a family size of no more than six, a factor dictated by the small size of the units.47 An interview determined whether there was a genuine desire to participate in the envisioned community life.48 In her history of the town, Cathy D. Knepper noted that the interviewers

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78  Interpretations of home were also charged with ensuring that while genuinely in need for secure and adequate housing, the applicants themselves had a level of economic stability. The result was that while Greenbelt answered a housing need, it was a specific need for a specific group of applicants. Most of the households’ wage earners were low-​level white-​collar workers such as clerks, draftsmen, and postal workers who commuted to jobs in the District of Columbia.49 The idea for a Greenbelt museum was first suggested by a letter to the editor of the town’s paper, the News Review, in 1972 but it was 1977 before serious discussion by the Greenbelt Historical Society began.50 Since its inception in 1968, the Greenbelt Historical Society had been intent on preserving the unique aspects of Greenbelt’s origins and organisation. But by the late 1970s, this mission may have taken on an increasing sense of necessity. Greenbelt was in a state of flux. The defining demographics had changed a number of times, notably with the construction of defence worker housing during World War II, and again when the government sold the town to the housing cooperative in the early 1950s.51 As the town moved into its fourth and then fifth decade, many of the original families who had been so active in community organisation were beginning to move away.52 The newcomers, drawn by affordable housing and proximity to the Washington Beltway, appeared less interested in the town-​meeting style of democracy and activism that had characterised the town since its inception.53 A Washington Post article from 1981 that interviewed some of the long-​term residents hints at their desire for preservation: Living in one of the town’s simple wood frame, brick or block row houses is no longer a political act, of course, and as new generations of families arrive, many with little sense of the town’s origins, there is a sense that the qualities that made Greenbelt so special must not be allowed to perish.54 In 1977, after the Greenbelt Historical Society agreed to create a museum, some original furniture was donated but plans for the museum seemed to go no further until 1985, when, spurred on by the approaching fiftieth anniversary of the town, real planning began to take place. In 1986, the town purchased back 10-​B Crescent Road from the cooperative and the museum opened in 1987.55 The Greenbelt House Museum opened only on Sundays and a guide walked visitors through the two-​storey semi-​detached house, usually after they watched a short introductory video. The tour focused both on the actual building and contents and on the residents themselves. For example, the make-​up of the community was discussed, that it was integrated by religion but not by colour, and that the residents came from the top half of the socio-​economic bottom third of the population.56 Laundry could not be hung after 4.00 pm or on Sundays because, the guide explained, to do so might draw parallels to the tenements. Young people were preferred as they

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Interpretations of home 79 were seen as more malleable to social engineering and the tour asserted that the birth rate in Greenbelt was triple the average.57 The Bungalow, Michigan History Museum Within the larger chronological exhibition, Michigan in the Twentieth Century, the Michigan History Museum interpreted the Great Depression in a number of ways including a juxtaposition of public and private relief efforts and an examination of the Flint Sit-​ Down Strike (discussed in Chapter 2). Those sections, at least in part, entailed large national stories. The everyday lives of the people of Michigan during the Great Depression were interpreted within the rooms of a recreated bungalow, its front porch and garage. The furnishings and objects within the Bungalow were reflective of common experiences of the 1930s, including a radio set, and examples of the Depression-​era glass given away by movie theatres across the country as a promotional drawcard.58 Museum visitors entered via the front porch and stepped through into the living room. Here the emphasis was on the embodiment of home as refuge and as a venue for leisure and communication.59 Key to this room, as with many exhibition installations of home, was the radio. Few, if any, living space interpretations of the 1930s omit this essential artefact. Via an interactive panel, visitors could play excerpts from a range of radio programmes, most of which had a Michigan connection, such as speeches by the Detroit-​ based Father Coughlin. Beyond the living room, the bedroom and dining room were visible behind glass. The Bungalow was based on an affordable mail-​order form of American housing that was prevalent in the interwar period.60 Essentially kit-​homes, companies such as Montgomery Ward or the Michigan-​ based Aladdin Company delivered everything from timber framing to the kitchen sink.61 This particular installation echoed an actual house; the childhood home of the donor who provided three-​quarters of the furniture found within. Its inclusion was two-​fold. Michigan firms were active in the bungalow business and so it interpreted local economic activity, a recurring theme through the Michigan History Museum galleries. More importantly, the ubiquitous nature of this housing style lent itself well to an exploration of the home-​life of the majority of Americans, those who were neither speculating on the stock market at the time of the Wall Street crash, nor reduced to a Hooverville by its effects. These citizens were nevertheless vulnerable to potential effects of the crisis and thus experienced the fears associated with the possibilities of either bankruptcy or homelessness.

1930s homes and understandings of vulnerability Whether situated as a refuge, or a site of exposure, domestic space is an apropos mechanism for developing a nuanced understanding of Great

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80  Interpretations of home Depression narratives. Lawrence Levine recognised the value of the living room in his essay “The Historian and the Icon,” in which he urged colleagues to consider domestic spaces as one of the venues through which to broaden the discourse beyond the iconic images of FDR and the breadlines.62 In transmitting interactions with vulnerability during the 1930s, the living room proves to be similarly propitious. The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Greenbelt House Museum, and the Bungalow at the Michigan History Museum each capture a degree of vulnerability as experienced by working-​class and middle-​class Americans. Though there is no expectation that audiences will view all three locations as a set, the exhibitions nevertheless sit on a spectrum. At one extreme, the Tenement Museum interprets the most vulnerable amongst those who still had at least semi-​permanent shelter. Mr. Baldizzi was in unreliable and sometimes absent employment. The family had moved into 97 Orchard Street to escape debts elsewhere on the Lower East Side, and were forced out as an effect of new legislation on substandard housing.63 Had the members of the family been engaged in more secure work, or been able to afford housing that was not targeted by anti-​slum legislation, their domestic setting would have been more secure. Thus though they did not succumb to homelessness the family are indicative of the pronounced socio-​economic vulnerabilities and instabilities that the 1930s engendered. The Greenbelt House represented those who, while exposed to the brunt of the crisis, were not as vulnerable as the residents of 97 Orchard Street. As explained by the interpretive guides, the selection criteria for Greenbelt’s residents drew from a cohort who faced substandard and insecure housing. Thus prior to selection they faced many of the same instabilities as the Baldizzis, with one key difference. All Greenbelt households had to have a wage-​earner employed with a degree of stability. In walking the streets of New York with his toolbox in hand, Mr. Baldizzi would not have qualified for a house in Resettlement Administration’s Maryland town. Finally, there are the imagined residents of the Bungalow. The house suggests a level of security, or resilience. However, the interpretation available via the radio installation allowed for a more nuanced narrative, particularly the inclusion of an excerpt of Father Coughlin’s popular and populist radio show. When Coughlin took over as parish priest of the Church of St Therese of the Little Flower of Jesus in 1926, the church was situated in Royal Oak, a predominantly Catholic, lower-​middle-​class neighbourhood of Detroit, Michigan. The majority of households were led by auto workers who, prior to the 1929 Wall Street Crash, had begun to share in the socio-​economic promise of the American Dream. Many of these men continued to work during the Depression as, even with the slowdowns, the automotive plants did not grind to an absolute halt. They were, however, the same groups that later spoke of being gripped by the fear and uncertainty as lay-​offs and forced job-​sharing became increasingly the norm.64 Meanwhile, Coughlin

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Interpretations of home 81 was not content to be merely a parish priest. He saw himself as a visionary and sought to expand the range of those who might lend an ear. In October 1926, he began broadcasting on a local Detroit station. Over the next three years, his popularity grew exponentially. Starting in 1930, CBS broadcast his sermons nationwide. Coughlin now had a coast-​to-​coast pulpit through which to attack Hoover’s mismanagement of the crisis, and argue against the gold standard. He reserved the bulk of his vitriol, however, for anti-​ Semitic rants against the imagined conspiracy of Jewish bankers whom he maintained lay at the root of all problems for the average struggling Americans.65 By using media to position the Bungalow as the home of people who might listen to (though not necessarily agree with) Coughlin, the interpretation acknowledged the vulnerability and the anxieties of the semi-​employed industrial workers. Their emotional response to the Great Depression, born not from immediate suffering but rather from the grinding pressures of what might transpire, was shared by large swaths of the population, in all corners of the nation. These anxieties, in turn, led Americans to seek out figures like Coughlin, Huey Long, and eventually FDR in a quest for reassurance and relief. The locations vary, the interpretive strategies shift, but each of these museumised homes tells a narrative of the vulnerability of its specific residential group. Thus, whether by intention or design, they create a repetitive pattern that uses domestic space not to debate the absence or presence of vulnerability, but to explore degrees and expressions of the ever-​present vulnerability of the Depression era. The exhibitions also contained commentary, at times subtle, at times overt, on the characterisations of vulnerable and marginalised populations, as well as the degree to which economic stability is perceived as a creating a different system of values. In the audio component of the Tenement Museum, Josephine Baldizzi described her mother’s emphasis on the cleanliness of the household. The perceived tolerance of filth, was, in the 1930s, a judgement held up against those living in poverty. As raised in Chapter 2, Erskine Caldwell’s popular novel Tobacco Road (1932) positioned the Southern poor as filthy and amoral, and hinted at widespread intellectual disability. You Have Seen Their Faces (1937), Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-​White’s collaborative work, reinforced the stereotypes offered up in Tobacco Road, adding a visual language to further extend the damning characterisations. A popular photo-​book during the 1930s, You Have Seen Their Faces emphasised the physical deformities of the Southern poor, the filth on their clothes and in their run-​down homes. The presence of dirt, far from being understood as an almost unavoidable effect of substandard housing, was instead used as an indicator of moral turpitude.66 In a similar vein the popular publication Look magazine, while seemingly sympathetic, had a tendency to sensationalise those suffering from poverty in its articles.67 As an example, press historian Cara A. Finnegan cites the March 1937 issue,

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82  Interpretations of home in which an article on agricultural tenancy is sandwiched between articles on marriage practices in Zululand and Myrna Loy. The tenant farmers are cast as just one more story from a strange and distant land; the implication is that be they from Africa, Oklahoma, or Hollywood, these people are not like ordinary, mainstream Americans. Moreover, most of the photographs that accompanied the articles emphasised large families and dirty children. The subheading for the May 1937 article, “Caravans of Hunger,” was “For Their Children FILTH and FLIES.”68 Only after Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath gained popularity did Look begin to print articles that portrayed the Dust Bowl migrants as industrious and clean, though the large families and dirty children did not entirely disappear.69 When the FSA photographers began to construct sympathetic images of vulnerable populations, part of that construction involved an emphasis on cleanliness. As discussed in Chapter 2, Russell Lee’s pictures of sharecroppers’ families showed the children in clean clothes, with neatly combed hair, washing their hands or eating at cleanly scrubbed tables.70 Dorothea Lange appeared to have been conscious of the stereotypes of the poor as filthy in framing Migrant Mother as piles of laundry and other detritus visible in earlier shots are framed out in subsequent pictures as their very presence may have lessened middle-​class sympathy.71 In discussing her subjects, Lange once stated: Their roots were all torn out. The only background they had was a background of utter poverty. It’s very hard to photograph a proud man against a background like that, because it doesn’t show what he’s proud about. I had to get my camera to register the things about those people that were more important than how poor they were –​their pride, their strength, their spirit.72 The Tenement Museum did not mention either You Have Seen Their Faces or Migrant Mother but it did give visitors the voice of Josephine Baldizzi Esposito, a child of the 1930s. As a child she would have been surrounded by a visual and cultural discourse that said that the poor are dirty. The message she recorded for posterity provided a subtle but emphatic counter-​narrative. It asserted that these stereotypes did not apply to her family, whatever other characteristics they may have shared with those families pictured in Look, and in Bourke-​White and Caldwell’s work. Yes, the Baldizzis might have been economically vulnerable, yes they lived in a tenement, but her mother would not tolerate filth. Thus, she becomes the echo, the verbalisation of the message sent by Lee and Lange through their images. By consciously negating the trope, by raising it, even through negation, she illustrates the power and influence wielded by the pejorative characterisations of the economically vulnerable. A similar moment occurred at the Greenbelt House Museum when the guide pointed out the built-​in picture rails on the wall, noting that their inclusion speaks against the misconception that only the wealthy like art.73

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Interpretations of home 83 The egalitarian nature of American culture and the concerns of the ‘common man’ as a subject for artistic interpretation were two of the core ideas within the New Deal arts projects (discussed in more detail in Chapter 4).74 Elsewhere in Greenbelt, the products of these arts projects can be seen in large scale, particularly on civic buildings. But within the house museum, the philosophy of the project was shrunk to the simplest of expressions, a picture rail that assumed the inhabitants of the house, the vulnerable populations rehoused away from the slums, would want to hang art; that they would hold the same values as their middle-​class and upper-​class counterparts. The notion of imagined, and at times actual, communities contributed a significant component to the interpretation provided by these houses and installations. As raised previously, the Tenement Museum was understood and framed specifically within the Lower East Side’s ongoing history as the place of initial residence for immigrants to America  –​a role it continues to fulfil. While the Greenbelt House Museum no longer housed a resident, its location amidst a functioning residential community contextualised the contents of the museum in a manner rare in most house museums. Walking through the town of Greenbelt, one still sees references to, and remnants of, the New Deal, from the original movie theatre and coop to the Federal Art Project sculpture and the reliefs on the side of the original school building, now the community centre. But the town is not a living history park, trapped forever in the bubble of an imagined past. Greenbelt continues to evolve and adapt. The combination of museum and community in Greenbelt prevents the New Deal from being isolated in the mid-​twentieth century, in this case drawing a line forwards to the present. Such an arrangement encourages a consideration of philosophical as well as physical legacies; which ideas have been retained from the Roosevelt era and which have been put aside. Even within space that is clearly a museum and not a house, reconstructions of rooms or domestic spaces can be employed to achieve a similar sense of familiar space as a point of access. Visitors to the Bungalow stepped up onto the front porch, where a panel identified it as a key space for interaction with neighbours and discussion of the vital issues of the day from politics to war to the auto industry. Immediately the museum audience was drawn beyond the single physical home into an imagined neighbourhood that stretched out amongst the glass cases of the rest of the exhibition. The house became located –​perhaps not as firmly as the Greenbelt House or the Tenement Museum, but without the benefit of an authentic geography,  the next-​best thing was achieved. The introduction of this chapter described the porch and Hobo Jungle contained within historical exhibition at the Museum of Vancouver. The back porch, a familiar structure on many homes in that region to this day, then added the element of the sandwich, a symbol of the specific experiences of the 1930s, creating a sense of identification and a collapse of temporal distinction. The panel on the Asian community within Vancouver broadened the discussion to concepts of who belonged and who did not. During the 1930s in Canada, as elsewhere in the

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84  Interpretations of home Western world, white transients were brought up onto the porch when even well-​heeled Asians might not be. Thus the museum engaged with not one but two confronting historical ideas: the raw vulnerability of homelessness in demonstrating the gulf between those who had shelter and those who did not, and the realities of racism and the ways in which designation of insider and outsider impacted on the experiences of Great Depression poverty, an idea to which this discussion will return shortly. The porch, as a bridge between public and private space, becomes significant in contemplating the ways in which the Museum of Vancouver and the Michigan History Museum framed the relationship between home and vulnerability. Both museums provided interpretation of back-​yard relief. In Vancouver the experience was unpacked materially through the sandwich on the porch. In Michigan, this interpretation was not part of the Bungalow installation but instead found in a case on private charity, elsewhere in the exhibition. There, the museum shared Maria Volakakis’ memories of her mother feeding the transient men who came to the back door seeking yard or repair work.75 The Michigan History Museum did not shy away from a domestic setting as the venue of interaction with victims of the crisis. However, by placing this interaction in the context of charity, rather than in direct physical reference to the household, they shifted not so much the discussion of public generosity and empathy, but the understanding of the 1930s home. The Michigan History Museum positioned the home, at least in part, as a refuge, more so than in Vancouver, where the house was –​literally and figuratively –​more exposed to the crisis. Importantly, not only is the concept home reconfigured, the imagined role of the museum visitor is shifted. In Michigan, the visitor was as a neighbour or a guest, stepping up to the front door. In the Canadian museum, the visitor traced the footsteps of a transient come in need. Both institutions used the porch effectively, but to tell quite different stories of community. In Lansing, it was the story of inclusion and of belonging to the neighbourhood. In Vancouver, the tale was more focused on exclusion and the experience of the outsider. These installations do forego the immediate power afforded a house museum:  that of the authenticity achieved by preserving the households of actual people. The inhabitants of these reconstructed houses, and their visitors, existed only in an imaginative consensus between visitor and institution. The museum visitor is asked to adapt the community relationships from their own lives to a situational construct offered up by the museum. As museums scholar Andrea Witcomb argues, such constructions, what she terms the “sensory turn” in museology, can be an effective tool in the interpretation of vulnerability. The sensory, she suggests, “provides a space to engage in building historical imagination and empathy for the situation of others.”76 One of the challenges in illuminating the lived experience of the 1930s is conveying the chasm that existed (and continues to exist) between those who knew that they had reliable shelter and those who did

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Interpretations of home 85 not. Arguably, by exploring homelessness in an immersive three-​dimensional space that echoes that of house museums, there is the potential to provide a visceral interpretation through referencing the very thing that is lost: ongoing domestic space. The Museum of Vancouver succeeded in engaging with the experience of homelessness in a museological context by placing the visitor in the pathways of the most acute victims of the Great Depression and allowing audiences to gain insight from these physical interactions. Thus, the Vancouver porch recreation presented a convincing example of house museum strategies adapted for effective interpretation of those who had no houses. However, in many ways the physicality of homelessness is the least of the challenges museums face whilst attempting to interpret these experiences. Far greater obstacles are to be found in concerns surrounding invisibility, objectification, and spectacle, and it is in considering those aspects that curatorial struggles become the most revelatory.

The invisible Other Modern exhibitions are a medium of omission, of selecting the representative image, object, or narrative, rather than a process of encyclopaedic inclusion. In that sense the choice of one narrative rather than another is not in itself noteworthy. However, what amounts to a museoglogical absence of the particular narrative of Great Depression homelessness is significant. The homeless, as Kenneth L. Kusmer argues, are intrinsic to the visualisation of the Great Depression.77 They shuffle through the breadlines and Bowery streets of Reginald Marsh’s etchings. They peer in perpetuity from behind the dirty windscreens of old jalopies in the photographs taken by Dorothea Lange and Ben Shahn for the Farm Security Administration. The Hoovervilles and their residents were, and continue to function as, a synecdoche for the myriad experiences associated with the 1930s financial and social crisis. Given the prevalence of the topic of homelessness in academic discourse and in wider cultural interpretation of the period, one might expect the Vancouver back porch to be the rule rather than the exception. However, in most museums, it seems that the climactic moment of housing instability, that of actual loss and its subsequent aftermath, is considered in only glancing fashion, if at all. If the focus is further limited to urban rather than rural homelessness, the instances become even more rare, and just a handful of examples emerge. The Michigan History Museum positioned the soup kettle from a Capuchin Brothers soup kitchen as one of the key objects in their interpretation of the 1930s.78 In 2009 the California Historical Society staged an art exhibition, comparing homelessness in the 1930s and in the new millennium, entitled Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present.79 In the mid-​2000s, the Oakland Museum of California displayed a painting of the ‘Pipe City,’ a shantytown created from unused sewer pipes. The Oakland Museum’s 2017 exhibition on the works of Dorothea Lange included one of M.L. Cohen’s

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86  Interpretations of home photographs of a man taking shelter in one of the pipes, as well as an actual pipe of a similar size, stuffed with a mattress. The permanent exhibitions at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), which opened in 2012, included Hoovervilles in the section on the Great Depression. The list is short, and when held in comparison to other aspects of life during the Great Depression, the interpretation of homelessness remains sparse at best. If understood only as museological practice, this dearth still represents a disjuncture from the academic historiography, as well as other cultural representations, two common sources of exhibition material. Additionally, it omits a crucial aspect of how Americans in the 1930s understood the crisis. But there are larger implications linked to the role museums play within cities and societies. In this context, in which museums can be understood as reflecting and creating public discussion, the absence of interpretation of homelessness raises questions about the inclusion of marginalised citizens into historical discourses, and from there into larger societal conversations. Those in need during the Great Depression were a diverse group encompassing a range of origins, classes, genders, ages, and races, as well as length of time spent deprived of reliable shelter. Attempts to characterise and define the Great Depression poor have proved as problematic for modern historians and sociologists as they were for reformers in the 1930s. One common designation during the Depression era was to label those in need as either the ‘old’ or the ‘new’ poor. Nels Anderson, a ‘Chicago School’ sociologist, was one of the first to conduct studies on American homelessness. In 1940, he distinguished the transient new poor from migratory workers of the 1920s primarily through the presence or absence of choice. The new poor had not sought out the open road but rather had been left with no other option. Anderson compared them to those in “penal servitude”: always hoping for a change of luck that would see them resettled and reintegrated into society.80 More recently, however, and with greater hindsight, Elaine Abelson has suggested that the appellation of ‘new poor’ was a coded term that absorbed class and racial prejudices. When the Depression-​ era press and reform journals spoke of the new poor, they were referring to those who were white and of middle-​class origins.81 As argued elsewhere within this volume, a suggestion that the 1930s removed judgements about the deserving and undeserving poor overlooks expectations placed on the vulnerable that in order to elicit sympathy, they needed to present an air of stoicism and resilience. Abelson’s observations further problematise the distinctions made about poverty subgroups. Her works suggests that rather than a general removal of stigmatisation, in reality only those whose race and class matched that of relief workers were free from judgement. Meanwhile, the old poor, those who had been destitute before 1929 and would still be so after 1939, continued to be tainted by their circumstances while simultaneously facing less recourse as the lengthening economic crisis stretched the resources of relief.82 Finally, beyond recognising the delineations between chronic and

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Interpretations of home 87 acquired poverty and the attendant labels, a concrete definition of homelessness is, itself, elusive. The line between sheltered and homeless is a faint one and the presence of shelter does not guarantee stability or security. Those who resided in cheap residential hotels were not in the strictest sense homeless, but they were, in most cases, living lives of extreme vulnerability, instability, and the social isolation associated with the lack of a home and a family.83 Even in exhibitions that engage with the deprivation experienced during the Great Depression, capturing the full impact of varying identity and experience within this continues to be the exception rather than the rule. The inclusion of racial diversity is increasingly standard in current museum practice, and rightfully so. But it is less common to see interpretation that moves beyond inclusion to explicitly recognise identity –​be it race, gender, religion, ethnicity, or sexuality  –​as a variable that significantly alters historical experience. Certainly, the exhibition in Michigan included oral testimony of African-​Americans’ experiences of racism in the 1930s, particularly with regards to service in eateries and hotels. The Vancouver exhibition took this a step further by demonstrating how racism, as experienced by Asian-​Canadians, had the power to directly impact the processes of relief and therefore the experiences of Depression-​era poverty and homelessness. Similarly, the Greenbelt House Museum, acknowledged that it was in no way accidental that not a single African-​American family was considered for inclusion in the planned community.84 Alice O’Connor argues that the 1930s understandings of poverty reflected a conscious stratification and segregation of those deemed to be in need into hierarchies of acceptability. The policies enacted in America in response to crisis were similarly informed by processes of categorisation and compartmentalisation.85 In addition to racial and ethnic delineations, geography, and prejudices based in longstanding cultural differences along geographic lines, also came to the fore during the Great Depression. The Tobacco Road stereotypes followed many of the migrants from South and the Dust Bowl westward into California, contributing to prejudices against them on their arrival.86 It is interpretations of these systematic implications of racial and other identity-​based discrimination that are the next crucial step in effective interpretation of marginalisation. Within each distinction and prejudice the issue of gender sits alongside, present but often ignored. Though museums have consciously worked to become more inclusive of women, there remains the tendency to treat the experience of men as the universal. As a result, arguably even more so than distinctions based in race, women’s experiences of homelessness are illustrative of the ways in which narratives of subgroups and minorities become lost. In addition to the double burden of hunger and cold shared by most Depression-​ era transients, homeless women faced greater threats of sexual violence than their male counterparts.87 Their situation was further exacerbated by a pervasive perception throughout the crisis that women

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88  Interpretations of home remained part of family units, regardless of the significant numbers of women for whom this was not the case.88 The emotional vulnerability and loneliness experienced by women during the Depression was also exacerbated by relief practices. Between 1933 and 1935, the Federal Transient Service provided shelter for roughly 1  million of those unable to find housing.89 Agency protocols dictated that while some women were provided accommodation with the YWCA, most were housed in privately rented rooms, rather than the large shelters used for men.90 A social worker at the time argued that this approach was necessary, if more expensive, as women did not engage in the “easy give and take with any type of human being which men learn at an early age.”91 While the reluctance to put women in shelters led to greater privacy in the immediate sense, it could also serve to exacerbate a sense of isolation and to inhibit the development of networks of mutual support amongst homeless women –​an important sustaining factor for their male counterparts.92 Women also tended to be ignored by the researchers at the time; Nels Anderson’s work on the homeless deals almost exclusively with men, and similar studies of homeless shelters in Buffalo in 1935 and Chicago in 1936 focused solely on the male experience.93 In an article for the New Masses in 1932, Meridel LaSeur commented on the invisibility of homeless women. It is one of the great mysteries of the city [of Minneapolis] where women go when they are out of work and hungry. There are not many women in the breadline. There are no flophouses for women as there are for men, where a bed can be had for a quarter or less. You don’t see women lying on the floor at the mission in their free flops … Yet there must be as many women out of jobs and suffering extreme poverty as there are men. What happens to them? Where do they go?94 Great Depression homelessness was an inherently gendered experience. However, while women are present in the interpretation of the Depression, few, if any, exhibitions explicitly demonstrate an understanding that women experienced the Depression differently than men, that their experience of both poverty and relief departed from that of male homelessness. Even when women are present, the distinctiveness of their experience remains obscured. Through this omission audiences lose access to the specific experiences of women, but of even greater significance is that they lose any sense of multiple narratives running in parallel lines. Instead, a process of collapse occurs whereby difference becomes muted and absorbed into a singular voice. In examining the public history of immigration, Gareth Hoskins warns that: …when framed for contemporary consumption [interpretation of immigration history] can easily flatten out variegated historical experience of travel into a gender-​neutral and de-​racialized universal celebration of

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Interpretations of home 89 the state’s external desirability. What we risk with these kinds of formats is the erasure of difference in the very attempt to acknowledge it.95 James Gardner, former president of the National Council on Public History, made a similar observation in an address in 2004, warning against allowing difference “to be plastered over by an idealized story of shared values and goals.”96 The risk of homogenisation that Hoskins and Gardner identify is one of the great challenges in the interpretation of marginalisation. Even if the desire for a representation of shared values is set aside, difference, as a characteristic, resists a common recurring narrative; difference fails to provide a single representative object. Thus, it chafes against the techniques used by curators and museums to combat the limitations of space, funding, and visitor attention. Interpretation of 1930s homes included recurring motifs or objects, such as radios, even while allowing for some diversity of experience. In contrast, the broad and often hidden experiences of homelessness, such as those of female transients, are much harder to compress into commonalities. An exhibition specifically on homelessness would certainly allow for a range of disparate narratives. However, if the goal is to incorporate the experiences of homelessness into, for example, a larger examination of American history, if it is to acknowledge marginalisation as one of many experiences within a society, rather than exceptional circumstances occurring only at the fringes, the presence and degree of variation becomes yet another barricade to inclusion within a museum context. The means through which to incorporate the experience of marginalisation into interpretations of broader societal experience remain elusive, and it is this quandary that lifts the museological omission of 1930s homelessness beyond the specific case study. UNESCO suggests that one of the major challenges of urban community building is: How to define a collective “we” in ways that cherish both plural identities and the shared identity of common citizenship. How to foster the attitudinal changes that are required among “us” as well as “them”?97 The answer, UNESCO suggests, lies in cultural assets such as museums, which can be used to foster social inclusion and to “recognize and celebrate the city’s unique identity whose characteristics have been shaped by all who live in it.”98 While this is a best-​case scenario, the historical narrative of 1930s homelessness in museums reveals that establishing the duality of a pluralist yet common identity by means of a museum exhibition is less simple than it may first appear. In trying to bring these varied identities to the fore, museums do not act in isolation, but negotiate a complex cultural environment of perceptions and stereotypes that shift and change in response to larger events, crises, and political movements.

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Shifting cultural representations of homelessness Present-​day homelessness is understood through a lens constructed from a range of cultural and socio-​political representations. In discussing these framings, Gerrard and Farrugia assert that, “the development of a social understanding of homelessness is as much constituted by the act of representation, as it is the ‘actual’ experience of homelessness.”99 Attempts to exhibit an historical experience of American homelessness within this framework serve to place museums within a long and unsettled discourse  –​one that often seems to regard transient populations with equal parts envy and contempt.100 In establishing distinctions within the language surrounding homelessness, Nels Anderson designates the “hobo” as a transient worker, as opposed to a “tramp” or a “bum,” each of whom he labelled as non-​workers, respectively transient and stationary.101 He equates the hobo with the cowboy and other frontier workers, a quintessentially American institution that travelled to where “there was a labor market need for him.”102 But Anderson also notes that while mobility was initially an asset to the developing American economy, as fixed-​location industries such as mining and manufacturing took over from the building of railroads and the ranging of cattle, a more stable workforce was required.103 Though agriculture still relied on seasonal mobile labour, other industries such as steel and textile mills courted a workforce that resided near the plants and utilised various ‘carrot-​and-​stick’ methods to ensure worker loyalty.104 From the end of the American Civil War through World War II, the view of the homeless, particularly the transient homeless, went through a number of permutations. In the Reconstruction period, gangs of travelling homeless men were regarded with suspicion and fear. Seen as rejecting society’s restrictions and their masculine responsibility to support a family, these men were perceived as perpetrators of violent crime and political insurrection.105 The latter was particularly true after ‘Coxey’s Army,’ a mass of unemployed men, travelled across the country in 1894, often riding the rails, to demand (unsuccessfully) that the federal government find a way to put them back to work.106 At this time, some influential writers began to try to reconstruct the image of the homeless man, repainting him as the victim of larger forces and not so distant from the average working man. William Dean Howell, editor of The Atlantic, and Stephen Crane, now best known as author of The Red Badge of Courage, both emphasised the inherent vulnerability faced not only by working men, but also by large swaths of the middle class should misfortune befall the wage-​earner in a society that had no social safety net.107 Despite these commonalities, while the working class had strong sympathies for the vagaries of fate and its victims, the fin-​de-​siècle middle class still had a tendency to associate homelessness with idleness.108 In response, a number of writers such as Josiah Flynt (sometimes Josiah Flynt Willard) and Walter

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Interpretations of home 91 Wyckoff donned the clothes of the hobo and travelled with the transient workers to try and gain a sense of the hardships of their lives. As with many progressives, they were not entirely able to eschew prejudice, nor a tendency for moralising, but their work did go some way to creating a clearer and more sympathetic picture of the disenfranchisement of those they studied.109 In contrast, President Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt campaigned by equally decrying tramps and millionaires, and claiming all were of lower moral character through their idleness.110 Meanwhile, many actually within the middle class appeared vaguely envious of the homeless tramp, encouraged in this by Jack London and others who promised a romanticised version of life on the open road.111 These imaginings, combined with the stock vaudeville character of the tramp, lent themselves to a framing of homelessness that engendered less hostility, but also less awareness of the true brutal reality of life without a home.112 The improvement of photographic printing and reproduction in the early twentieth century added another layer to the representation of the homeless and the uses of those representations.113 As discussed previously, the visual narrative, particularly of those driven off the land in the Dust Bowl, took on two distinct competing narratives, one of robust and resilient pioneers, the other of feeble degenerates.114 Even Hollywood broached the subject to some degree. In Preston Sturges’ self-​reflective 1941 film Sullivan’s Travels, fictional film director John Sullivan informs his butler that his next film will focus on poverty. The response of the manservant is less than enthusiastic, and he informs his employer that, “the poor understand poverty and only the most morbid amongst the rich will find it entertaining.”115 Just as Shakespeare’s fools often provide the wisest commentary, Sturges’ butler manages to summarise the ongoing concern of those who recognise a story untold, have the capacity to reach a wide audience, while being keenly aware of the implications of getting the telling so very wrong.

The challenge of interpreting the Other Fears of Othering and “further objectification” of their subjects remain an undercurrent of concern amongst those curators interpreting traumatised, oppressed, or deprived populations.116 When asked in interview about the interpretation of poverty, at least one curator drew a direct connection to dark tourism and expressed misgivings as to the possibility of emphasising the strangeness of those experiencing poverty.117 Gerrard and Farrugia argue that the general contemporary discourse on homelessness is not simply one constructed through visual or narrative representation, but also through the regular encounters with the homeless on the streets of major cities. These encounters are framed in an environment of spectacle in which displays of capital and normative consumption exist alongside the Other.118 Such constructions invoke comparisons to the grand expositions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and

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92  Interpretations of home the juxtaposition of the industry of Western nations with the ethnographic villages of supposedly primitive populations.119 As the contemporary discourse of homelessness is one that, intentionally or otherwise, takes its visual language from the side-​show, curators’ caution is understandable. In this light, even shantytown mock-​ups, such as the one found in the Museum of Vancouver, run the risk of becoming latter-​day anthropological fascinations rather than inclusive interpretations of historical experience. Perhaps it is in response to this Othering discourse that, amongst the few exhibitions that do explore Depression-​era homelessness, there can be a tendency to emphasise assertions of normalcy within the experience of lack of shelter. Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) exhibition included a photograph of the “unofficial mayor of Seattle’s Hooverville, [discussing] a neighborhood improvement project with … another resident” and the original sign from the Hooverville’s post office.120 In a similar vein, a 2007 Australian exhibition on the Great Depression made specific mention of the use of curtains within shantytown shacks.121 On a positive note, curtains, neighbourhood improvement projects, post offices, and mayors do, to some extent, fly in the face of a common perception of poverty, identified by historian Mark Peel, that positions the poor as weak and in need of improvement by superiors.122 Furthermore, these inclusions echoed Nels Anderson in separating the shantytown residents from the romantic characterisations of the hobo. By highlighting the rituals of home and neighbourhood even within the shantytowns, it became clear that these were not populations who had rejected societal structure for the lure of the open road. They sought to re-​enter established norms and, until that became possible, they made do with close imitation. Taken in this context, the exhibitions appeared to be providing a positive interpretation. This was particularly the case in the MOHAI exhibition, which highlighted the adoption and adaptation of organisational models. The notion of a Hooverville as a neighbourhood complete with a mayor and post office invoked a Main Street imagery that was almost Capra-​esque. It was deceptive imagery, one that provided a comforting vision of homelessness. In doing so it simultaneously omitted hunger, cold, fear, and particularly violence. The Hooverville in Seattle was burnt to the ground, not once but twice, in attempt to force those living there to relocate elsewhere.123 Such acts of intimidation create a very different motivation for the appointment of leadership and the development of organisations. Peel also notes that discussions of poverty are uncomfortable to those not actually suffering from economic deprivation, as such discussions challenge a national narrative of justice or egalitarianism.124 One must ask, therefore, which understandings of homelessness these assertions of normalcy truly challenge. Are middle-​or upper-​class audiences unable to see themselves in a vulnerable population without the familiar reference points of drapery and postmarks?125 Or is it, in fact, that such audiences crave reassurance that the paradigm of stoic resilience remains intact, and that not only will the

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Interpretations of home 93 poor make the best of their lot, they will regard any attempt at assistance as insulting. For as Peel argues, “if sympathetic stories captured bravery and stoicism, few captured the real challenge of the injustices they described.” He further argued that such depictions often obscured an understanding of poverty as a socio-​economic condition with causal factors, and that, “even those stories that refused to see it as self-​inflicted still tended to imply that poverty was inevitable.”126 While the sense of normalisation, stoicism, and a vulnerable population made palatable is more pronounced, more visible, in the limited interpretations of homelessness, it is far from absent within interpretation of the housing of vulnerable populations. In an article, “Using the Past to Shape the Future,” Ruth Abram, the Tenement Museum’s founder, discusses her view that: I thought it might be interesting to introduce Americans with ‘long roots’ to their family members before they had become ‘acceptable’, when they first arrived in the United States and did not know the language or the customs of their adopted land.127 It is worth asking, though, what happens to the stories of those who never become “acceptable,” those amongst vulnerable populations who did not demonstrate what Gwendolyn Wright termed “conspicuous upward mobility”?128 Within a settler society, the ongoing story of immigration is at the core of foundation narratives. But such placement does create the need for characters that are sympathetic. The stories that were told in the Tenement Museum during Abram’s tenure were of the immigrant who moves on from the Lower East Side to the outer boroughs, or beyond to New Jersey and Long Island.129 While the Baldizzi family moved to 97 Orchard Street to avoid other arrears, neither they, nor their identified neighbours, descended to the Hoovervilles. On the contrary, by 1939 the Baldizzis were living in Brooklyn.130 Nor did the Baldizzis engage in the criminal activities that, along with fears of disease, drove much of the call for housing reform on the Lower East Side until the 1940s.131 There is no point of intersection, for example, between the families interpreted in the Tenement Museum and those in William Wyler’s 1937 film Dead End, which linked crime and the difficulty of life in the tenements.132 True, Wyler’s work is fiction, and the stories in the Tenement Museum are well-​researched history. But perhaps at times, museums work so hard at contradicting the fiction that they lose touch with the kernels of truth that spawned the stories in the first place. Citing Charlotte Smith, Linda Young argues that a form of transformation occurs in the turning the dwellings of marginalised groups into house museums, such that through the process of being selected for interpretation, the residents become singled out and perceived as special. These museums, Young argues, “though premised on presenting the history of the marginal, do so by covertly promoting them to heroic, but vernacular, status.”

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94  Interpretations of home The problem, as Young articulates it, is that, “the house museum trope of furnished settings subverts alternative meanings that interpreters might intend.”133 Just as the FSA created a visual language of the internal Dust Bowl migrants that framed them as the stoic inheritors of the pioneering spirit, the housing interpretation of the immigrant populations who passed through the Lower East Side similarly emphasised their resilience without exploring the darker turns that survival might necessitate. Thus, those who are vulnerable are not understood on their own terms, or within the context of their actions as provoked by that vulnerability. Rather they are framed as a nascent stage of a more fully formed citizen to come.

Chapter conclusions In interpreting the relationship between vulnerability and shelter during the Great Depression, museums have largely inverted the common approach. While many cultural products, particularly (though not exclusively) film and television, have focused on homelessness and the Hoovervilles, museums have repeatedly located interpretation of the 1930s within domestic space. They have made use of the interpretive advantages provided by house museums and period room reconstructions. Within these spaces, the large national story of decade-​long socio-​economic crisis is compressed to a radio set, a scrubbed floor, a picture rail, a sandwich on the back porch. It is personal, and relatable, and in that all the more evocative. To some extent this socio-​psycho proximity seems to facilitate interpretation. Established interpretive techniques can be adapted to interpretation of the homeless. As the Vancouver porch demonstrated, house museums/​ installations that use the familiarity of domestic space to explore historical experiences can also be used to speak to the loss of housing. In working with these inter-​related discourses of housing vulnerability and homelessness, museums also illuminate them; they shine light onto their existence and their complexities. That said, incorporating the experiences of the truly marginalised into museum interpretations of broader historical narratives such that they stand alongside more familiar events and historical players is far from straightforward. To do so requires pushing at the boundaries of the exhibition medium and its reliance on familiar tropes. Incorporating the homeless into exhibitions risks echoing the worst of the existing cultural stereotypes positioning them as freaks, of reinforcing traditions of spectacle. Finding a single representative line risks a strategy that, as Hoskins and Gardner warn, compresses experiences differentiated by gender or race, with the attendant loss of the commentary those distinctions reveal. Incorporating the full multiplicity of voices risks overwhelming the visitor by providing little more than a cacophony of competing ideas while still alienating those not included. The exhibition at the MOHAI in Seattle crafted a 1930s homeless person that looked most like the museum visitor, living in constructed neighbourhoods

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Interpretations of home 95 with post offices and civic officials. At the same time, in telling that narrative, the museum omitted the chapters in which those living in the Hooverville were understood to be so different from the ordinary citizen that attempts were made to burn them out. The housed-​but-​marginalised amongst the Depression-​era populations are similarly frequently interpreted through the characteristics they share with those who were less vulnerable. The representation and interpretation of the Other, in their myriad forms, remains a central point in considering the interpretation of vulnerability in exhibitions on the 1930s Depression. One of the most challenging ideas surrounding the Great Depression is the degree to which the distance between the Other and ourselves is collapsed. Those who were not immigrants, were not people of colour, were not of minority religions, who in previous eras had not been poor, all the usual precursors for ostracism or estrangement, found themselves confronting insecurity in their housing, in their livelihoods, in their day-​to-​day existence. The popular narrative of the Depression is fond of making reference to PhDs digging ditches. These new poor were far from the only victims of the crisis of the Great Depression, but perhaps they are the ones that bear the closest resemblance to museum audiences. Certainly they bear close relation to many museum curators. Here, then, is an understanding of difference that is relatively narrow in scope, but which nevertheless remains remarkably difficult to fully translate into a museum narrative. If museums are not able to incorporate an historical marginalised population into the collective story, questions must be raised as to the ways similar challenges could inhibit the ability of these institutions, however great their desire may be, to facilitate contemporary cultural integration and act as the instigators of pluralist urban environments.

Notes 1 ‘Hobo Jungle’ was common parlance in Canada. In the United States it was also in frequent use before the term ‘Hooverville,’ with its associated critique of those in power, became dominant. 2 Pierre Berton, The Great Depression 1920–​1939 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1990), 147, 152. 3 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Second Inaugural Address,” Washington, DC, January 20, 1937. 4 John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: The Viking Press Inc., 1937; London: Penguin Classics, 2000. All citations refer to Penguin Classics edition); Gone With the Wind (1939, Victor Fleming Selznick International Pictures/​Metro-​ Goldwyn-​Mayer); Dead End (1937, William Wyler, United Artists). 5 Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, 37–​ 41, cited in Lawrence W.  Levine, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 210. 6 The two other examples are Greendale, Wisconsin and Greenhills, Ohio. 7 UNESCO, Culture Urban Future:  Global Report on Culture for Sustainable Urban Development, 2016, 153.

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96  Interpretations of home 8 Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream:  A Social History of Housing in America, First MIT paperback edition (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1983), 155–​157. 9 Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd, Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929), 95, 103. 10 David M.  Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression:  Freedom from Fear Part One, two-​volume repr. (Oxon: Oxford University Press, 2004), 163; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt Volume II 1933–​1935: The Coming of the New Deal, rev. edn (Boston: Mariner Books, 2003), 297. 11 William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932–​1940 (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), 53; Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, 297; Anthony Badger, FDR:  The First 100 Days (New  York:  Hill and Wang, 2008), 3. 12 Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, 297; Wright, Building the Dream, 220. 13 Rosanna Pavoni, “Towards a Definition and a Typology of Historic House Museums,” Museum International 53, no. 2 (2001), 16; Charles Saumarez Smith credits the Germanisches Museum in Nuremberg with starting the trend, though he offers no specific time frame. Charles Saumarez Smith, “Museums, Artefacts, and Meanings,” in The New Museology, ed. Peter Vergo (London:  Reaktion Books, 1989), 15. 14 Pavoni, “Towards a Definition and a Typology of Historic House Museums,” 16–​21; Giovanni Pinna, “Introduction to Historic House Museums,” Museum International 53, no.  2 (2001), 4; Linda Young, “Is there a Museum in the House? Historic Houses as a Species of Museum,” Museum Management and Curatorship 22, no.  1 (March 2007), 62–​63; Magaly Cabral, “Exhibiting and Communicating History and Society in Historic House Museums,” Museum International 53, no.  2 (2001), 41; Mónica Risnicoff de Gorgas, “Reality as Illusion, the Historic Houses that Become Museums,” Museum International 53, no. 2 (2001), 10. 15 Young, “Is there a Museum in the House? Historic Houses as a Species of Museum,” 60; also Linda Young, Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom:  A History (Lanham, MD:  Rowan & Littlefield, 2017), 14. 16 Young, “Is there a Museum in the House? Historic Houses as a Species of Museum,” 60; Young, Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom, 14. 17 Pinna, “Introduction to Historic House Museums,” 4, 7; Pavoni, “Towards a Definition and a Typology of Historic House Museums,” 16. 18 Young, Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom, 7. 19 Pavoni, “Towards a Definition and a Typology of Historic House Museums,” 16, 19; Young, “Is There a Museum in the House? Historic Houses as a Species of Museum,” 75. 20 Rinsicoff de Gorgas, “Reality as Illusion, the Historic Houses that Become Museums,” 10; Young, Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom, 7. 21 Rinsicoff de Gorgas, “Reality as Illusion, the Historic Houses that Become Museums,” 10; Pavoni, “Towards a Definition and a Typology of Historic House Museums,” 19. 22 Pavoni, “Towards a Definition and a Typology of Historic House Museums,” 19.

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Interpretations of home 97 23 Stuart Miller, A Tenement Story:  The History of 97 Orchard Street and The Lower East Side Tenement Museum (New  York:  Lower East Side Tenement Museum, 2008), 13–​14. 24 Miller, A Tenement Story, 9–​12, 14. 25 Miller, A Tenement Story, 7, 9. 26 Miller, A Tenement Story, 9, 17. Access to the building is only through guided tour. The description reflects the tour as taken in January 2008. 27 Lower East Side Tenement Museum, “Getting By” tour. 28 Lower East Side Tenement Museum, “Getting By” tour. 29 Lisa Junkin Lopez observes that the “mausoleum” effect is a common shortcoming in house museums. Lisa Junkin Lopez, “Open House: Reimagining the Historic House Museum,” The Public Historian 37, no. 2 (May 2015), 8–​10. 30 Max Page, The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 1900–​1940 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999), 100–​101. 31 Miller, A Tenement Story, 11. 32 Alfred Kazin, A Walker in the City (New  York:  Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1946, reprinted 1979), 12–​13, as quoted in Page, The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 108; one might wonder about the true ratio between oncologists and “standover” men for Murder, Inc. who actually had their place of birth in Lower East Side tenements. 33 Page, The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 108. 34 Robert Wagner as quoted in Irving Bernstein, A History of the American Worker 1920–​1933: The Lean Years (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books Inc., 1970 edn), 263. 35 Anthony Badger, The New Deal:  The Depression Years 1933–​1940 (London: Macmillan, 1989), 61–​62. The Resettlement Administration was the precursor to the Farm Security Administration (FSA). 36 Badger, The New Deal, 148, 181, 185. 37 Cathy D.  Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland:  A Living Legacy of the New Deal (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) 14; Badger, The New Deal, 240. 38 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 14–​15; Wright, Building the Dream, 220. 39 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 15–​18; Wright Building the Dream, 205–​207. 40 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 15; Wright, Building the Dream, 207. 41 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 19. 42 Wright, Building the Dream, 199. 43 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 18. 44 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 23, 28, 25. 45 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 35. 46 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland,  31–​32. 47 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 32. 48 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland,  33–​34. 49 Greenbelt House Museum Tour, taken by the author, August 26, 2007. 50 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 194. 51 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 65, 67, 91. 52 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 223. 53 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 223; Sara Rimer, “Greenbelt: U.S. Dream Town,” The Washington Post, Tuesday, June 30, 1981, B1, B9. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 376, Box ½, Folder: FDR Themes: The ‘30s.

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98  Interpretations of home 4 Rimer, “Greenbelt: U.S. Dream Town,” B9. 5 55 Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 194–​198. The House Museum is one of two museums in Greenbelt. The other is in the former Central School, which since 1996 has functioned as a community centre. Photographs of the New Deal Era, often tagged with quotes from residents of the day, line the hallways of the centre, and there is also a small, one-​room display space that stages exhibitions themed around the Great Depression, the New Deal, and World War II. 56 Greenbelt House Museum Tour. 57 Greenbelt House Museum Tour. 58 Movie-​theatre glass and china are underrated as icons of the era. Their presence in interpretations of Depression-​era homes is almost as ubiquitous as the radio set. Not only did the Michigan History Museum have a large collection, the Greenbelt House Museum had so many pieces that the excess was tucked into closets. The glass giveaways were important enough in the 1930s to be challenged under fair-​trade legislation in the courts. They also appear in nostalgic cultural representations of the era, such as A Christmas Story. In the film, movie theatre patrons (including the main character’s mother) are provoked to a near-​riot when handed yet another gravy boat. Robert Sklar, Movie-​made America: A Cultural History of American Movies, rev edn (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 169; A Christmas Story (1983, Bob Clark, Metro Goldwyn Mayer). 59 Michigan History Museum, “The Great Depression” exhibition, panels:  3.8 ML1, 3.8 M.L 3, 3.8 ML4, 3.8 LP10, 3.8 LP11. 60 For more on this type of residential building, see Richard Harris, “The Talk of the Town: Kit Manufacturers Negotiate the Building Industry, 1905–​1929,” Journal of Urban History 36, no. 6 (November 2010), 868–​896. 61 David E.  Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States 1920–​1940:  How Americans Lived Through the “Roaring Twenties” and the Great Depression, rev. edn (Chicago:  Ivan R.  Dee, 2004), 58–​59, 61; Michigan History Museum, “The Great Depression” exhibition, panel: 3.8 LP1. 62 Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 280. 63 Miller, A Tenement Story, 50–​ 51; Linda Granfield, 97 Orchard Street, New  York:  Stories of Immigrant Life (New  York:  Lower East Side Tenement Museum/​Tundra Books, 2001), 47–​48. 64 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 228–​230. 65 Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 228–​230. 66 James T. Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty 1900–​1994 (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1994, 3rd edn), 46; Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 241–​242; Morris Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression (New  York:  W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 96–​98. There has been resounding criticism of the exploitive nature and distorting angles of the images in You Have Seen Their Faces both from their contemporaries, particularly Walker Evans, and from later analysts such as William Stott and Paula Rabinowitz. Rabinowitz goes so far as to designate Agee and Walker’s Now Let Us Praise Famous Men “morally superior.” Paula Rabinowitz, “Margaret Bourke-​ White’s Red Coat; or Slumming it in the Thirties,” in Looking for America: The Visual Production of A  Nation and People, ed. Ardis Cameron (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 162–​163. Kevin Starr, however, declares that the Southern poor are used “shamelessly” by Caldwell and Bourke-​White, and by Evans and Agee. Starr argues that, though Evans “had the most integrity of all

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Interpretations of home 99 of them,” his decision to omit an image of the Burroughs/​Gudger family looking clean and tidy in their Sunday best continues to frame them as the stereotypical “poor white trash.” Starr, Endangered Dreams, 254. 67 Cara A.  Finnegan, Picturing Poverty:  Print Culture and FSA Photographs (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2003), 197–​198. 68 Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, 189, 198. 69 Finnegan, Picturing Poverty, 204–​209. 70 See Russell Lee, Children of Negro tenant farmer eating lunch. Lunch consisted of bread and flour gravy. Wagoner County, Oklahoma. (1939). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​ OWI Collection. LC-​ USF34-​ 033625-​D; and Russell Lee, Southeast Missouri Farms. Son of sharecropper washing hands. (1938). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​OWI Collection LC-​USF34-​ 031213-​D. 71 James C. Curtis, “Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother and the Culture of the Great Depression,” Winterthur Portfolio 21, no.1 (Spring 1986), 9, 13. 72 Dorothea Lange, as quoted in Mark Durden, Dorothea Lange 55 (London: Phaidon, 2001), 60. 73 Greenbelt House Tour. 74 Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 420–​422. 75 Michigan History Museum, “The Great Depression” exhibition, panel:  3.6.1 LA5-​7. Volakakis’ memory reinforces a point raised by both Schlesinger and Kusmer that, prior to the New Deal, much of the burden of support of those in need fell to a part of the population that had next to nothing themselves. Arthur M.Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Roosevelt:  Volume I, 1919–​ 1933:The Crisis of the Old Order, rev. edn (Boston: Mariner Books, 2003), 172; Kenneth L.  Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road:  The Homeless in American History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 201. 76 Andrea Witcomb, “The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary Exhibition Making:  Towards an Ethical Engagement with the Past,” Hot Topics, Public Culture, Museums, ed. Fiona Cameron and Lynda Kelly (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars 2010), 249. 77 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 202. 78 Curatorial interview by author, August 1, 2007, Michigan History Museum, Lansing Michigan; Michigan History Museum, “The Great Depression” exhibition, panel: 3.6.1 ML1. 79 Jen Schiffman, “Then and Now:  Artists Depict the Disenfranchised,” San Francisco Arts Monthly, February 2009. 80 Nels Anderson, Men on the Move (Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 1940) as excerpted in Nels Anderson, On Hobos and Homelessness; edited and with an introduction by Raffaele Rauty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 165–​66. 81 Elaine S. Ableson, “ ‘Women Who Have No Men to Work for Them’: Gender and Homelessness in the Great Depression, 1930–​1934,” Feminist Studies 29, no. 1 (Spring, 2003), 109. 82 David M. Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 87; Michael Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York: Basic Books, 1996, 10th edn), 220–​221. 83 Peter H.  Rossi, Down and Out in America:  The Origins of Homelessness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 21–​22.

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100  Interpretations of home 84 Michael Katz, In the Shadow of the Poorhouse: A Social History of Welfare in America (New York: Basic Books, 1996, 10th edn), 252; Knepper, Greenbelt, Maryland, 32; Wright, Building the Dream, 225–​226; Lisa Krissoff Boehm and Steven H. Corey, America’s Urban History (New York: Routledge, 2015), 241. 85 Alice O’Connor, Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-​century U.S. History (Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 2002),  56–​57. 86 Patterson, America’s Struggle Against Poverty 1900–​1994, 46; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 241–​242; Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark,  96–​98. 87 T.H. Watkins, The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999), 71; Boehm & Corey, America’s Urban History, 223. 88 Abelson, “ ‘Women Who Have No Men to Work for Them’,” 111–​113. 89 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 218. 90 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 217. 91 As quoted in Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 217. 92 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 214–​216; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 67. 93 Rossi, Down and Out in America, 22–​26, n. 11. 94 Meridel La Seur, “Women on the Breadlines,” New Masses (January 1932), as quoted in Watkins, The Hungry Years, 65. 95 Gareth Hoskins, “Citizenship and Quarantine at Ellis Island and Angel Island:  The Seduction of Interruption,” in Quarantine:  Local and Global Histories, ed. Alison Bashford (London: Palgrave, 2016), 238. 96 James B. Gardner, “Contested Terrain: History, Museums and the Public,” The Public Historian 26, no. 4 (Autumn, 2004), 12. 97 UNESCO, Culture Urban Future, 145–​146. 98 UNESCO, Culture Urban Future, 154. 99 Jessica Gerrard and David Farrugia, “The ‘Lamentable Sight’ of Homelessness and the Society of Spectacle,” Urban Studies 52, no. 12 (September 2015), 5. 100 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 7–​9, 11, 178–​179. 101 Nels Anderson, On Hobos and Homelessness, 61. 102 Nels Anderson, On Hobos and Homelessness,  26–​27. 103 Nels Anderson, On Hobos and Homelessness, 29. 104 Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–​ 1939, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 1, esp. 17–​31. 105 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 11. 106 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 172, 181. Coxey’s Army was named for their organiser, Jacob S.  Coxey, who was himself neither unemployed nor homeless, but a contractor campaigning for federal funding for road building. They became something of a model for the Bonus Army, which once again converged on Washington in 1932. Anderson, On Hobos and Homelessness, 127–​128, 131. 107 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 176–​177. 108 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road 18, 186–​190. 109 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 173–​174. 110 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 177. 111 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 178–​180. 112 Kusmer, Down & Out, On the Road, 183–​191. As Kusmer describes, the vaudeville tramp was later brought to the screen by W.C. Fields and, with more subversive variation, by Charlie Chaplin.

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Interpretations of home 101 113 Warren I.  Susman, Culture as History:  The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003), xxv, 111, 159; Gerrard and Ferrugia, “The ‘Lamentable Sight’ of Homelessness and the Society of Spectacle,” 4. 114 William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, rev. edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 222–​224; Rabinowitz, “Margaret Bourke-​ White’s Red Coat; or Slumming it in the Thirties,” 162–​163; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 254. 115 Sullivan’s Travels (1941, Preston Sturges, Paramount Pictures). 116 Andrea Witcomb, “Using Immersive and Interactive Approaches to Interpreting Traumatic Experiences for Tourists: Potentials and Limitations,” in Heritage and Tourism: Place, Encounter, Engagement, ed. in Russell Staiff et al. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 153, 158. 117 Curatorial interview by author, September 8, 2007, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC. 118 Gerrard and Ferrugia, “The ‘Lamentable Sight’ of Homelessness and the Society of Spectacle,” 5–​10. 119 See, for example, Mona Domosh, “A ‘Civilised’ Commerce:  Gender, ‘Race’, and Empire at the 1893 Chicago Exposition,” Cultural Geographies 9, 2002, 181–​201. 120 Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, Exhibition Panel. 121 Scarred and Strengthened: Australians in the Great Depression, Old Parliament House, 17 May 2007–​24 February 2008. 122 Mark Peel, The Lowest Rung:  Voices of Australian Poverty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 164. 123 Watkins, The Hungry Years, 60. 124 Peel, The Lowest Rung, 24. 125 American museum demographic studies are often more concerned with participation changes according to age and ethnicity than class. Changing Faces: Museum Visitorship and Demographic Change, a white paper produced by the Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Policy and Analysis in August 2006 serves as a case in point. However, a curator at the Smithsonian described the National Museum of American History as “largely a museum of the middle class and higher, interpreted from the point of view of those classes.” Curatorial interview by author, September 7, 2007, National Museum of American History, Washington, DC. 126 Peel, The Lowest Rung, 24. 127 Ruth J.  Abram, “Using the Past to Shape the Future:  New Concepts for a Historic Site,” Museum International 53, no. 1 (2001), 4. 128 Wright, Building the Dream, 226. 129 Miller, A Tenement Story,  39–​51. 130 Miller, A Tenement Story,  50–​51. 131 Page, The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 75–​84, 100–​101. 132 Dead End (1937, William Wyler, United Artists). 133 Linda Young, “A Woman’s Place is in the House … Museum,” 8, citing Charlotte Smith, “The House Enshrined: Great Man and Social History House Museums in the United States and Australia,” PhD Thesis, University of Canberra, 2002, 161–​162.

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4  The arts and the imagined audience Theatre, radio, and the emotion of vulnerability

Radios have a near-​ubiquitous presence within exhibitions on the Great Depression and the 1930s. The National Gallery of Victoria used them in its 2017 art exhibition Brave New World:  Australia 1930s to illustrate the migration of the Art Deco aesthetic from architecture into home furnishings. In 2007 the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum, located outside of Ottawa in Canada, had what amounted to a backyard shed with numerous radio sets neatly arranged on shelves and in cases (albeit with limited interpretation). Amongst the exhibitions discussed within this study, radio sets featured prominently within the interpretation of domestic spaces, including those found in the Bungalow at the Michigan History Museum, in the Smithsonian’s FDR: The Intimate Presidency (1982), at the Greenbelt House Museum, and at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. In the Smithsonian’s Treasures of American History exhibition (2006–​2008) it was not a radio set, but President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s microphone from the Fireside Chat broadcasts that served as one of three objects representing the 1930s. Radios are embedded within the museological discourse of the 1930s, particularly the American museological discourse. They are used to explore technology, media, celebrity, and citizenship. Yet the radio programming of the 1930s also conveys much about the collective emotions of Americans during the Depression. Anger, uncertainty, resolution, and, yes, even joy are as present in commercial artistic endeavours such as radio as they are in the prolific outputs of the combined federal arts projects of the New Deal. The first time Americans heard Roosevelt speak to them over the airways as their president (as opposed to as candidate or president-​elect) was during his first Inaugural Address on March 4, 1933. Within the opening paragraph of this speech one finds FDR’s oft-​quoted uttering that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Less frequently cited is his expansion on the nature of fear, which he further describes as “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.”1 In recognising these emotions, the president put voice to the omnipresent undercurrents within American daily life. Fear, anxiety, relief, despair, frustration, and resolve all echo through the novels, films, music, media, and memoirs of the time. The artistic products of the period, therefore, offer a

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The arts and the imagined audience 103 key interpretive access point allowing museum audiences insight into those intangible aspects of historical experience that may elude straightforward object-​based representation. The effectiveness of these artistic products lies in their relationship with a Depression-​era audience. While rarely produced by everyday Americans per se, the arts, particularly performative or commercial arts, such as radio or the Federal Theatre, were produced with an audience in mind. This audience was quite separate to that which regularly attended orchestral performances or the established professional theatre, though the material presented could be the same. NBC broadcast the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Arturo Toscanini and the Federal Theatre Project regularly produced Shakespeare.2 Both performances were aimed at a mainstream, middle-​and lower-​class audience, what might cautiously be termed ‘average Americans,’ though such framings still encompass a diverse population. That 1930s mainstream audience becomes an entity that can be envisioned, discussed, and positioned within a museum exhibition. Through an imagining of this audience and their reactions, modern museum visitors are giving a conduit into the emotional experiences that occurred alongside and intertwined with the policies and politics of the day. All experiences of vulnerability are, in part, emotional. The implications and effects of vulnerability are not limited to potential susceptibility to risks. They also encompass how such susceptibility makes those experiencing the risk feel. However, it is not only the emotional experiences of vulnerable populations that are cogent to situations of risk or crisis. Reactions to those populations or to their experiences by others are equally influential, and often equally based in emotion. For example, the FSA photographers sought to elicit an emotional response from the audience, and to use those emotions to create a receptive climate for government relief policy. The arts, therefore, offer museums two crucial elements in the interpretation of vulnerability. They allow a framework through which emotional experiences may be discussed, and they provide a conduit for association and identification between modern museum audiences and their historical counterparts. As part of a discussion on the core purpose of museums, David Fleming, former director of National Museums Liverpool, argues that, “social history museums are about people not objects, and people are about emotions not things.”3 Putting aside the ongoing museological debates that place object and narrative in opposition to one another, his larger point that an acknowledgement of emotion serves to enliven exhibitions has substantial merit. As discussed in the introductory chapter, emotion was one of the key distinguishing factors between the Spirit of the Blitz exhibition held at Fleming’s Merseyside Maritime Museum and the Imperial War Museum’s Blitz Experience. Despite the impressive design of the Imperial War Museum’s immersive walk-​through of a bombed-​out London street, the lack of an emotional anchor ultimately made it a less accessible, and

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104  The arts and the imagined audience therefore less compelling, interpretation of Britons’ experiences than the straightforward but emotionally raw oral history offered in Liverpool. Interpreting the Great Depression and the 1930s within museums and heritage sites equally necessitates an engagement with the emotional context that surround the historical record, for the emotions of that crisis were demonstrably collective as well as personal. The dark outcomes of mob emotion were visible in Europe as fascist regimes took power in Italy and then Germany. As the fascists illustrate, albeit in extreme form, emotion is not only key to understanding the individual, it is also crucial for understanding policy that was enacted in response to those emotions. Examples of policy driven by emotion can also be found within the American Great Depression. In one of his first acts as new president, Roosevelt declared a bank holiday, in order to put a halt to panic-​driven ‘runs’ on the banking system as it teetered on the verge of further collapse. Thus his presidency is marked by policy solutions to problems based as much in emotion as in other schematics and systems. In the case of the Spirit of the Blitz, the effectiveness of the interpretation rested with a sense of emotional identification between modern visitors and the Liverpudlians who had lived through the Blitz. Emotional resonance, whether a common experience of fear, joy, frustration, excitement, or sorrow is one way of drawing a modern audience into an historical event through an empathy for the feelings of those in the past. A point of shared reaction or emotion becomes the nucleus of larger connection. This is an effective strategy and one actively employed by social history museums, particularly those dealing with historical trauma, conflict, and challenge. In discussing a social history exhibition in Hull in the UK, museologist Gaynor Kavanagh noted that identification and empathy with historical populations went hand in hand. She argues that “once the imagination is captured, the ability to think further, to be conscious of period is in fact enhanced.”4 Much has also been written about the emotional responses in museum visitors, and the role of affect in exhibition design.5 However, this strategy can also be problematic. As discussed in the interpretation of 1930s strike action in Chapter  2, emotions were central to a nuanced understanding of events. In the case of the Flint Sit-​Down Strike and agricultural strikes in California, vulnerable workers did not display acquiescence and subservience but rather anger and resistance. Thus, interpreting the strikes entailed an engagement with the emotions of the strikers. However, as the Californian example illustrated, a close emotional association between modern and historical agents can interfere with the shape and reception of the narrative. Part of what seemed to go awry with the interpretation at the National Steinbeck Center was a close identification between those John Steinbeck critiqued and those who still lived in the region, such that old wounds remained raw even years after Steinbeck’s death.6 Even without the destructive elements of controversy and conflict, too much modern emotion leaves little room for recognition of historical

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The arts and the imagined audience 105 difference and the stories that can emerge within those spaces of difference. Finding other bonds, other similarities, other points of personal connection between museum visitors and historical figures can allow for an interpretive space that creates similar empathy as emotional identification but also provides a buffer zone between the two. It is in this function that the arts and media are particularly effective. If Americans in the 1930s can be understood as an audience that consumed media, this provides a potential experiential bond with museum visitors who by the very nature of visiting an exhibition are also an audience that consumes media. Insight into the collective emotional and intellectual responses to the crisis available through the arts underpins some of the earliest exhibitions within this study, those held for the fiftieth anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. In discussing curatorial selections for the National Collection of Fine Arts’ exhibition After the Crash (1979), Dr Josh Taylor explained that they chose those works that best expressed a sense of fear and loss (though these were far from the only themes in 1930s art).7 He stated that this art provided a way for people to “understand their problem and move beyond it.”8 Fred Voss and Michael Lawson, curators from the National Portrait Gallery, which staged The Great Crash concurrently with After the Crash, also commented on the introspective nature of the relationship the public had to art in the 1930s, suggesting it provided “a rather unadorned look at ourselves both inside and out.” They go on to suggest that the art provided a sense of “stocktaking” echoing one of the roles of photography in this period, as discussed in Chapter 2.9 Some of the best exhibitions have used New Deal art and commercial radio in tandem in order to better convey the intangible reactive elements of historical narrative. Thus, within this chapter the discussion of art as an interpretive tool illustrates how those elements can provide buffers in contentious interpretation, but also how they can be the foundations of connection allowing other aspects to function fully as indicators of era-​specific action and reaction. While it acknowledges that some of the most successful exhibitions make use of this material, it also explores the challenges of making media the subject of museum interpretation. The prime example of this challenge is the interpretation of the Federal Theatre Project, one of the most innovative and revelatory aspects of 1930s fine arts. The Federal Theatre has proved to be extremely difficult to interpret in a museum, and as a case study it raises issues about the absent narrative or artefact.

The early exhibitions The first exhibitions of artwork and visual culture related to the Great Depression were held during crisis itself. The works appeared at major museums and at special events held to highlight the federally funded arts projects, sometimes referred to collectively as Federal One.10 However, at the conclusion of the decade, as America simultaneously edged closer to

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106  The arts and the imagined audience economic recovery and war, much of the Depression-​era visual art faded from view. With the exception of the documentary photography, most 1930s artistic imagery remained in obscurity for nearly 50 years. While narrative works such as The Grapes of Wrath maintained a presence in the American cultural psyche, museums in general shied away from interpretation of the period. In 1979, the fiftieth anniversary of the Wall Street Crash provided a turning point and interpretation of the Great Depression made its first tentative steps back into major museums. This revival was located, first and foremost, in the art galleries. In addition to the aforementioned After the Crash and The Great Crash, three exhibitions, Sculpture and the Federal Triangle, Art of the Federal Recovery Programs 1933–​1943, and Prints for the People, were staged at the National Collection of Fine Arts. The museum also opened a new permanent gallery of works created under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration/​Works Projects Administration (WPA).11 Despite the significance of the anniversary of the onset of the crisis in 1929, there is no indication within the Smithsonian Archives of a similarly themed exhibition at the National Museum of American History. This omission reflects a seeming reluctance at the time amongst the national museums to interpret the Great Depression era. While numerous factors influence exhibition programming, there are indicators that politics, and the wish to avoid political controversy, played at least some part. An internal memo from the National Collection of Fine Arts dated March 29, 1974 noted with frustration that a planned exhibition on the Federal Arts Project had been delayed from the summer of 1974 to the summer of 1975 and then removed entirely from the forward planning.12 The memo went on to cite a complaint from art critic Barbara Rose published in New York magazine. In her article, Rose lamented the unwillingness of all but the independent galleries to exhibit WPA art and declared that she was still waiting “for a major museum show of this crucial chapter of American history, which is so politically volatile no major institution appears willing to touch it.”13 The political volatility to which Rose referred was a series of debates taking place in the early 1970s over the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), the nominal descendent of the New Deal Arts projects.14 Even without political minefields the art of the Thirties had been slow to gain attention in major museums. The WPA projects were never meant to commission great art and the bright lights like Jackson Pollock, Dorothea Lange, and Ben Shahn were often filtered out and remembered as individual artists rather than as parts of a movement. In a review of the 1979 exhibitions Paul Richard wrote of the popularity of 1930s Hollywood actor James Cagney, and of the literature associated with the Dust Bowl, but added, “our nostalgia is selective: We still scorn ’30s art, wrongly, as stumbling and cautious.”15 He went on to conclude that while “there is something gloomy, pompous and pretentious in the art of this period,” nevertheless within the exhibitions there was still “a kind of breezy joy, a shared concern, an innocence, a sense that art can strike a light that pushes back the dark.”16

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The arts and the imagined audience 107 As the common narrative of the American Great Depression often starts with 1929 Wall Street Crash, one might expect the 1979 exhibitions to serve as curtain-​raisers for larger museological commemorations in 1982. That year marked the fiftieth anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election, as well as the centenary of his birth. Initially, neither event was the subject of much attention, but an exhibition at the National Museum of American History was about to change not only the narrative on Roosevelt but the way art and history are understood in unison.

FDR: The Intimate Presidency On January 29, 1982, seemingly against the odds, FDR:  The Intimate Presidency opened in the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. It was an exhibition that had been created in record time, led by a first-​time curator; still, it illustrated a deep understanding of the relationship between Americans and the media in the 1930s, as well as an arguably groundbreaking use of the arts as historical material culture. The show was commissioned by the United States Congress largely to avoid embarrassment at having overlooked the centennial of the birth of a significant president; what the exhibition achieved was a great deal more. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s centenary approached, the institutions associated directly with FDR had planned to mark the occasion. These included the FDR Library at Hyde Park, New York, his childhood home, and the Little White House Museum at Warm Springs, GA, the health resort where he sought relief from the lasting effects of polio. There are indications that the Smithsonian had also planned a small exhibition. However, there were no plans for major national celebrations, as there had been for Woodrow Wilson’s centennial in 1956 and Theodore Roosevelt’s in 1958 and, perhaps ironically, in 1932 for George Washington’s bicentennial.17 The impetus for a national, or at least nationally funded, commemoration largely originates with Peter Kovler, then a 29-​year-​old former speechwriter for the Commerce Department, admirer of Roosevelt, and heir to the Jim Beam distillery fortune.18 Kovler formed the FDR Centennial Committee, convinced several high-​profile politicians and writers to join, and began to court publicity. Once public attention had been focused on the oversight, Kovler’s former employer, Congressman Sidney Yates (D-​ Illinois), was able to successfully introduce an appropriations bill of $200,000 to fund a national commemoration. The Supplemental Funding Bill left committee in June 1981 with the bulk of the money earmarked for the Smithsonian.19 Correspondence between the directors of the National Museum of American History and the Franklin D.  Roosevelt Library suggests that the museum personnel had already begun preliminary work in mid-​to late April of that year on the assumption that funding would be forthcoming.20 Even so, the museum was left with a remarkably short period of time in which to create

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108  The arts and the imagined audience a major centrepiece exhibition to open by January 30, 1982. Rather than the 18-​to-​24-​month timetable typically associated with multi-​faceted, large gallery exhibitions, the Smithsonian personnel had been given a little over six months. To add to the challenges, the job of leading the exhibition fell to a first-​time curator, Art Molella. Roger Kennedy, the Director of the National Museum of American History, described Molella as “a person of great intellectual capability, but with no previous exhibit experience” and noted that despite his inexperience, the curator “had to assume responsibility for executing a congressionally mandated, hurry-​up and unprecedented show.”21 It could have been a recipe for disaster, an embarrassment to the museum and the Congress alike. Instead, Molella’s team produced an exhibition that was well-​attended, well-​received, and well-​reviewed.22 The timeframe of execution was impressive. However, the most noteworthy aspect of the exhibition for the purposes of this discussion was the sizable incorporation of the arts into an historical exhibition. The publicity material for the exhibition stressed a characterisation of Franklin D. Roosevelt as a communicator and the first president to grasp the full potential of mass media. Within this framing, the interpretive narrative was grounded, at least in part, in the dawning era of broadcast politics, and a relationship between president and citizen filtered through technology that would come to characterise all subsequent administrations. Even so, throughout a range of exhibition documents the arts were positioned as a core of the civic relationship. One of the documents, written after Molella took over, illustrates this approach, stating that the exhibition would concentrate: … not only on how he used new tools of mass communication such as the radio and newsreels, but also how he expanded the concept of communication to include art, theatre and documentary photography. The document went on to propose that the New Deal: … pushed against the frontiers of communications and changed the way that Americans viewed their history and their fellow citizens. Documentary expression of the 1930s bound all Americans closer together, created concern for the conditions that the depression brought, and forged a sense of national community that had not previously existed.23 In translating these ideas to the exhibition floor, FDR:  The Intimate Presidency placed a particular emphasis on the interplay of styles and philosophies across different media employed or funded by the Roosevelt Administration. Another document likens the murals produced through the Treasury Department to radio, stating:

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The arts and the imagined audience 109 Murals conveyed not only the history of a community but also suggested themes from the depression [sic] and how it affected average people. A  few paintings and murals in the exhibition can show how artists conveyed this historical context in a dramatically public art form  –​ broadcasting information by art [emphasis mine].24 Similarly, in interpreting the impact of the Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspapers, stagecraft became a focus of the exhibition. The Newspapers’ incorporation of loudspeakers, projectors, special effects, and communication techniques borrowed from radio and film, and thus the connections with these media were all discussed.25 While the interpretation of new media and new technologies was effective, its inclusion in a National Museum of American History exhibition was not unusual. American innovation and invention were and continue to be common themes within that institution. The extensive inclusion of the fine arts, however, was unusual. This material was generally viewed as the jurisdiction of museums such the National Museum of American Art. As the Smithsonian Archives reveal, Molella’s decision to include the arts in an historical exhibition caused some queries within the larger institutional network. An internal memo in July 1981 from Acting Director of the National Museum of American Art, Harry Lowe, to curator Virginia Mecklenburg relates, “apparently [Charles] Blitzer is worried that it appears that we have sold out to the NMAH.”26 Another hand-​written document asks, “why this art show at the NMAH?”27 In actuality, this was not an art exhibition, nor had the National Museum of American Art relinquished its role in the interpretation of art history. The art museum staged Roosevelt’s America: New Deal Paintings from the National Museum of American Art concurrently with FDR: The Intimate Presidency. Though the two museums used a similar source material, the end goal was quite different. Art was included as a major component in Molella’s exhibition less for its aesthetics, and more to illustrate the myriad means through which Americans accessed information in the 1930s. A  comparison of the publications that accompanied the exhibitions illustrates the differences in approach to the 1930s material between the two shows. The pamphlet for Roosevelt’s America explores the creation and implementation of Federal Art Project, juxtaposing the goals of production with relief. It finishes with the statement: This exhibition focuses on scenes of American life that have become identified as typical New Deal art. Although these scenes are by no means representative either stylistically or iconographically, of the entire scope of the projects, it seems appropriate to reconsider the paintings that counter the turmoil and indignity of the depression with simple themes rooted in rural, urban and industrial life.28

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110  The arts and the imagined audience In contrast, the description in the catalogue for FDR: The Intimate Presidency speaks not of style or imagery but of voices, contact, and connection. It states: All over the country, people were desperate to be heard. Many had suffered through months of unemployment in shame and isolation. Never had the need for social and cultural contact been greater … Just as [Roosevelt] saw the roads built by the WPA crews as a way to bring people closer together in a physical sense, he intended that the arts and documentary projects would build human understanding.29 Information brought with it a sense of control, or at least definition. As discussed in the introductory chapter, Caroline Bird’s memoir The Invisible Scar characterised the early Depression as phantom-​like. Its malevolence was tangible, but it could never be seen in full light; it was never spoken of in full voice.30 But Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke the words out loud. Through his broadcasts, Roosevelt gave the crisis shape, and he gave the people the language with which to talk about it. Similarly, the projects of the WPA gave the crisis form and texture. The spectre was no longer hidden behind closed doors, nor shadowed under the brim of hats pulled down against accusing stares. One could, finally, look directly at it in bright light. In that, there was comfort for the vulnerable, however thin. FDR:  The Intimate Presidency was predominantly structured around these strategies, around the ways in which form was achieved. Through interpretation of the arts projects alongside 1930s media, the exhibition created a sense the interconnected nature of communication in that period, as well as the ways in which one form recognisably borrowed from another. FDR:  The Intimate Presidency not only illustrated the way arts and media were used to communicate ideas to audiences in 1935, it provided a model for using art and media to communicate historical experience to audiences in 1982. Within this multi-​layered approach, the radio was nevertheless a central interpretive focus. While emotion may be readily apparent in 1930s murals and in the heart-​wrenching photography of dustbowl migrants, the associations between the emotions, vulnerability, and radio are less immediately recognised. That said, 1930s radio, for all its commercial aspects, equally has the potential to convey the emotional life of the nation.

Americans and the radio Broadcast radio had its most basic origins in the radiotelegraph, invented by Guglielmo Marconi at the end of the nineteenth century. The first commercial station in the United States, Pittsburgh’s KDKA, went on air in late 1920 and the medium grew exponentially.31 In 1922 alone, the number of stations on the two available frequencies increased from 22 to 570.32 The first owners of radios were usually hobbyists, many of whom had built their

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The arts and the imagined audience 111 crystal radios from cheap parts. Lacking large speakers, any communal listening using these sets required makeshift amplifiers such as headphones placed in a soup tureen.33 Increasingly, though, vacuum tube radios began to appear in homes. In 1924, $350 million were spent on radios and radio parts in the United States, roughly one-​third of all money spent on furniture; that same year, 1400 stations were competing for air space and listener attention.34 The cacophony was somewhat tamed by the emergence of broadcasting networks; the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) went on air in 1926 and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1927.35 American networks were, from the outset, commercial ventures. NBC was a subsidiary of the combined investments of General Electric (GE), the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), and Westinghouse, all of which held patents for the manufacture of radio sets. NBC was established to provide content and thus encourage sales of its parent companies’ products.36 CBS did not gain revenue from sales of hardware but tapped into the lucrative market of selling time for on-​air advertising.37 Thus, in a relatively short period of time, radio moved from being a hobby of enthusiasts to a predominant fixture in most American homes. Despite the Depression, ownership of radio sets in the 1930s more than doubled from 40 per cent of households in 1930 to 86 per cent in 1940.38 Meanwhile, the price of radio sets plummeted over the same period; the cheapest RCA set was just under $10 in 1940, down from $37.50 in 1931.39 Even with these numbers there were still areas of under-​representation, especially in the South; in Mississippi in 1935 only 25 per cent of homes owned a radio, compared to 81 per cent in the Northeast and 77 per cent on the West Coast, and overall only 7 per cent of African-​American households had a set.40 These numbers do not fully represent access, however, as even those who did not own a radio often listened with neighbours or in communal commercial spaces such as diners, bars, general stores, and barbershops.41 Beyond the statistics of ownership, radio serves as key exemplar of the 1930s as an era of mass culture. From their New  York bases, the radio networks beamed out programming via local station affiliates. Through this system, the same programme could be heard in Boston, Baton Rouge, Boise, and Bakersfield. Some local and regional programming did survive, particularly that which was affiliated with other bodies such as churches or labour unions.42 Furthermore, regional successes were, at times, given an opportunity to broadcast nationally, such as Michigan priest and political commentator Father Coughlin. But, increasingly, these broadcasts were the exception rather than the rule. By 1937, the networks controlled 93 per cent of all broadcasting, and a survey suggests that most Americans had no quarrel with this arrangement, with 88 per cent expressing a preference for nationally produced shows.43 There was also interaction between the various forms of mass culture. Radio provided advertising for chain stores, national brands of goods, and

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112  The arts and the imagined audience national cinema chains, which showed films produced for mass distribution. In turn, cinemas sometimes scheduled intermissions around popular shows, such as the comedy Amos’n’Andy, piping the broadcasts into the cinemas. Particularly successful radio shows and radio stars made the leap to motion pictures and the cycle began again.44 Critics saw this homogenisation of culture as a metaphor for a much larger process of centralisation across all elements of American life, and rued the production of a culture that viewed the audience as all cut from the same cloth, playing to the lowest common denominator. But, if the content was standardised, the response suggested by audiences that they did not see themselves as absorbed into a mass but instead viewed the content as material that that reflected specific aspects of their own lives.45 The consistency of radio programming from coast to coast can provide a nationalised narrative for a nation that experienced the crisis of the Great Depression in myriad ways. As museums function through representative storytelling, such cultural artefacts are essential as archetypes to stand for the broader whole. American radio programming is particularly potent in serving this goal as it encapsulates a range of the reactions to the Great Depression in overt and in subtle ways. A tangible manifestation of the emotional vulnerability prevalent in American lives in the 1930s is society is to be found in the one of the most innovative, and certainly the most notorious, radio broadcasts of the era: the Mercury Theatre’s production of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds on Halloween 1938. Structured to mimic the style of radio news broadcasts, the production convinced a portion of listeners that Martians had landed in New Jersey, causing panic and securing fame for theatre impresario, and future cinematic auteur, Orson Welles. Despite its lasting notoriety, the extent of the panic is, at times, overstated. At most only about 6  million listeners (about 4.5 per cent of the national audience) would have heard War of the Worlds; it aired against the far more popular Edgar Bergen-​Charlie McCarthy Show.46 Yet, however far-​fetched it may now seem, for those who were listening there was a degree of plausibility to the reports of alien invasion. One listener, F.M. Moody, explained why he believed that the broadcast was genuine: In this troubled world of ours, there are so many things that are happening, and have happened that, we the people are believing that nothing is impossible and naturally rely on our radio to bring correct, unadulterated, authentic, happenings of the world.47 Some listeners believed in the real possibility of invasion even if they disbelieved that the source was extra-​terrestrial; they blamed the Germans, the Japanese, unnamed anti-​Semites, and assumed the craft was a new form of “airship.”48 The broadcast occurred only six months after the fiery crash of the Hindenburg (also in New Jersey) and parts of Welles’ performance

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The arts and the imagined audience 113 appear to owe a great deal to Herbert Morrison’s horrified radio report of that crash.49 In this light, what remains significant about the broadcast is not so much whether anyone believed that New Jersey was being invaded, but rather that Americans had been so plagued by uncertainty in the preceding decade that even the most improbable disaster seemed within the realm of possibility. In addition to illustrating the underlying sense of dread that characterised the 1930s, radio also provides insight into the variety of ways Americans sought reassurance and negotiated crises. Radio collapsed geographic distance and made the separation between the domestic and the public more porous. Archibald McLeish, poet, and Roosevelt’s Librarian of Congress, observed, “the public world with us has become the private world, the single individual, whether he so wishes or not, has become part of [the] world …”50 In this blurred space, the public medium provided a testing ground in which crisis and response could be explored in large, and more importantly, small scale. For much of the 1930s, fears rooted in the effects of Depression and the ensuing challenges of home, family, and livelihood were explored in melodramatic radio plays. It was in this era that the term ‘soap operas’ emerged, equating the genre with its commercial sponsors. Within these serials of domestic drama, listeners found numerous characters with whom they could identify, and through whom they could witness a trial and error of everyday anxiety and success.51 Cultural historian Warren I. Susman suggested that radio soap operas, while on the one hand seemingly absurd, could also be seen as a taking up the role that myths and symbolism played in earlier societies. He argued that domestic serial dramas provided a cohesive force in 1930s American society and that by playing out, “patterns of relief and recovery, [soap operas] provided a sense of continuity” and implied that as bleak as the immediate situation might appear, it would all come good in the fullness of time.52 The key aspects of the soap opera genre, the general domesticity of the settings and storylines made the messages accessible to a broad range of Americans. In listening to the soap operas, millions of listeners felt that they were not alone.53 This was especially pertinent for women listeners who might have had fewer networks of support beyond the household.54 Lawrence Levine compared the soap opera to the blues, observing that within both the music and the radio plays, there was a compounding of multiple of crises but simultaneously the implication that such events were common and shared and in that sense bearable.55 Life was uncertain, therefore a sense of ritual, even when associated with something as inconsequential as a soap opera, restored a sense of rhythm at a time when the aspects of life often seen as providing those beats such as work, school, and relationships were subjected to upheaval. The ritual of listening became as important as the content.56 Advertisers were aware of these reactions, and not above making money from them. A GE advertisement for radios equates a mother’s tears over a

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114  The arts and the imagined audience soap opera with “the natural reaction of one good neighbor for another neighbor’s everyday problems,” and asserts: But it isn’t make-​believe to this lady because thanks to the golden tone of her General Electric Radio, every program is close, intimate and personal.57 This sense of constructed intimacy and community was not entirely imagined. Radios became a focus for communal gatherings. People gathered together to listen to special events, like a Joe Louis fight, as well as regular programming.58 Studies conducted in 1934 of school children in New York and high-​school students in Oakland showed that three-​quarters listened to the radio amongst friends and family at least some of the time, and between a third and a half always had company when listening.59 Other research revealed that listeners would re-​tell or even re-​enact episodes of the dramas for those who had not heard the original broadcast.60 Such behaviours should not be surprising as they are echoed in modern patterns of interaction with broadcast, and now digital, media. What is more interesting is the sense of ritual shared, sometimes unknowingly, with strangers. Throughout the historiographic material on the Great Depression there is a repeated imagery of someone walking along and listening to an uninterrupted broadcast from the houses or cars that they are passing. Saul Bellow recounted listening to FDR on car radios while walking through the Chicago Midway; a young man in South Carolina told a similar tale of hearing The Grand Ole Opry whilst walking past houses.61 Father Coughlin’s sermons and working-​class neighbourhoods fit easily into the same matrix.62 Former US Senator William Benton told Studs Terkel that as a young advertising executive he walked home from work and heard Amos’n’Andy from 17 of 19 radios in his street. The next day he arranged for the show to be sponsored by his client, Pepsodent.63 The cities and the programmes change, but there is a recurrent memory of the broadcast being shared with those intimately close, as well as with complete strangers, further blurring together public and private space.64 Certainly radio binds the two spheres, the voice from the wireless is not constrained by physical or social barriers and so becomes a thread that links the home and the street together. A Joe Louis fight, the Fireside Chats, an episode of Amos’n’Andy or of Grand Ole Opry could just as easily be consumed in the public or private spheres and, equally, could be consumed alone or communally. Few other media simultaneously covered so many variables prior to the rise of radio. One could read a newspaper at home or on a park bench, but it was largely an individual activity. One could see a play with a group of people, but rarely as a single audience member, or in a private space. Radio opens up the variables, and the points of intersection, and thus, for both producers and consumers of media, the possibilities. It would be wrong to assume that everyone listened to the same thing at the same time; radio

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The arts and the imagined audience 115 was not the Orwellian loudspeaker deafening the populace with the single voice of Big Brother.65 Nevertheless, with the advent of national networks in the 1930s, radio did provide a sense of a common ground that defied geographic delineation. What the press did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, twentieth-​century radio did faster, with more inclusion in terms of geography and literacy, and with greater timeliness and a greater variety of content.66 The presence of a voice also gave a sense of immediacy to the message. True, a radio set was more expensive than a newspaper, but the increased presence of radios in semi-​public locales such as diners or barbershops, and the previously discussed communal gatherings, goes some way to reduce the potential economic exclusions.

Radios and exhibitions Within exhibitions, the interpretation of radio was frequently positioned within domestic space rather than public or intersecting spaces. In all likelihood this positioning was derived from the predominant consumption of television within domestic spheres and the use of that media as the point of reference. Though such positioning does erase the potential for exploring blurred space, nevertheless radio broadcasts provide a crucial mechanism in conveying the American experience of the 1930s. From museological perspective the interpretation of radio is significant not because it allows visitors to hear 1930s media, but because it allows those visitors a point of access to 1930s audiences. The living room of the Bungalow installation at the Michigan History Museum included not only a radio, but also a radio interactive. A  panel informed visitors that people stayed closer to home during the Great Depression, with radio being one of the major forms of entertainment and that: During the 1930s, more than half the households in Michigan had a radio. Families and friends gathered around the radio listening to national network shows such as “The George Burns and Gracie Allen show,” commercials such as Swift’s “The meat makes the meal” and news broadcasts67 Beside this panel, a dial allowed the visitor to select an excerpt from one of seven different period broadcasts. In the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the kitchen was emphasised as the family communal space and so it was here that the radio was found. It too was used for a broadcast of sorts, though in this instance it was an oral history recollection from a former resident. In each case, the radio is placed in a room that the museum visitor is encouraged to populate with their imagination. These were not just period rooms, demonstrating furnishings and aesthetics. Rather, these were social

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116  The arts and the imagined audience history sets, always conveying the sense of inhabitants who have merely stepped into another part of the home and will return shortly. This imagined audience becomes crucial to the communication strategies of these museums. One of the exemplary interpretations of radio using the imagined audience occurred in FDR: The Intimate Presidency. In interpreting the Fireside Chats, this exhibition employed two separate room recreations. The first was that of the White House broadcast room. The second was a living room in which the broadcasts might be heard. In imaging the living room occupants, museum visitors were repeating the processes that the curators had undertaken during their own planning. According to the exhibition documents, the curators envisioned the “kind of Guy [sic] that Roosevelt spoke to,” one who “would sit by the radio when Roosevelt spoke –​eager to learn about national recovery.”68 Creating an imagined radio audience within the living room also connected the museum visitor to the president himself; FDR used a similar imaginative technique before his broadcasts. The origin of the name Fireside Chats is not entirely clear but one claimant is a radio station manager, Harry Butcher, who said, “he envisioned listeners at the hearth.”69 In recalling the broadcasts, Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor, noted that the president would ignore his staffers in the room because, “his mind was focused on the people listening at the other end.” She further recalled that “his face would smile and light up as though he were actually sitting on the front porch or in the parlor with them. People felt this, and it bound them to him in affection.”70 Journalist and friend of the First Lady, Lorena Hickok, who was sent out by the White House as a special correspondent, echoed Perkins when she reported in 1934 that, “People down here [in Louisiana] all seem to think they know the President personally! … They feel he is talking to each one of them.”71 The process of association with historical players can be a way of making history accessible, but it still entails potential pitfalls. Curators of Melbourne’s Immigration Museum encountered one such snag when creating a computer interactive for the immigration policy exhibition, Getting In. The original concept for the interactive asked the visitor to take on the role of an immigrant and face questions from an immigration official. However, the curators soon realised that they were asking audience members to recreate an emotional experience that might well be foreign to them.72 If audiences had no personal reference point the best this scenario could hope for was some sense of the interview. It would be more speculative than interpretive and was unlikely to be revelatory to any great degree. Faced with this shortcoming, the installation was revised. In the new version, the visitor served as the immigration officer. The computer offered a list of typical questions and the visitor chose which one to ask as well as a final verdict as to whether the applicant was allowed to enter the country. The immigrants were played on-​screen by actors who conveyed an emotional reaction, good or bad, to the line of questioning and the ultimate decision. This configuration preserved the emotional elements the curators wanted to incorporate

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The arts and the imagined audience 117 but allowed audiences to witness the emotion, rather than expecting visitors to fully recreate the experience.73 The same potential problem in creating audience connection exists in interpreting the Great Depression. What is the commonplace point of connection between modern audiences and the vulnerabilities of interwar transient farmworkers? For that matter what is the point of association between most museum visitors and New Deal government workers? While some audience members will walk through the doors with those personal connections well in place, to rely on such relationships as a curatorial strategy is a gamble at best. However, presenting 1930s Americans as consumers of media creates a recognisable relationship and a way for visitors to place themselves into the past and find shared experiences. By standing within a museum, the visitor becomes a member of an audience, a consumer of information. Therefore, offering them other audience members, albeit for 1930s media, creates the potential for identification. They are not as two groups, present and historical, but rather one; they are an audience, divided by time but not purpose.74 This allows museum visitors to imagine 1930s avatars of themselves who are, ideally, then inserted into the setting and thus the narrative. That identification may then be used to guide the visitor through oral histories or interpretations of experiences that are era-​specific or, in other ways, less familiar. While there is little scholarly discussion on the specific technique of an imagined audience for media, the employment, across a range of museums, of interpretive techniques that asked visitors to associate themselves with audiences of radio suggests that curators found this technique effective. An imagined 1930s audience allows for consideration of emotional subjects as well as the broader uncertainties and vulnerabilities of the Depression era as a whole. While it may deal with difficult and confronting subjects, it is not, as a strategy, confrontational, and as such potentially avoids the tension that may occur when a modern audience associates with historical players to the point of becoming defensive. It is not, however, universally applicable. As discussed in previous chapters, best practice in one location does not necessarily transfer easily to new geographic and cultural terrain. In this instance, the variable with the most impact on success is not geography but medium. The imagined audience works well with radio, but as the next section of this chapter explores, the interpretation of theatre highlights some of its limitations. Innovative in its approach and ambitious in its scope, the New Deal’s Federal Theatre Project remains revelatory in its interaction with the political landscape of the day. The plays produced, particularly the Living Newspapers, reflected the prevalence of political thought and the levels of uncertainty, of vulnerability within a society on a crisis footing. The productions also indicate the willingness of audiences to consume entertainment constructed around complex and seemingly dry themes. However, the Federal Theatre also suffered the ignominy of being shut down for its

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118  The arts and the imagined audience leftist politics and in this it belies a conservative influence within the halls of power that is not always recognised within narratives of the Roosevelt years. Couched in a framework of Shakespeare in Haiti, The Mikado with saxophones, and beavers on roller-​ skates, interpretation of the Federal Theatre is policy discussion made palatable, medicine taken on a spoonful of sugar. While the visual arts may give a sense of the raw emotion of the Depression, the Federal Theatre Project reflects the search for answers, for reassurance or at least clarity, the sense of being overwhelmed, and at times the feelings of anger at those in charge. Within the museum interpretation of the Federal Theatre, there lies the possibility of transmitting the multi-​ layered nuanced reactions felt by many Americans to the everyday vulnerabilities of Great Depression. But accessing those reactions is more difficult in practice than it may at first appear. For while the Federal Theatre Project echoes radio in offering museum visitors an opportunity to connect with their 1930s counterparts, these historical audiences are much more elusive within the exhibition space than those who sat in living rooms tuning the wireless. The audience is harder to construct in exhibitions about historical theatre and thus, at the point where they are perhaps needed the most, these avatars are difficult to find. Having discussed the benefits of an imagined audience in the first half of this chapter, the second half will acknowledge the challenges associated with this strategy through examining the interpretation of the Federal Theatre Project in museums, particularly A New Deal for the Arts, curated by Bruce Bustard at the National Archives and Records Administration in 1997. This section begins by briefly tracing the background of the WPA, the arts projects known as Federal One, and the Federal Theatre Project. It then provides an evaluation of the intersections between museum and theatre and the challenges associated with employing a performative medium, however relevant, in the interpretation of history within exhibitions.

The WPA and government employment of artists The Works Progress Administration (WPA), headed by progressive Harry Hopkins, was created as the successor to the short-​lived, expensive, but effective Civil Works Authority, which ran during the winter and spring of 1933–​1934. Focusing initially on light industrial projects, such as the replacement of sidewalks and improvements of parks and playgrounds, the WPA maintained a sibling rivalry, and at times an overlap in policy implementation with the large-​scale infrastructure projects of the Public Works Administration, headed by Harold Ickes. As the agency matured, the range of projects expanded and became more ambitious.75 These projects created a substantial physical legacy and many remain part of the American landscape.76 The WPA-​built Timberline Lodge atop Mt. Hood in Oregon continues to draw tourists and skiers alike.77 Murals and reliefs created by WPA artists stretch from Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn to Berkeley

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The arts and the imagined audience 119 High School in the Bay Area. WPA workers renovated Lincoln Park in Chicago, built a bathhouse at Aquatic Park in San Francisco, and an airport terminal at Long Beach, to name but a few of the many schools, parks, and municipal buildings that the agency created, expanded, or refurbished.78 Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation often united strange bedfellows in reactive criticism and the WPA was no exception. Conservatives voiced concerns that WPA wages would be twice that of dole payments, while the American Federation of Labor protested that these wages undercut and therefore threatened unionised labour.79 Nevertheless, Roosevelt received his budget request of $5 billion in relief appropriations and on May 6, 1935, with the signing of Executive Order No. 7304, the WPA came to life, receiving an initial grant of approximately $1.4 billion from the overall relief appropriation.80 It employed almost 8.5 million people in total, though there were only ever 2 to 3 million employees at any given time, representing roughly 30 per cent of the jobless.81 Attempts to answer the specialised needs of various minority groups within the population were uneven. Women were, collectively, under-​represented in WPA employment.82 On the other hand, a conscious attempt was made to include African-​Americans, who had disproportionately swelled the relief rolls; they made up 30 per cent of WPA employees despite being roughly 10 per cent of the overall population.83 While Harold Ickes and the Public Works Administration championed the out-​of-​work construction worker, Harry Hopkins was keenly aware of the needs of ‘white-​collar’ workers; stenographers, clerks, teachers, lab technicians, and medical professionals all benefitted from eventual inclusion in the WPA, an expansion that also improved the ratio of women served by the agency.84 Artists must have seemed an almost natural extension, for if one is putting English teachers and draftsmen back to work, why not writers and designers, and if writers and designers, why not playwrights and painters, and so on. The Roosevelt Administration had achieved some success with employing mural artists in the Public Works of Art Project within the Civil Works Authority. While the mural programme was preserved by the Treasury Department, Hopkins was keen to revive and expand other arts projects under the WPA. When queried about spending money employing artists, he replied, “They’ve got to eat too, just like everybody else.”85 In August 1935, Hopkins created Federal Project One, frequently known simply as ‘Federal One,’ the umbrella designation for the Federal Art Project, the Federal Writers Project, the Federal Music Project, and the Federal Theatre Project.86 The arts projects of Federal One employed some 40,000 people while using approximately 7 per cent of the WPA’s overall budget.87 The tasks in which these federal employees were engaged ranged in activity and geography from carving fittings for the aforementioned Timberline Lodge to staging Macbeth in Harlem with an African-​American cast and a move from Scotland to Haiti. The Index of American Design, part of the Federal Art Project, brought recognition to the genre of folk art, while WPA-​designed posters warned against the dangers of syphilis. One estimate for the total

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120  The arts and the imagined audience output of the Federal Art Project was a combined 113,500 paintings, graphic designs, and murals, with a further 17,000 sculptural works. The Federal Music Project gave 225,000 musical performances, while the Federal Theatre Project played to a total audience of approximately 30 million, 60 per cent of whom had not previously seen professional theatre.88

The Federal Theatre Project, 1935–​1939 Of all the components of Federal One, the most groundbreaking and the most controversial was the Federal Theatre Project. Placed under the command of Hallie Flanagan, former head of drama at Vassar College, the Federal Theatre staged productions through a number of divisions including the Living Newspapers, the Children’s Theatre, radio, dance, vaudeville, circus, and puppet units.89 Within the major divisions were regional offices and touring groups that produced multiple versions of plays anywhere from a large theatre to the back of a truck to a tent. Acting jobs with the Federal Theatre were obtained by a combination of proven experience and audition but the project also created jobs for writers, stagehands, electricians, costumers, painters, and musicians.90 Of these workers, 90 per cent were enrolled on the relief rolls; the remaining 10 per cent, those in supervisory positions, were recruited as talented experts to oversee and guide the productions.91 Nor were all of these experts theatrical people; the Living Newspaper drew its leader, Morris Watson, and many of its researchers and writers from out-​of-​work members of the Newspaper Guild.92 Harry Hopkins was primarily concerned with shortening the relief rolls, but Hallie Flanagan saw the Federal Theatre Project as a chance to revive American theatre as a whole. Suffering in the face of challenges from film and radio, the American stages had stagnated. Flanagan lamented that the theatre had sunk to “whispering its tales of triangular love stories in small rectangular boxes.”93 She was impressed by productions in Ireland and Scandinavia, and especially excited by the Soviet theatre (an expressed opinion that would return to haunt her in the later years of the project).94 Flanagan hoped that the freedom from commercial restraints would allow the Federal Theatre to reach similar heights in experimentation and innovation.95 She envisioned changes for American theatre in content and execution. That said, despite Flanagan’s intention to rescue the American stage from threats self-​inflicted and external, the project’s relationship with the established theatrical world, particularly in New  York, was not always amicable. Theatrical producers viewed the Federal Theatre as a further tax on their diminishing audience numbers and the theatrical unions feared it was an attempt to undercut their wages.96 Nevertheless, the Federal Theatre survived and, for a time, thrived. It did so in part by targeting a much broader cross-​section of audiences than had previously been able, or inclined, to attend theatrical productions. Federal Theatre Project companies in the small Southern towns, for example,

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The arts and the imagined audience 121 produced plays by Shakespeare and Beckett, allowing poorly educated African-​ American sharecroppers to see themselves in the characters of Waiting for Godot. Audiences who had never been to a play reportedly failed to clap at the end of a production of Twelfth Night because they were so enthralled that they did not want to interrupt, lest there be another scene.97 Film historians of the interwar years note the class shift that occurred in cinema attendance during the late 1920s and 1930s as neighbourhood cinemas drew in the working classes.98 Though less discussed, and perhaps less extensive in its legacy, the Federal Theatre brought about a parallel shift. The well-​to-​do were no longer the exclusive audience for the American stage –​a phenomenon commented upon, even in the 1930s, by New York Times theatre critic Brooks Atkinson.99 Those who had frequented music halls and vaudeville in the nineteenth century became the theatrical audiences for Hallie Flanagan’s Depression-​era players.100 At the same time as Hollywood producer David O. Selznick was proving that films of literary classics such as Anna Karenina and A Tale of Two Cities could be marketed to the masses, the Federal Theatre Project proved that one did not have to be highly educated to appreciate and relate to classic theatrical works.101 Politics were rife in the day-​to-​day operations of the Federal Theatre Project, off–​stage certainly, but also on stage, as a topic for performance. Some films of the day similarly engaged with politics, overtly in productions such as Gabriel Over the White House (1933) and Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and through analogy, particularly in the gangster genre. The Federal Theatre had an advantage in this regard, in that it was not held to commercial concerns.102 The ‘angel’ of these productions was the federal government, which had promised that the theatre would be free from interference, or as Harry Hopkins put it as he announced the programme at the National Theatre Conference in 1935, “free, adult, uncensored.”103 While this was not necessarily the reality in all cases, such promises allowed Flanagan and her appointees to envision productions that could take on challenging themes, ideas, and staging in a way that commercial theatres and films could not.104 As a case in point, one of the Federal Theatre’s more adventurous projects occurred in 1936 when twenty-​two theatres simultaneously opened a dramatisation of Sinclair Lewis’ best-​selling anti-​fascist novel, It Can’t Happen Here (1935).105 MGM had bought the rights to the popular book and had paid a reported $200,000 to adapt the script. But before the film was put into production, the studio shelved the project due to a fear that it might cause a ban of all MGM films in fascist countries.106 The companies of Federal Theatre had no such commercial constraints and, as a result, the political concerns of the day came to life in plays like It Can’t Happen Here and in the Living Newspapers. One notable characteristic of the Federal Theatre was the conscious engagement with minority groups. In this goal, it marked a significant departure from the shortcomings of the rest of Federal One and other federal agencies employing artists. The Federal Theatre Project produced

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122  The arts and the imagined audience plays for and by Jews, Hispanics, and, importantly, African-​ Americans. Yiddish theatre, already a going concern in New  York, received support for productions from the project’s Yiddish Unit. The Negro Unit tapped into the latter years of the Harlem Renaissance, and produced plays for black audiences set within black culture, such as Conjur Man Dies based on Rudolph Fisher’s African-​American detective novels.107 The Chicago branch of the Federal Theatre produced a jazz version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta, retitled The Swing Mikado, which proved to be so popular that it became a Broadway production.108 But the most memorable and radical production of the Negro Unit was the “Voodoo” Macbeth, directed by up-​and-​ coming theatrical impresario Orson Welles.109 Welles moved the play from Scotland to Haiti, though retained the Shakespearean dialogue, with stupendous results.110 The play, which featured only African-​American actors, was a runaway success, selling out its first ten-​week season and then a subsequent two months in New York City’s downtown theatre district.111 While the New York-​based Negro Unit, run by John Houseman, did not tour, the play was reproduced by regional units, where it was similarly well received, including in locales in the South and Southwest.112 Beyond its reception, the use of African-​American actors to play classical characters, characters that in all previous productions had been played by whites, was especially groundbreaking and, at the time, bordered on revolutionary.113 The most innovative unit of the Federal Theatre Project, and the division for which it is best remembered, was the Living Newspaper. In Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, living newspapers were a well-​ established form of agitprop theatre. Under Hallie Flanagan, the American version began to evolve into a form that was as much documentary as propaganda. Though the Living Newspaper offices were regional and expected to create productions with regional relevance and interest, the most notable and best-​ documented Newspapers were produced by the New York office, and had a more national outlook.114 Many of these productions tackled New Deal policy and concerns, including Triple-​A Plowed Under about agricultural policy, Injunction Granted about organised labour’s relationship with the courts, Power about public ownership of utilities and “…One-​Third of a Nation” about slum housing. Largely written and researched by journalists, the plays used projected photographs, disembodied narrative voices, choral recitation, and everyman characters to explore the problems and policies of the day in a manner that transcended the potentially dry subject matter.115 Some Depression-​era critics were reluctant to call the Living Newspapers plays, but even if they found the writing and acting to be of a questionable standard, they were almost always impressed by the stagecraft.116 Brooks Atkinson tends to be remembered by theatre historians as the critic who accused the Federal Theatre of combining Mother Goose and Marx in his scathing critique of the Children’s Unit production Revolt of the Beavers. Atkinson’s take on the Living Newspapers, however, was considerably less reactionary.117

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The arts and the imagined audience 123 In reviewing, “…One Third of a Nation,” Atkinson pointed out the over-​ simplification of proposed solutions to a difficult problem and, noting the possibility for propaganda and “muck-​raking,” he described the play as a “rabble-​rouser of uncommon eloquence.”118 He also deplored the use of the loudspeaker-​broadcast Voice of the Living Newspaper.119 That all said, however, he was receptive to the form itself, describing it as “a remarkable elaboration of the stage technique.” In noting the combination of theatre performance and public lecture, he commended the Newspapers’ ability to “make an abstract topic uncommonly absorbing.”120 Brooks clearly understood the potency the form possessed within the larger context of policy dissemination and summed up the production by acknowledging: It can make tedious information graphic and personal. It can make the history and social facts of the housing problem the most sensational story on the New York Stage at the moment.121 Atkinson articulated the crux of why the Living Newspapers continue to demand attention; as a theatrical form, the performances made crucial information not only palatable, but entertaining. Furthermore, they were topical, addressing pertinent and pressing social and economic concerns. Scripts were, to use modern vernacular, ‘ripped from the headlines,’ with much of the dialogue transcribed from actual quotes, including the Congressional record –​to the chagrin of the quoted senators.122 Indeed, despite its popularity with audiences, the Federal Theatre Project increasingly fell into disfavour with Congress. Contradictory accusations that the Federal Theatre created a mouthpiece for White House propaganda and communist agitation resulted in pressure on Flanagan to justify the project’s very existence.123 Congressional opprobrium culminated in a review of the Federal Theatre by the Dies Committee, the first incarnation of the House Un-​American Activities Committee, led by Congressman Martin Dies of Texas. Based largely on hearsay, misrepresentation, and misunderstanding, and all but ignoring of Flanagan’s testimony, and a lengthy supporting submission compiled by her staff, the Dies Committee condemned the project as a hotbed of ultra-​left-​wing radicalism.124 Their recommendations were forwarded to the House Appropriations Committee on whom all the Federal One projects were ultimately dependent for funding.125 The last new play, George Sklar’s Life and Death of an American, opened on May 19, 1939. Barely a month later, when the new relief bill passed both houses of Congress on June 30, the Federal Theatre Project was closed.126 Over four years, the Federal Theatre played to tens of millions of theatregoers.127 It was revolutionary in its use of multimedia stagecraft and perhaps even more so by allowing African-​American actors the opportunity to take possession of ‘the Bard.’ The impact of the Living Newspaper stagecraft is illustrated by 1946 article on the advent of television, which describes the potential incorporation of Living Newspaper techniques into

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124  The arts and the imagined audience the new medium.128 But there were other theatre companies, other projects, other media that experimented with technology and challenged the status quo. What then is the lasting power of the Federal Theatre Project? The answer can be found in the reluctant praise of Brooks Atkinson, who coined a fitting epitaph for the project in its dying days. He wrote: Many things about the Federal Theatre Project are hard to defend … But for socially useful achievement, it would be hard among the relief projects to beat the Federal Theatre which has brought art and ideas within the range of millions of people all over the country …129 It is this symbiotic relationship within the project, art and ideas, the visual and textual, and intellectual layers of a mural or an instructional leaflet blasted out with the force of radio transmitter, that makes the Federal Theatre Project so captivating.

A New Deal for the Arts A New Deal for the Arts, staged at the National Archives in 1997 and curated by Bruce Bustard, was an interpretation of the multiple programmes that made up the WPA arts projects known collectively as Federal One. The exhibition was organised thematically, with each section examining a recurrent theme or idée fixe across the Federal Theatre Project, the Federal Writers Project, the Federal Art Project, and the Federal Music Project, as well as the mural projects run by the Treasury Department. In much the same vein as FDR: The Intimate Presidency, this exhibition sought to understand the New Deal arts and the New Deal society in tandem, each speaking to the other.130 By channelling an interpretation of New Deal government policy through the art produced in government programmes, the exhibition is especially revelatory as to the ways in which ideas and information were received, challenged, questioned, and negotiated in the American public sphere. One of the key recurring themes within A New Deal for the Arts, and one that relates closely to experiences of vulnerability, is the interpretation of labour, work, and the surrounding tensions present in those relationships during the 1930s. Given the Federal Theatre Project’s ignominious end, it is an obvious choice for discussions of labour and communism. While not nearly as pervasive as the imaginings of the Dies Committee, there was a communist presence within the Federal Theatre.131 Many of those who were not members of the traditional theatrical unions, such as researchers, maintenance personnel, and dancers, as well as African-​American and Jewish actors, joined the Workers Alliance.132 The Workers Alliance had sprung up to absorb the unaffiliated across the WPA, and was known for its radical leadership, with ties to the Communist Party.133 That said, some Federal Theatre troupes displayed a strong conservative bent. In Newark, half the actors

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The arts and the imagined audience 125 complained that a history play, Created Equal, was un-​American. Similar complaints were lodged by this troupe regarding It Can’t Happen Here and the Living Newspaper Triple-​A Plowed Under.134 Many performers, though, felt a kinship with those living in poverty. As discussed in Chapter 2, participation in the Communist Party of the United States amongst industrial workers during the 1930s was less motivated by revolution and more by day-​to-​day practical issues of food, rent, and working conditions.135 The oral histories of those in the theatre suggest that their affiliation was, similarly, of a particularly American nature. Jules Dassin, a member of the Children’s Unit who was later blacklisted in Hollywood, characterised his political position as more ‘red, white, and blue’ than ‘red’: We were talking about social security, about the sanctity of a trade union. Well these are all like America and apple pie. That it was branded communist was foolish.136 Studs Terkel made a similar observation, stating: Many of the people who sympathized [with communism] were those that were active in these movements of the street, Workers Alliance, or the troops that were organizing the unions. They’re for very American purposes: the right to organize, the right to a life of some dignity and some security.137 Even after the National Industrial Recovery Act, and its successor the Wagner Act of 1935, guaranteed the right to organise, the process of unionisation continued to be a hard-​ fought and sometimes bloody struggle. These struggles of the labouring classes became a prevalent theme in the productions of the Federal Theatre Project. The most radical of the Living Newspapers, Injunction Granted, traced the interactions, often adversarial, between the labour movement and the courts. Hallie Flanagan was reportedly livid at this production, both because her demanded amendments to the script were ignored, and because of the undeniable editorialising.138 Flanagan denounced it as “bad journalism and hysterical theatre.”139 But Injunction Granted was far from the only play to deal with labour issues. Labour unrest was a major issue around the country and that was reflected in the plays of the Federal Theatre Project, including Stevedore, Let Freedom Ring, Altars of Steel, and Mark Blitzstein’s class opera The Cradle Will Rock. The Cradle Will Rock remains particularly infamous due to the accusation that there had been a deliberate interference from the upper echelons of the WPA in order to prevent the production from opening. Produced in 1937 by John Houseman and directed by Orson Welles, the musical found itself halted by a declaration from WPA administrators in Washington that no new productions would open before July 1, two weeks after its scheduled

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126  The arts and the imagined audience opening night.140 Though the memo cited budget concerns, Cradle was the only play due to open, and the delay seems to have had less to do with fiscal shortfall and more to do with series of violent strikes that had recently occurred.141 When Houseman and Welles tried to persist with the production, the Federal Theatre administrators locked them out of their theatre on opening night. Houseman and Welles led a parade of performers and audience to a new theatre in which Blitzstein performed on the side of the stage with an upright piano and the players did their lines from the audience, all to stay within union rules.142 The use of Federal funds to create labour-​sympathetic plays may have angered those on the political right (and sometimes those in the project’s administration), but it reflects the Federal Theatre’s engagement with broader theatrical movements of the day. The project had to be cautious as to the degree to which it lured theatre-​goers away from the Broadway shows, so it sought audiences elsewhere. Sometimes this led to productions of Treasure Island in Central Park and other plays aimed at children and non-​traditional audiences. But the Federal Theatre also drew on connections with the emerging workers’ theatre. Companies such as the Group Theatre received acclaim performing works like Clifford Odet’s Waiting For Lefty.143 Even Brooks Atkinson twice reviewed the International Ladies Garment Workers Union’s theatrical revue Pins and Needles.144 Performers often moved between these companies and WPA troupes. It is unsurprising, therefore, that there was a degree of intellectual cross-​pollination, such as the desire to dramatise the experiences of work. Integrating the Federal Theatre Project’s focus on labour and the ensuing controversies into a larger story is one strength of A New Deal for the Arts. Spread across two themes, “Work Pays America” and “Activist Arts,” the theatrical productions are interpreted as one component of the broader New Deal artistic movements tackling these themes. Thus, the Living Newspaper Power, on ownership of utilities, is juxtaposed with Peter Saker’s photograph Rural Electrification Administration Co-​op Office. Lafayette, Louisiana, 1939 (1939) and David Stone Martin’s painting Electrification (1940).145 Similarly, The Cradle Will Rock and other controversial Federal Theatre plays such as Revolt of the Beavers are exhibited alongside Ben Shahn’s picket line painting Lest We Forget (1937) and a selection of Arnold Eagle and David Robbins’ photographic series on urban poverty, One Third of a Nation (1938).146 The effect of this contextual strategy is two-​fold. First, it grounds the plays in the actual events of the time rather than understanding them only as theatrical constructs and imagined worlds. Second, it introduces a means through which to interpret contentious events such as strikes in less inflammatory ways. As discussed in earlier chapters, the emotional aspects of strikes are simultaneously elusive in interpretation and potentially destructive for generations after the events have concluded.147 Understanding them through the arts, however, allows both curators and museum visitors a step of remove. The National Steinbeck Center illustrated

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The arts and the imagined audience 127 that integrating history and the arts do not guarantee an effective interpretation. But A New Deal for the Arts provided a strong counter-​example in arguing for possibilities provided by such as strategy. By juxtaposing visual and material culture, and ultimately providing what amounts to a modern interpretation of 1930s’ interpretation, Bruce Bustard’s exhibition presented the issues and intellectual and emotional positions of 1930s labour without privileging one narrative position over all others. Whether using stagecraft or content as a starting point, FDR: The Intimate Presidency and A New Deal for the Arts do an admirable job of trying to capture and convey the significance of the Federal Theatre Project. As good as these exhibitions are, a crucial element remains frustratingly absent. For neither exhibition can recover or preserve the audience for these productions. This is the seemingly insurmountable challenge for most museological interpretations of historical theatre. However, given that so much of the significance of the Federal Theatre Project rests in audience reception and reaction, the effect of this absence becomes all the more magnified.

Exhibiting theatre While there is a discourse surrounding the interaction of museums and theatre, most academic discussion focuses on the use of theatrical techniques and performance as an interpretive method.148 Such techniques, while effective as exhibition enhancement and extension, derive as much from living history parks as theatres. As such, the discourse concentrates on a performed interpretation rather than interpretation of performance. Despite allusions to exhibitions as static theatre, interpreting historical theatrical productions and historical theatrical experience within a museum is a proposition that is, at best, only ever semi-​successful.149 The challenge aligns precisely with the reasons that critics of the Federal Theatre Project characterised its activities as dangerous; theatre is, ultimately, a live medium. The central element is the performance, but the performance itself has not traditionally been collectable. Bruce Bustard, lead curator on A New Deal for the Arts, specifically mentioned this problem in discussing the successes and challenges within the exhibition: How do you take the remains of arts projects especially dance and theatre, when what’s left may be a poster or a costume design, and make those living arts come across effectively in an exhibition? … We used some audio and a.v. clips and things like that but it still seemed sort of separate. If you put a poster or a costume design from a theatre production on the wall, it may be a really cool design or poster but how much does that tell you about the actual play?150 Bustard identifies an ongoing, and arguably unsolvable, problem for theatre museums and museums wishing to include historical theatre culture in

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128  The arts and the imagined audience exhibitions. Like many exhibitions faced with this dilemma, A New Deal for the Arts makes some use of film clips of performances. There is a distinction, though, particularly with historical works, between performances and captured copies. Increasingly, theatrical filming, such as the National Theatre Live series, is completed under performance conditions, made viable by improvements in the recording technologies. Filmed performances from earlier eras often required a change in staging or lighting to allow better angles or exposure.151 Rarely was the camera positioned in an actual audience seat, and as such these recordings depict an altered visual perspective, even if the performance aesthetics have been maintained. Crucially, in many of the recordings the theatre audience, itself a component of any performance, is not present and while the museum provides an alternative audience, the conditions do not replicate those of the theatre. As a result, exhibitions on theatre have tended to consist of the ephemera surrounding the performance, photographs, playbills, set designs, costumes, scripts, and reviews, but remain absent of the thing itself. While some scholars have commented on the difficulties of transferring historical theatrical performance into the museum, more attention has been given to the differences in physical space than to recognition of the implications in presence or absence of the audience. For example, in her largely positive review of A New Deal for the Arts, Helen Tangires praises the exhibition for making use of filmed versions of Federal Theatre productions but suggests the placement of the video screen above a doorway without provided seating was not conducive to lengthy viewing.152 Arguably, though, even a more conducive space would only go so far in capturing the essence of a Federal Theatre performance; a full reception of these works is not quite so easy to reproduce. The influence of the Federal Theatre Project, and therefore its modern significance, rested not only in what the plays said, but how those words were received. That reception has to be understood within the context of an audience with a particular set of reference points and a particular knowledge base, coping with a particular set of challenges.153 The audience therefore, has a vital role in the historical understanding of these plays, their role within the larger New Deal and the way they reflect a population negotiating vulnerability. The Living Newspapers have, at times, been held up as a form of theatrical documentary.154 If this were their only purpose, the audience would matter less, as they would simply be a document of the times. These productions, though, were not simply a dramatisation of events, they were performances of problematised situations and potential solutions, unpacked and explored before a live audience.155 The least successful of the Newspapers was a production entitled 1935. While other productions considered pressing social issues, the tabloid elements of 1935, murder trials, hangings, gangland shootings, heiress weddings, and the Pacific Clipper, provided only candy-​ floss sensationalism and audiences remained unimpressed.156 In contrast the popularity of other Living Newspapers, such as explorations of the housing

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The arts and the imagined audience 129 crisis in “…One Third of a Nation,” and Spirochete’s dramatisation of the fight against syphilis, indicate that audiences were seeking to engage, to be challenged.157 Thus the Living Newspapers function less as reportage and more as a theatrical equivalent to a Lyceum, or Mechanics Institutes with nods to the Chautauqua adult education movement. The Newspapers provided a catalyst for the exchange of ideas on issues deeply pertinent to the everyday lives of the American populace. They did so because this project was not content to just change American theatre, but also, sought change American society as a whole.158 In an essay in 1939 entitled “Democracy and the Drama,” the project director Hallie Flanagan expanded on the nature this idea: The Federal Theatre is a pioneer theatre because it is part of a tremendous re-​ thinking, re-​ building and re-​ dreaming of America … These activities represent the new frontier in America, a frontier against disease, dirt, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and despair, and at the same times, against selfishness, special privilege and social apathy. And in the struggle for a better life our actors know what they are talking about; the Federal Theatre, being their theatre, becomes not merely a decoration but a vital force in our democracy.159 The plays of the Federal Theatre engaged regular citizens on issues of policy, but beyond that, they placed reflections of those regular citizen front and centre and on stage. The everyman was a growing motif across a number of cultural fields during the 1930s.160 Films such as Meet John Doe focused on the redemptive qualities of the common man; the average Joe as saviour.161 The egalitarian nature of American culture as the birth right of the common man was the theme of a speech by New York City’s populist mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1935.162 In keeping with this focus, many of the Living Newspapers featured an everyman character that moved through the action. In Power, for example, the everyman is Angus K. Buttonkooper, a “meek-​looking consumer” trying to make sense of why he pays so much for his electricity and how the Tennessee Valley Authority project might help him.163 Buttonkooper, and characters like him, provided a personification of the intended audience, drawing them into the action, voicing the questions that were being asked in barbershops, sewing circles, and diners all across America. The concerns of the common citizen, rather than being dismissed as too mundane, became the central framework for live theatre. Just as soap operas on radio become a way of understanding ritual in response to crisis, and the Fireside Chats indicate the relationship between leader and citizen, the Federal Theatre Project reflects another manifestation of the citizen turning to media for reassurance or at least explanation. In the face of vulnerability Depression-​era Americans did not stoically wait for solutions, they actively sought answers. The popularity of this art form, of the Living Newspapers, stands as a testament to the collective search for

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130  The arts and the imagined audience clarity amongst those who saw themselves at risk. Furthermore, if part of the appeal of the Living Newspapers was that the everyman allowed audiences to see themselves on stage negotiating the crisis on some level, then an understanding of that audience becomes a component of understanding the Federal Theatre Project and understanding the Federal Theatre becomes a way of understanding that audience. As discussed previously museums have found ways to create a sense of the audience for 1930s’ radio broadcasts. In part this has been achieved by locating interpretations of that media within the domestic sphere, illustrating how it was consumed within the home. But theatre does not have that same presence in the household. So, while a radio set placed in a recreated living room immediately creates a sense of reception, it is much harder to achieve a similar encapsulation of theatrical reception. Some museums have successfully used this model for the interpretation of film; the Michigan History Museum has done so in its interpretation of the 1920s. So why not simply create an immersive theatre set in which to interpret this medium? One of the challenges is that of all the 1930s’ media, the theatre was the most interactive. Radio audiences might have written in to their local station but theatre audiences argued back. Norman Lloyd, an actor in the Federal Theatre, recalled just such occurrences whilst performing with the Living Newspapers: When we had scenes in the Living Newspaper which touched a nerve, or a personality who offended them, they would talk back to the actor on stage, because they’d never been in a live theatre, and maybe that’s what you did. That’s dangerous from a certain point of view. That’s why you had a living, exciting social theatre in the thirties.164 Studs Terkel similarly related the tale of an angry audience who became so involved in Waiting for Lefty, a play about a taxi drivers’ strike, that they threatened to beat an actor portraying a strike-​breaker and only relented after the other actors interceded.165 Performance films may show how the plays were staged and the flow of a script, but without a theatrical audience captured alongside the performance, they fall short in representing the emotional vested interest. Within the Federal Theatre Project there is a significant relationship between performer and public and at least part of that significance is because the voice of the federal government was audible within the performances. Those creating the productions staged by the Federal Theatre were conscious of their role in a dialogue between the American people and the American government. The 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s marked a broad paradigm shift for the American arts. Greater attention was paid to mass appeal. American motifs became more prominent in visual and performative arts, driven in part by a presumption that the familiarity of subject would appeal to the common man and woman.166

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The arts and the imagined audience 131 But the process also involved a desire to employ art in order create better citizens.167 The utilisation of the arts as a tool for management of the nation’s character was not unique to either the United States or the interwar period.168 The 1930s and 1940s, however, become distinct in the desire for a refined sense of citizenship rather than simply an improvement of the masses.169 What emerges in the 1930s in the United States is a new social contract; the government would fund the arts and provide them to the people as part of the construction of a vital and vibrant society, and in exchange the people would become faithful and  active citizens of that society.170 This social contract is readily visible in the Federal Theatre Project and the Living Newspapers, on either side of the proscenium arch. Theatre is a living, breathing medium; it is not just words on a page, or projected particles of light. Like the radio, literacy was not a requirement for membership in the imagined community created by these plays –​plays that were performed, with some regional variation, all around the country. It was therefore an effective way of engaging the citizenry in ideas and issues. As Flanagan wrote in 1936, “Drama, through rhythmic speech, dynamic movement and contagious listening, can influence human thought and lead to human action.”171 But it is perhaps this aspect that made fears of communist agitators within the productions so potent. If the theatre is being used as a tool of outreach and negotiation, then the nature of the message becomes crucial. If the Federal Theatre Project had merely stuck to the classics, it would probably have escaped the censure that it received.172 Instead, the plays were about America, and how it was conceptualised, past, present, and future. That in itself made the theatre radical and frightening. Incorporate a radical left element present in the interpretation of labour unrest, utility ownership, and agricultural policy, and, to some of those who held power, the end result was potentially terrifying. Which is not to say that the Dies Committee was justified in closing down the project. But, when committee member, Congressman Joe Starnes (D-​AL) asked whether sixteenth-​century playwright Christopher Marlowe was a communist, Hallie Flanagan did not laugh, and to some extent neither should twenty-​first-​century audiences.173 The targeting of the Federal Theatre Project by the Dies Committee was not merely the expression of fear of ‘reds under the bed’ by paranoid reactionaries (though that was present). Instead it illuminates the complex relationship between government and citizen that was being played out throughout the New Deal, and, crucially, the nature of theatre as a means of public communication and debate. In order to fully convey these ideas, there needs to be a sense of the theatrical audience. Without them, without providing museum visitors a means to envision their 1930s counterparts, the Dies Committee is simply reactionary, Brooks Atkinson is simply ranting about Mother Goose and loudspeakers, and Angus K. Buttonkooper has nothing to tell us about power, or class, or fear, or conflict. This is paradox that curators are left with.

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Chapter conclusions To resist the incorporation of emotion into the interpretation of the Great Depression is to ignore one of the key motivators for individual action and government policy. The use of the arts allows access to those emotions and enables curators to better interpret vulnerability and not just suffering. To be homeless or jobless is to suffer a tangible impact from the crisis –​ a bruise visible to the eye. But those who were housed and employed nevertheless experienced vulnerability brought on by the precariousness of work and housing and the national economy. Translating their experience into an exhibition is no less important to an understanding of the American Great Depression, but it does present a museological challenge. An examination of a Living Newspaper or a radio soap opera gives scope for interpreting vulnerability and attempts to negotiate or mitigate its effects. A shift in focus towards the arts does not remove either FDR or the economic crisis from the stage. Both loom large, inextricably so, within any engagement with American history of the 1930s. That said, interpretation through the arts allows for a different lens to be put in front of the crisis, the president, his administration, and the citizenry they served. As Warren I. Susman argues, “if we want to know how people experienced the world, FDR had his role but so did Mickey Mouse.”174 The combination of the arts and their intended audiences within interpretive space opens up a range of narratives that stem from the emotional lives conveyed by those arts. The exercise of choice amongst audiences, such as the rejection of the less-​substantial Living Newspaper for failing to address the socio-​economic crisis, further supports an understanding of these artistic outputs as vehicles for information, query, and communication; all sought as a reaction to vulnerability. The interplay of audience and arts within exhibitions additionally allows for a re-​adjustment of the strategy of association and identification between museum visitors and historical citizenry. In many exhibitions, this relies on a point of emotional connection. While such linkages are effective for interpretation, they may lead to an overshadowing of historical difference and expectations of the historical populace that are not in keeping with the context and mores of their era. By using the arts and the concept of an imagined audience to create interpretive associations, these exhibitions succeed in maintaining a tested strategy while avoiding some of the ahistorical assumptions that can result from drawing too close of an emotional parallel. For all its effectiveness, the use of the arts as a tool for historical interpretation does encompass challenges, and there is still space for development. With regards to radio, more could have been done with the use of broadcasts in communal rather than domestic space. However, most of these case studies were conceived when television was the primary comparative media. As the internet supersedes television, the communal aspects of the

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The arts and the imagined audience 133 internet and the rise of digital communities may lead to new approaches in interpreting historical media. Certainly there were interactive elements to 1930s radio that have parallels in twenty-​first-​century digital formats and it will be interesting to observe how these may impact on museological approaches.175 Additionally, as museums become more conscientious in providing women’s perspectives within general history, greater emphasis could be placed upon soap operas as a medium that was directed towards an audience perceived and imagined as female. The greatest challenge, however, is illustrated by attempts to interpret the Federal Theatre Project. As much as the Federal Theatre encapsulates everything that was dynamic, and dangerous, influential, and infuriating, about Federal One, as a museum piece it is inherently flawed. It brings to light one of the realities of the medium of exhibition:  not every story, no matter how good, works well with this genre. Exhibitions can be a surprisingly inflexible medium. At times, their limitations derive from a dependence on material culture or recognition that any object or narrative that requires momentous amounts of text is unlikely to hold an audience’s attention. In this case, the Federal Theatre provides a wealth of material and, to some extent, no amount of text will replace the missing element. The limitations lie in the inability of any museum to collect the other half of any performance from the 1930s, the audience. The living breathing entity that shuffled into Southern tents unsure of what might appear; that revelled in The Swing Mikado and Welles’ Macbeth because here, finally, was their music and their voices being given the respect of the classical stage; the woman that stood up and yelled at the actor playing a strike-​breaker, finally able to direct her rage somewhere; the man that sat in the darkened theatre in New York trying to wrap his brain around what the Tennessee Valley Authority might possibly have to do with his electrical bills since he did not live near Tennessee; they are all absent. Yet, they even more than Flanagan and Welles and Houseman and the like, these are the people that gave the Federal Theatre its power. Without them, exhibitions remain, trapped in the lobby, reading the playbill, and having a drink at the bar, but not actually able to convey the full weight of the performance.

Notes 1 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “Inaugural Address,” Washington, DC, March 4, 1933. 2 David E.  Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States 1920–​1940:  How Americans Lived Through the “Roaring Twenties” and the Great Depression, rev. edn (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004), 78–​79, 84, 253. 3 David Fleming, “The Emotional Museum:  The Case of National Museums Liverpool,” in Challenging History in the Museum: International Perspectives, ed. Jenny Kidd et al. (London: Routledge, 2016), 32. 4 Gaynor Kavanagh, “Making Histories, Making Memories,” in Making Histories in Museums, ed. Gaynor Kavanagh (London: Leicester University Press, 1996), 12.

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134  The arts and the imagined audience 5 See, for example: Kate Gregory and Andrea Witcomb, “Beyond Nostalgia: The Role of Affect in Generating Historical Understanding at Heritage Sites,” in Museum Revolutions:  How Museums Change and are Changed, ed. Simon Knell et  al. (London:  Routledge, 2007); Andrea Witcomb, “Understanding the Role of Affect in Producing a Critical Pedagogy for History Museums,” Museum Management and Curatorship 28, no. 3 (2013) 255–​271; Laurajane Smith and Gary Campbell, “The Elephant in the Room: Heritage, Affect and Emotion,” in A Companion to Heritage Studies, ed. William Logan et al. (Chichester: Wiley-​ Blackwell, 2016) 443–​460. 6 John C. Stickler, “A Literary Legacy: The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas,” Museum International 51, no. 3 (1999), 46; Marci Lingo, “Forbidden Fruit: The Banning of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in the Kern County Free Library,” Libraries & Culture 38, no. 4 (Fall 2003), 351–​377; Dean E. Murphy, “Steinbeck, At Last, Welcomed Home,” New York Times, April 18, 2004, n.p. 7 The National Collection of Fine Arts was first renamed the National Museum of American Art and more recently as the Smithsonian American Art Museum. 8 Dr.  Josh Taylor, “The Great Crash and its Art,” Radio Smithsonian Weekly Broadcast, host Anne Carroll. Produced by the Smithsonian Institution Office of Telecommunications. Smithsonian Institution Archives Record Unit 588 Box 7/​ 19: Number 531: The Great Crash and its Art. 9 Fred Voss and Michael Lawson, “The Great Crash and its Art,” Radio Smithsonian Weekly Broadcast, host Anne Carroll. Produced by the Smithsonian Institution Office of Telecommunications. Smithsonian Institution Archives Record Unit 588 Box 7/​19: Number 531: The Great Crash and its Art. 10 Merry A.  Foresta, “Art and Document:  Photography of the Work’s Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project,” in Official Images: New Deal Photography, ed. Pete Daniel et al. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987), 151; Bruce I. Bustard, A New Deal for the Arts (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration in association with University of Washington Press, 1997), 105; John Raeburn, A Staggering Revolution:  A Cultural History of Thirties Photography (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 277–​278, 281–​282, 294–​295. 11 Though the common abbreviation of ‘WPA’ remains consistent, the agency was named the Works Progress Administration between 1935 and July 1937 and the Works Projects Administration thereafter. 12 United States Government Memorandum, March 29, 1974, to Dr. Taylor, 20th Century Art, from Harry Lowe, subject:  Federal Arts Projects, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit:  444, Box:  4/​15, Folder:  “After the Crash (Discover).” 13 Barbara Rose, “1961 And All That,” New York, April 1, 1974, 73. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit:  444, Box:  4/​15, Folder:  “After the Crash (Discover).” 14 Rose, “1961 And All That,” 73. The NEA’s award structure is, however, notably different than that of any of the projects from the 1930s. At the time of writing, the NEA and its partner program the National Endowment for the Humanities are again facing devastating cuts to the point of potential eradication. 15 Paul Richard, “The Art of the ‘30s,” Washington Post, Washington, DC, Date obscured, 1979, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 458, Box 27/​29, Folder “After the Crash Publicity.” 16 Richard, “The Art of the ‘30s.”

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The arts and the imagined audience 135 17 “Chicagoan, Jogging Nation’s Memory, Speeds Plans for Roosevelt Centennial,” New  York Times, June 24, 1981. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit: 376, Box: 2/​2, Folder: FDR [General]; Christopher Bonner, “Centennial for FDR was Nearly Forgotten,” Free Press, Detroit, MI, January, 25, 1982. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit:  376, Box:  1/​2, Folder:  FDR Clips; “FDR’s Centennial,” Daily News Tribune, Fullerton, CA, December 12, 1981. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit:  376, Box:  1/​2, Folder: FDR Clips. 18 “Chicagoan Jogging Nation’s Memory.” 19 “Chicagoan Jogging Nation’s Memory.” Yates sat on the Appropriations Committee and was Chairman of the Sub-​Committee on Interior and Related Agencies. It is this subcommittee that controlled the Smithsonian’s budget through the Department of the Interior. S. Dillon Ripley, Letter to Hon. Sidney R.  Yates, April 24, 1971. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit:  460, Box: 18/​18, Folder: FDR Memorial Exhibition. 20 Roger Kennedy, Letter to William Emerson, April 30, 1981. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit: 551, Box: 21/​45, Folder: FDR (1982). 21 Roger Kennedy, Memorandum to Phillip K.  Reiss, November 19, 1981. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit:  551, Box:  21/​45, Folder:  FDR (1982). 22 Gwen Rochester, “Memorandum to Arthur Molella Re: Attendance in the FDR Exhibit,” n.d. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit: 551, Box: 21/​45, Folder: FDR (1982). 23 “Franklin D.  Roosevelt:  The Intimate Presidency.” Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit: 376, Box: 1/​2, Folder: Proposals. 24 “Franklin D.  Roosevelt:  The Intimate Presidency.” Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit: 376, Box: 1/​2, Folder: Proposals. 25 Arthur P. Molella and Elsa M. Brunton, FDR: The Intimate Presidency: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Communication, and the Mass Media in the 1930s:  An Exhibition to Commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of the 32nd President of the United States (Washington, DC: National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, 1982), 38–​43. 26 Harry Lowe, “Memo Routing Slip” to Virginia M–​, July 2, 1981. Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit: 460, Box: 18/​18, Folder: FDR Memorial Ex; Charles Blitzer was Assistant Secretary of Art and History at the Smithsonian from 1968 to 1983. 27 “Blitzer.” Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit:  376, Box:  2/​2, Folder: Untitled. 28 Virginia Mecklenburg, Roosevelt’s America:  New Deal Paintings from the National Museum of American Art (Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982). Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit:  376, Box:  1/​ 2, Folder: Publicity. 29 Molella and Brunton, FDR: The Intimate Presidency, 21. 30 Caroline Bird, The Invisible Scar (New  York:  David McKay Company Inc., 1966),  22–​23. 31 Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 74; Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–​1939, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 129; Bruce Lenthall, Radio’s America:  The Great Depression and the Rise of Modern Mass Culture (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), 11.

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136  The arts and the imagined audience 32 Alice Goldfarb Marquis, Hopes and Ashes:  The Birth of Modern Times (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 17; Lenthall, Radio’s America, 11. 33 Marquis, Hopes and Ashes, 16. 34 Marquis, Hopes and Ashes, 17. It should be understood that 1400 represents the number of stations across the country, not that all were available nationally. 35 Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 83–​ 84. NBC initially operated two networks:  Red and Blue. Blue became the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in 1943. 36 Marquis, Hopes and Ashes, 19. 37 Marquis, Hopes and Ashes, 19; Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States,  85–​86. 38 Lenthall, Radio’s America,  56–​57. 39 Lenthall, Radio’s America, 56. 40 Lenthall, Radio’s America, 58. 41 Lenthall, Radio’s America, 59; Cohen, Making a New Deal, 133; Lawrence W. Levine, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 314–​315. 42 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 135–​136. 43 Lenthall, Radio’s America, 57. 44 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 142; Lenthall, Radio’s America, 61. 45 Lenthall, Radio’s America, 18–​ 19. For a more complete discussion on the debates amongst public intellectuals regarding mass culture, see Lenthall, Radio’s America, especially c­ hapter 1. 46 Lenthall, Radio’s America, 2. 47 Lenthall, Radio’s America, 4. 48 Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 307. 49 War of the Worlds, dir. Orson Welles. Accessed via “The Mercury Theatre on the Air,” http://​sounds.mercurytheatre.info/​mercury/​381030.mp3. 50 Archibald McLeish as quoted in William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, rev. edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 136. 51 Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 305–​ 306; Lenthall, Radio’s America, 54, 66,  70–​72. 52 Warren I. Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (Washington, DC:  Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003), 160. 53 Susman, Culture as History, 160. 54 Lenthall, Radio’s America,  59–​60. 55 Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 305. 56 Susman, Culture as History, 255; Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 313. 57 General Electric, as quoted in Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 138. 58 Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 314–​315; Lenthall, Radio’s America, 59. 59 Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 352. 60 Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 301. 61 Jason Loviglio, Radio’s Intimate Public:  Network Broadcasting and Mass-​ Mediated Democracy (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), xiii–​xiv, citing Saul Bellows, It All Adds Up: From the Dim Past to the Uncertain Future:  a Non-​ fiction Collection (New  York:  Viking, 1996), n.p. and Ray Barfield, Listening to Radio 1920–​1950 (Westfield, CT: Praeger Press, n.d.), 68.

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The arts and the imagined audience 137 62 David M. Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression: Freedom From Fear Part One, two-​volume repr. (Oxon: Oxford University Press, 2004), 224. 63 Studs Terkel, Hard Times (New  York:  The New Press, 1986), 61. Lenthall suggests that the stories of street-​listening to Amos’n’Andy have become so commonplace amongst Depression narratives as to be almost “apocryphal.” Lenthall, Radio’s America, 61. 64 Loviglio, Radio’s Intimate Public, xx–​xxii; Lenthall, Radio’s America, 56–​62; Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 82, 86, 89–​91. 65 Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 90. 66 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities:  Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. edn (London:  Verso, 2006), 24–​ 25, 33, 35–​ 36, 54 n. 28. 67 Michigan History Museum, “The Great Depression,” exhibition, panel: 3.8  ML.3. 68 FDR:  The Intimate Presidency planning document, SIA, RU 376, Box 2/​ 2, Folder: FDR Radio. 69 Marquis, Hopes and Ashes, 32. A handwritten note on the rough draft of the FDR:  The Intimate Presidency exhibition script mentions Butcher’s claim to have named the broadcasts. “Rough Script for FDR: The Intimate Presidency.” Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 376, Box 1/​2, Folder: Letters re FDR exhibit. 70 Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York: Viking, 1946), 72, as quoted in T.H. Watkins, The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999), 152–​153. 71 Arthur M.  Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt Volume II 1933–​1935:  The Coming of the New Deal, rev. edn (Boston: Mariner Books, 2003), 572. 72 Interview with Deborah Tout-​ Smith, Meighen S.  Katz, “History Under Construction: Curators and the Experience of Creating Accessible Public History” (MA thesis, Monash University, 2005), 118. 73 Interview with Moya McFadzean; Katz, “History Under Construction,” 102. 74 Lois H.  Silverman, “Visitor Meaning-​Making in Museums for a New Age,” Curator 38, no. 4 (1995), 162. 75 Irving Bernstein, A History of the American Worker 1933–​ 1941:  A Caring Society: The New Deal, The Worker and The Great Depression (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985), 174; Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, 287; William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal: 1932–​1940 (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1963), 121–​122, 134–​136; Anthony J. Badger, The New Deal: The Depression Years 1933–​1940 (London: Macmillan, 1989), 198–​199. 76 The exact figures cited in Leuchtenburg, Bernstein, T.H. Watkins and the historians they themselves quote vary greatly (for example, from 641 airfields in Bernstein and Watkins to 1000 in Leuchtenburg). This is perhaps due to the inclusion or exclusion of Public Works Administration and Civil Works Administration projects as well as those by the WPA into the calculated figures. A lack of clarity is understandable as at times different parts of the same project were funded by different agencies. Consider the example of the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland, California. While the building itself was Public Works Administration, the mural in the foyer was WPA. Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 319. For

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138  The arts and the imagined audience further project number estimations, see Leuchtenburg, Franklin D.  Roosevelt and the New Deal, 126; Bernstein, A Caring Society, 151; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 263. 77 William E.  Leuchtenburg, The FDR Years:  On Roosevelt and His Legacy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 257. 78 Starr, Endangered Dreams, 319. 79 Leuchtenburg, Franklin D.  Roosevelt and the New Deal, 124. The reported average wage varies from historian to historian:  Leuchtenburg positions it at about $50/​month, McElvaine estimates averages at closer to $55/​month, while Watkins reports unskilled workers received from $19 to $44, while skilled works received between $55 and $94/​month. Leuchtenburg, FDR and the New Deal, 124; Robert S. McElvaine, The Great Depression: America 1929–​1941, rev. edn (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1993), 266; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 261. 80 Eric Rauchway, The Great Depression & The New Deal:  A Very Short Introduction (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2008), 140; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 265. 81 Bernstein, A Caring Society, 151; Leuchtenburg, FDR and the New Deal, 130; McElvaine, The Great Depression, 268; Watkins, The Great Depression, 249. 82 Leuchtenburg, The FDR Years, 272; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 264–​265, 274–​275. 83 Leuchtenburg, The FDR Years, 273; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 266–​267; Cohen, Making a New Deal, 279. See also Cohen, 279–​281 for discussion of discrimination, and the way it was dealt with, within WPA job assignments. 84 Leuchtenburg, The FDR Years, 272; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 264–​265, 274–​275. 85 Bruce I. Bustard, A New Deal for the Arts, 7. 86 In 1936, the Historical Records Survey was also added. McElvaine, The Great Depression, 269; Bustard, New Deal for the Arts, 6. 87 David E. Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 253; William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 103. 88 Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 253; Kennedy, The American People in the Great Depression, 255; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 291. 89 John O’Connor and Lorraine Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored: The Living History of the Federal Theatre Project (Washington, DC: New Republic Books, 1978), 2, 10; Susan Quinn, Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art Out of Desperate Times (New York: Walker & Company, 2008), 7, 62. 90 O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 2–​ 3; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 62–​65; Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 109. 91 O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 3. 92 O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 10; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 78, Bonnie Nelson Schwartz and the Educational Film Center (ed.), “Norman Lloyd,” Voices from the Federal Theatre (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), 28–​29. 93 Bustard, A New Deal for the Arts, 21. 94 Quinn, Furious Improvisation,  38–​41. 95 Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 11. 96 Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 51. 97 Schwartz, “Studs Terkel,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 50.

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The arts and the imagined audience 139 98 Richard Butsch, “American Movie Audiences of the 1930s,” International Labor and Working-​Class History 59 (Spring 2001), 106–​120; Alan Havig, “The Commercial Amusement Audience in Early 20th-​ Century American Cities,” The Journal of American Culture 5, no. 1 (1982), 1–​19. 99 Brooks Atkinson, “F.D.R.’S WPA FTP,” The New York Times, May 28, 1939, X1. 100 Butsch, “American Movie Audiences of the 1930s,” 106–​107; Kyvig, Daily Life in the United States, 253; Schwartz, “John Houseman,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 100. Jane DeHart Matthews does urge some caution in the notion of new audiences, suggesting that while there was a degree of success in the goal of bringing theatre to those who had not previously experienced it, the majority of audiences were still middle-​class and were close to or in urban centres. What may be more the case is that for those audiences it was the first time that they had seen professional or experimental theatre as opposed to amateur productions. Jane DeHart Matthews, “Arts and the People: The New Deal Quest for a Cultural Democracy,” The Journal of American History 62, no. 2 (September 1975), 325, 327–​330. 101 Robert Sklar, Movie-​made America: A Cultural History of American Movies, rev edn (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 191. 102 Gabriel Over the White House (1933, Gregory La Cava, Cosmopolitan Productions/​Metro-​Goldwyn-​Mayer (MGM)); Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939, Frank Capra, Columbia Pictures Corporation); Andrew Bergman, We’re in the Money:  Depression America and Its Films (Chicago:  Elephant Paperbacks, 1992), 3–​18, 115–​120, 143, 145–​147; Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 235–​237, 246–​247, 250–​251. 103 In theatrical, and later Hollywood, slang, an “angel” was a financial backer or investor. E.  Quita Craig, Black Drama of the Federal Theatre Era (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980), 2; Malcolm Goldstein, The Political Stage:  American Drama and Theater of the Great Depression (New  York:  Oxford University Press, 1974), 242; Jordon Yale Miller and Winifred L.  Frazer, American Drama Between The Wars:  a Critical History (Boston: Twayne, 1991), 107; O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 2; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 70. 104 Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 11. 105 Levine, The Unpredictable Past, 234; O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 59–​67; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 118–​125. 106 Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 118. 107 Schwartz, “Clinton Turner Davis,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 189–​191; Zanthe Taylor, “Singing for Their Supper:  The Negro Units of the Federal Theatre Project and Their Plays,” Theatre 27 (Spring/​Summer, 1997), 6. 108 It was renamed yet again, this time as The Hot Mikado to circumvent regulations regarding the use of government-​funded projects as commercial ventures. Schwartz, “Alan Peters,” Voices from the Federal Theatre” 39–​40, 57 109 Schwartz, “John Houseman,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 102. At the time Negro Unit Director John Houseman felt that there were no black directors with the requisite experience to direct the play. However, Houseman, through his leadership, his support of other productions that had black directors, and his determination that the Negro Unit would perform the classics, sought to ensure that a foundation of talented African-​American directors would be available for future productions. O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 8,

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140  The arts and the imagined audience 18–​19; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 102–​105, 110–​111; Schwartz, “Woodie King Jr.,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 104–​108. 110 Miller and Frazer, American Drama Between the Wars, 111. 111 Miller and Frazer, American Drama Between the Wars, 111. 112 Schwartz, “John Houseman,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 103. Perhaps those who would condemn the productions had heard the tale of one New York critic, Percy Hammond, who wrote a vicious and largely racist review of the play. According to Houseman, the night after his review was published, some of the “voodoo” drummers and a “medicine man” who were part of the production stayed late at the theatre, drumming and chanting. Several days later, Hammond died of an acute illness. The correlation between these two events is left for the reader to judge. B. Schwartz, “John Houseman,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 102–​103; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 289. 113 Miller and Frazer, American Drama Between the Wars, 111. 114 Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 110n*. 115 Thomas Allen Greenfield, Work and the Work Ethic in American Drama 1920–​ 1970 (Columbia, MO:  University of Missouri Press, 1982), 84; Miller and Frazer, American Drama between the Wars, 107. 116 John O’Connor, “  ‘Spirochete’ and the War on Syphilis,” The Drama Review: TDR 21, no. 1, Theatre and Social Action Issue (March 1977), 96. 117 Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 161. 118 Brooks Atkinson, “Saga of the Slums,” The New  York Times, January 30, 1938, 151. 119 Atkinson, “Saga of the Slums,” 151; Bustard, A New Deal for the Arts, 80; O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 10–​11; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 74. 120 Atkinson, “Saga of the Slums,” 151. 121 Atkinson, “Saga of the Slums,” 151. 122 O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 169; O’Connor, “ ‘Spirochete’ and the War on Syphilis,” 92. 123 Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 241, 244–​250, Goldstein, The Political Stage, 287–​291. 124 Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 251–​262. 125 Goldstein, The Political Stage, 291–​292. 126 O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 224; Goldstein, The Political Stage, 292. 127 Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 127. 128 Carl Beier, Jr., “A New Way of Looking at Things,” Hollywood Quarterly 2, no. 1 (October 1946), 4. 129 Brooks Atkinson, “F.D.R.’s WPA FTP,” X1. 130 Bustard, A New Deal for the Arts,  21–​22. 131 Goldstein, The Political Stage, 290–​291; O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 30; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 78, 159–​160; Watkins, The Hungry Years, 293–​294. 132 O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 30–​31; Quinn, Furious Improvisation 78, 159–​160. 133 Goldstein, The Political Stage, 290–​291; O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 30; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 78, 159–​160. 134 O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 15.

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The arts and the imagined audience 141 35 See Chapter 2 on the interpretation of strike actions for longer discussion. 1 136 Schwartz, “Jules Dassin,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 18. 137 Schwartz, “Studs Terkel,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 53. 138 Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 119–​120. 139 O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 77. 140 Goldstein, The Political Stage, 262–​263. 141 Goldstein, The Political Stage, 262; Miller and Frazer, American Drama Between the Wars, 112–​113; O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 27–​ 28; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 173–​182. 142 Goldstein, The Political Stage, 262; Miller and Frazer, American Drama Between the Wars, 112–​113; O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 27–​ 28; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 173–​182. See the film Cradle Will Rock (1999, Tim Robbins, Cradle Productions Inc./​Havoc/​Touchstone Pictures) for a recreation of these events. 143 Schwartz, “Jeff Corey,” Voices from the Federal Theatre, 14. 144 Brooks Atkinson, “Garment Specialty,” The New York Times, January 23, 1938, 153; Brooks Atkinson, “Reduction in Prices,” The New York Times, August 6, 1939, X1. 145 Bustard, A New Deal for the Arts,  79–​81. 146 Bustard, A New Deal for the Arts, 79–​81, 89, 93–​97. 147 Cohen, Making a New Deal, 300; James R.  Green, “Workers, Unions and the Politics of Public History,” The Public Historian 11, no.  4 (Autumn 1989),  15–​18. 148 See, for example, Anthony Jackson and Jenny Kidd (eds), Performing Heritage:  Research, Practice and Innovation in Museum Theatre and Live Interpretation (Manchester:  Manchester University Press, 2011); Katherine Johnson, “Performing Pasts for Present Purposes:  Reenactment as Embodied Performative History,” in History, Memory, Performance, ed. David Dean et al. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 36–​52. Further, David Dean makes a strong case for theatrical performance of plays with historical settings to be understood as public history in David Dean, “Theatre:  A Neglected Site of Public History,” The Public Historian 34, no.  3 (August 2012), 21–​39. Nevertheless, there remains a gap as to the discussion of interpretive value of theatrical performances from previous eras. 149 A nineteenth-​century curator of the Musee Grevin declared his intention to make his museum into a form of Living Newspaper. Vanessa R.  Schwartz, “Museums and Mass Spectacle: The Musee Grevin as a Monument to Modern Life,” French Historical Studies, 19, no. 1 (Spring, 1995), 13. 150 Curatorial interview by author, September 6, 2007, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. 151 Karel Vanhaesebrouck, “Digital Heritage and Performance,” Image [&] Narrative 17 (April 2007), n.p. 152 Helen Tangires, “Review: A New Deal for the Arts by Bruce I. Bustard,” The Journal of American History 85, no. 1 (June 1998), 189. 153 Stuart Hall, “Encoding, Decoding,” in The Cultural Studies Reader, 2nd edn, ed. Simon During (London: Routledge, 1993), 507–​517. 154 Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 3, 105–​109. 155 Harold J.  Perry, “The Living Newspaper,” The English Journal 39, no.  1 (January 1950), 12.

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142  The arts and the imagined audience 156 Stuart Cosgrove, “Introduction,” in Lorraine Brown (ed.), Liberty Deferred and Other Living Newspapers of the 1930s (Fairfax, VA: George Mason University Press, 1989), xi. 157 Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 105, 108. 158 Bustard, A New Deal for the Arts, 21; Hallie Flanagan, “Theater as Social Action,” in “First Federal Summer Theater:  A Report,” ed. Pierre de Roban, Federal Theatre (June–​July 1937), 36; O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored,  25–​26. 159 Hallie Flanagan, “Democracy and the Drama,” The Listener, April 20, 1939, 824, as quoted in O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 26. 160 Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory (New  York:  Vintage Books, 1993), 420–​422. 161 Meet John Doe (1941, Frank Capra, Frank Capra Productions). 162 Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory, 422. 163 O’Connor and Brown, Free, Adult, and Uncensored, 12. The Tennessee Valley Authority became a model for Roosevelt’s push for public ownership of utilities, which he argued would make electricity more affordable. 164 Schwartz, “Norman Lloyd,” Voices of the Federal Theatre, 34. 165 Schwartz, “Studs Terkel,” Voices of the Federal Theatre, 51. 166 Matthews, “Arts and the People,” 316; Lisanne Gibson, “Art, Citizenship and Government: ‘Art for the People’ in New Deal America and the 1940s in England and Australia,” Culture and Policy 8, no. 3 (1997), 41–​42, 44 Lisanne Gibson, “Managing the People: Art Programs in the American Depression,” The Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society 31, no. 4 (Winter 2002), 280; Marquis, Hopes and Ashes, 8; Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America, 103–​104. 167 Gibson, “Art, Citizenship and Government,” 43; “Managing the People,” 280–​282. 168 Gibson, “Art, Citizenship and Government,” 42; “Managing the People,” 280; for discussions on the nineteenth-​century use of museums as a civilising force see Tony Bennett, “The Museum and the Citizen,” Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 39, Part  1 (May 1996), 4–​6; Susan Pearce, Museums, Objects and Collections: A Cultural Study (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992), 4. 169 Gibson, “Art, Citizenship and Government,” 43–​45; “Managing the People,” 280–​282. 170 Gibson, “Art, Citizenship and Government,” 43–​45; “Managing the People,” 280–​286. 171 Hallie Flanagan and Philip Davis, “The Word Became Flesh,” The New Republic 87, no. 1121 (May 27, 1936), 67. 172 Goldstein, The Political Stage, 292. 173 McElvaine, The Great Depression, 274; Quinn, Furious Improvisation, 255, 261–​262. 174 Susman, Culture as History, 103. 175 Loviglio, Radio’s Intimate Public, xx–​xxii.

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5  The big ball of string Concluding thoughts

When discussing difficult history, difficult memories, difficult events, it is significantly easier to do so through a lens of resilience. Viewing those who have experienced challenging situations as survivors, as able to fully overcome that which seems out of control, is reassuring, if potentially misleading. That said, to discuss resilience without broaching vulnerability, without considering those factors that engendered a need for resilience in the first place, is to conduct half of a conversation. To draw conclusions or recommendations about that resilience without recognising vulnerability is to enact risk assessments without a complete data set. The obligation to provide a discourse of vulnerability, as disconcerting as it may be, is all the more pronounced for those institutions, such as museums, whose standing in the civic sphere is based on the provision of trustworthy, accessible expert information. The case studies in this book represent museums’ institutional attempts to tackle memories, emotions, and lasting historical events. They demonstrate an effort to understand and interpret through material and visual culture an era of shared uncertainly, vulnerability, and risk. Depression-​era vulnerability manifested in myriad ways. The most striking, the most visible, and the best remembered are the experiences of those most marginalised by the crisis, those who were deprived of income, sustenance, and shelter. Through their outright suffering they became the iconic representatives of the American Great Depression:  Roosevelt’s one-​ third of a nation, Dorothea Lange’s unwilling travellers, John Steinbeck’s Joads. Yet, however pronounced their misfortune, they were far from the only examples of vulnerability experienced by Americans during the 1930s, and their perceived stoic resilience was not the only reaction to the crisis. A  more complete view of Americans’ response to the Great Depression includes experiences of despair, and anger, and confusion. It recognises a shifting sense of community, of responsibility, and it shines light on those who slipped between the cracks. It contemplates actions that were misguided, and those that were well thought through. As interpreters of history drawing from both scholarly traditions and community sources, museums work within an expectation that they will offer an interpretation of the past that is rigorous and

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144  The big ball of string evidence-​based, while simultaneously sensitive and fair to the needs, wants, and discomforts of the stakeholder groups they serve. Finding such a balance, on any topic, is difficult for all historians, whether in the public or academic spheres. Curators face an added challenge of working with exhibitions, a medium that relies on the representative object, image, or narrative. Given these circumstances, one could well understand if, when interpreting Great Depression vulnerability, museums turned back to those established icons provided by Steinbeck, and Lange, and their counterparts. Even so, when viewed collectively, it becomes clear that the curators working with Great Depression material between 1979 and 2007 achieved a much more varied and nuanced transmission of 1930s history and vulnerability.

A sense of place In his essay “The Historian and the Icon,” cultural historian Lawrence Levine argued that, We cannot begin and end our portrait of the American people by focusing all of our attention on the New Deal or FDR or the breadlines. We need, desperately, to enter the movie palace and the ballpark, the workplace and the living room, the neighborhood and the church, the stores and the streets, the farmhouse and the fields.1 Beyond a call for a more diverse, layered interpretation of the Great Depression, one of the notable qualities of Levine’s entreaty is the emphasis on place: history as understood through location. Place and space are key variables in the museological narratives of Depression-​ era vulnerability on both a grand and intimate scale. Museum exhibitions draw from an understanding of the American Great Depression that has been rooted in the visual language of the Southwestern Dust Bowl, and the exodus to the agricultural regions of California. An emphasis on location also reflects the ways in which museum interpretations of vulnerability may be seen as part of the theoretical discourse on vulnerability that has emerged from the discipline of geography, particularly those scholars and researchers examining disaster and risk. Beyond that, recognising the specific narratives of individual places is crucial to understanding how the experiences of the Great Depression have been interpreted and retold within public history. The staff of the Michigan History Museum particularly highlighted the tension between the national and the local, between the iconic and the specific. This tension was apparent in the anecdote of the student who thought that the Depression only occurred in the Dust Bowl. It was present in the staff members’ expressions of frustration with generic proposals during the commissioning of the exhibition. It was visible in the structure of the gallery and the creation of an interpretive space in which the national and local responses to the crisis, quite literally, faced each other. In the end, the

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The big ball of string 145 exhibition succeeded because it was simultaneously about America and about Michigan, because it drew together the national and the local. The impact of place also becomes apparent through a comparison between the Michigan History Museum’s exhibition on industrial action, and the interpretation of strikes in California’s National Steinbeck Center. The curators in Michigan negotiated the potential critique (and attendant financial penalties) from the automotive industry through an emphasis on local experience. The ability of at least one executive to see reflections of his family rather than a national battle between corporations and labour indicates a level of success from this approach. But in California, it would seem that close association with local transgression, coupled with an insufficient sense of a larger national picture, contributed to an exhibition that had a discordant relationship with (at least some of) the surrounding community, as well as with the history and historical figures from which it drew its narrative. The reality that what worked as a solution in Michigan was far from ideal in California raises caveats as to the universality of best practice. Some ideas transfer easily, some less so. Understanding the medium of exhibitions necessitates not only a recognition of exemplary practice, but also of the ways in which circumstance, grounded in place, community, culture, and stakeholders, can render an approach more or less effective. Intimate understandings of space equally shaped the viewing and communication of vulnerability. Interpretation, particularly immersive interpretation, of and through, domestic space was a recurring motif across this study, though the narration of that domestic space shifted depending on the institution and the attendant themes. In Vancouver, the porch highlighted alienation, while in Michigan it emphasised a sense of belonging. A kitchen/​family room in the Lower East Side Tenement Museum spoke more to an ongoing sense of struggle than did its counterpart in the Greenbelt House Museum. Domestic spaces also worked well in offering a sense of an imagined audience for mass media. The use of an imagined radio audience proved to be an effective inclusion in multiple museums of differing size, mandate, and locale. Nevertheless, setting and space was still a factor when evaluating the effectiveness of this interpretive technique. Transferring the imagined audience to a more public space, that of the theatre, proved difficult, even though communal public spaces are more readily associated with mass audiences. Just as multiple exhibitions considered mass media, multiple exhibitions interpreted aspects of labour. Some of these were expected; the Michigan History Museum interpreted that state’s industries throughout the institution as a whole; the Great Depression experience was a small part of the larger story that linked together the history of white settlement in the region. But discussions of labour and employment were also present in interpretation of the arts and theatre; labour relations appeared as a topic within a museum of literary biography. The iconic narrative of the Great Depression is of unemployment, of men and factories rendered still and silent. The

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Figure 5.1 Walker Evans, Bethlehem graveyard and steel mill. Pennsylvania (1935). Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-​ OWI Collection: LC-​DIG-​ppmsca-​36750

silence, and the possibility that it might continue indefinitely, was one of the great fears of the Depression. Walker Evans’ well-​circulated photograph of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (see Figure  5.1) featuring a gravestone in the foreground and smokeless stacks in the background offers a visual précis of this threat. But the museums told other stories. They offered interpretive narratives of a workforce whose vulnerability drove them not to silence but to agitation and resistance. The exhibitions reflected a nation that struggled (and continues to struggle) with the potential complexion of an American version of socialism or communism. Not all of these exhibitions were done well, but that they were done at all speaks to the heterogeneous reactions to vulnerability that occurred in the 1930s, and which eschew easy containment within a paradigm of stoic resilience.

Marginalisation and the museum Few cultural expressions are ever unconditionally good, or unremittingly bad, and the exhibitions within this study are no exception. While some

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The big ball of string 147 aspects of interpretation were impressive and compelling, gaps remained. Though the Great Depression can be understood as an era of omnipresent vulnerability, much of the museum interpretation reserved unambiguous recognition of vulnerability for discussions of suffering. Thus, Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother is immediately recognised as a document of vulnerability; Orson Welles’ broadcast of War of the Worlds only gains this association through deeper consideration of the emotional atmosphere at the time; and the Dies Committee’s closure of the Federal Theatre Project is rarely characterised as a response to vulnerability. But a characterisation of the Dies Committee as an embodiment of vulnerability would not be misplaced; fear of communist radicalism as expressed through the actions of a Congressional body reflects misgivings and uncertainty about the future, albeit on a national institutional level. In this sense, it is as indicative of vulnerability as the tight jaw of a woman who does not know how she will feed her children the next day, or the panic of radio listeners who feared invasion in any and all forms. If at times there was a tendency to conflate marginalisation and vulnerability, museums and curators also periodically struggled with the tropes associated with marginalised populations. As the exhibitions on homelessness and the photographic exhibitions exemplified, there were repeated attempts in the 1930s to frame marginalised, and thus vulnerable, populations as acceptable to the mainstream. Some curators sought to expose rather than replicate such characterisations. The photographic exhibitions such as the FDR Library’s This Great Nation Will Endure demonstrated the crafting and construction of iconic images, such as Migrant Mother, in order to visually communicate particular social mores and values. The better exhibitions on homelessness, such as the installations at the Museum of Vancouver, explicitly interpreted belonging and exclusion; the panel outlining the discrimination enacted against Asians seeking government relief is a case in point. There were also curators who expressed concern in turning homeless people into objects of spectacle, into something separate and exotic from their communities. Nevertheless, despite curatorial efforts to the contrary, the subtle crafting of acceptability crept into modern museums. The interpretation of a Hooverville in Seattle’s MOHAI museum included discussion of a makeshift post office and mayor (but little of the violent attacks on the shanty towns) offering an experience of homelessness framed not in the absence of normal lifestyles, but as a mimic of normality. There is a danger of reduction when seeking, let alone embracing, the universal. There is a genuine risk that by pursuing a singular approach or anticipated reaction, variables of experience, of relationships, of cultural diversity are lost. This is especially a challenge for museums that must tell history through archetype. The medium of exhibition is defined in part by its limitations: limits of space, limits of appropriate material, limits of audience engagement. In this light, the provision of a counter-​narrative to stoic acceptance of vulnerability is a key challenge for, but in many cases

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148  The big ball of string a notable success of, the exhibitions within this study. Furthermore, by exemplifying the ways in which the medium chafes against its own boundaries in interpreting vulnerability, exhibitions also highlight the equally problematic processes of reduction in the broader societies in which those museums operate. The framing of the Great Depression though the lens of the Dust Bowl exodus did not emerge at the instigation of these museums, nor was it a product of their exhibitions. Such framing reflects the influence of much larger, preexistent forces of visual communication. Similarly, the absence of museological narratives from women, or from minority groups, be they identified by race, sexuality, religion, or economics, speaks as much to the dearth of source material as it does curatorial intent. The statistics on American women who were homeless during the 1930s are piecemeal in exhibitions, in part because the significant researchers at the time, such as Nels Anderson, did not inquire as to women’s unique experiences. Instead, Anderson and his colleagues allowed men to serve as the universal model. The erasure of difference that can occur within museum interpretation of vulnerability, and which is illustrated by the exhibitions on the Great Depression, reflects the larger erasure that occurs beyond the museum’s doors. An interpretation of vulnerability within a museum adds another level to the interpretation of difficult history. The interpretation of a traumatic past event can create an emotional response, it can horrify, it can engender sympathy or sadness, or, in some circumstances, a sense of collective guilt. As confronting as these interpretations may be, in most cases there exists a clear delineation between the limited group that experienced the particular traumatic event and those at whom the interpretation is aimed. But an indication of vulnerability, even historical vulnerability, can serve to remind museum visitors of their own susceptibility to risk. Such narratives serve as a museological memento mori, cautioning that no one is completely immune. While modern audiences might not be exposed to the same risks as their historical counterparts, some risks nevertheless exist. It is no wonder, in this light, that museums face pressures to provide narratives of resilience rather than vulnerability. And yet, if museums can find a means through which to resist such pressures, and interpret vulnerability as an experience that extends beyond just that of suffering, it could be one of the great civic services these institutions are able to provide. The 2016 UNESCO report Culture Urban Future:  Global Report on Culture for Sustainable Urban Development charged museums with creating spaces of inclusion. As the exhibitions on 1930s homelessness exemplified, creating these spaces is difficult if a mindset of inclusion, acceptance, and recognition of difference does not already exist. Audiences do not automatically identify or empathise with those who are in positions of great need or powerlessness. Without a recognition of commonality, inclusion is an unlikely outcome. Museums are able, however, to illustrate that while degrees of vulnerability exist, there remains a shared sense of

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The big ball of string 149 exposure, and frequently a shared emotional response. Exhibitions, even flawed and problematic exhibitions, can raise a mirror to the shortcomings in characterising, understanding, and responding to vulnerability that occurs in their wider public sphere. Scholars of risk and disaster recognise variables of susceptibility and resilience within any given group. Scholarly recognition does not in itself, however, translate to parallel recognition within public discourses. This is the point that museums contribute most fundamentally to reshaping the civic response to vulnerable populations. Even at their most traditional, museums are instrumental in translating scholarly research into accessible public information. One of the potential benefits from well-​ constructed, inclusive, museum-​ based interpretation of vulnerability is a public narrative that understands risk as more than binary between safety and danger and instead places vulnerability, be it physical, emotional, economic, or social, on a spectrum. Through interpretation of the Great Depression, and similar large-​scale crises, museums demonstrate that even those who are not marginalised still experience potential vulnerability and associated emotions. Exhibitions on radio, on the Federal Theatre Project, and on other arts produced during the 1930s reflected the ways in which citizens who were not fully at crisis point, those who had shelter, who had access to electrical appliances or theatre tickets, were nevertheless confronted by uncertainty. They sought reassurance; they sought information and strategies through which to combat their sense of being vulnerable. It is though this honest depiction of the common experience, not of resilience but of fear, that museums can potentially do great work in encouraging inclusivity. Proposing civic inclusion and social justice roles for museums does necessitate a concurrent acknowledgement of the limitations of the medium of exhibitions. Allowances must be made for museums, and related public history institutions, to work within the parameters of their own means and methods of historical interpretation. The National Archives and Records Administration’s A New Deal for the Arts was an exemplary exhibition, and yet its curator, Bruce Bustard, acknowledged the challenge in fully conveying the experience of 1930s theatrical performances and, crucially, audience reactions to those performances. Exhibitions are not well suited to every narrative and every experience. While increasing use of digital enhancement within museums has broadened the potential methodologies for exhibition-​ based history, museums nevertheless function differently from films, games, websites, and books. To anticipate museums will, in isolation, provide exhaustive and encyclopaedic historical representation and interpretation is to create expectations that can only remain unmet. That said, as venues in which the voices of experts can be integrated with those who experienced historical events first-​hand, as spaces in which physical interactions with history may occur, and as expressions of rigorously researched yet accessible history, museums continue to make valuable contributions to their communities.

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The indicative object Given that exhibitions rely on representational history, one could ask if there is a single object, person, image, or event that might serve as the synecdoche for American Depression-​era vulnerability. The answer is that there might be, but it was not one that was found in any exhibition visited for this study. The radio comes close. Radio was a regular inclusion in exhibitions across the nation. During the Great Depression, radio was the conduit for reassurances sought and offered through the Fireside Chats and the soap operas alike. Simultaneously, the popularity of shows such as Amos’n’Andy, in which stereotypical black characters were played by white actors in a form of audio blackface, provides insight into the racism (and other exclusions) inherent in American society at the time. But a radio must be turned on, or explained, to fully convey its power. It lacks the silent gravitas of the FSA photographs. Even these images come laden with the weight of decades of being repurposed, reframed, recut. There is a strong argument that that rather than adopting a single iconic object, the quintessential material culture interpretation of the Great Depression would embrace the juxtaposition found in the best exhibitions, and the dialectic between objects:  a photograph, a radio broadcast, a sandwich on a porch, plans from a bungalow or a New Deal housing project, a union badge, a Federal Theatre playbill, and a copy of the Grapes of Wrath or Tobacco Road. That said, despite its absence from any discussed exhibition, there remains one potential object that captures the vulnerability that was so pervasive in this era. Conducting the research for this project involved travelling from California to Michigan, to New York, to Washington, DC, to Seattle. This assortment of flights, bus rides, and train trips in turn spawned numerous brief conversations with temporary travelling companions. Typically, the exchanges began with “What brings you to…?” Upon hearing mention of the Great Depression, a surprising number related that their grandmother, or uncle, or next-​door-​neighbour had lived through the Depression, and for years afterwards kept an ever-​growing ball of string. Sometimes it was bread bags, but mostly it was string. Small pieces collected and preserved, with little concern to colour or weave, as insurance against some ill-​defined, ill-​ articulated future disaster. These balls of twine, hidden in kitchen pantries and workbench drawers, are the quintessential objects of Depression-​era uncertainty. They are the material culture of the lasting effects of foreboding, of fear, of exposure to risk, and of attempts, however small, to mitigate a lingering sense of vulnerability.

Note 1 Lawrence W. Levine, The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 280.

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Index

Abram, Ruth 75, 76, 93 African-​Americans 14, 35, 41, 61, 87, 111, 119; and Federal Theatre Project 121, 122, 123, 124 After the Crash exhibition 105, 106 agricultural workers: 1–​2, 22, 31–​33, 54–​55, 56–​59, 61, 90, 104; photography of 1–​2, 31–​34; stereotypes 34–​35; see also California; Dust Bowl migrants; poverty; Steinbeck, John; strikes and industrial action Altars of Steel (Federal Theatre Project) 125 alternative narratives 31, 38, 43, 147–​148 American Federation of Labor (AFL) 45, 51, 119 Amos’n’Andy 41, 112, 114, 150 anti-​Semitism 41, 81, 112, 141 Art of the Federal Recovery Programs 1933–​1943 exhibition  106 Atkinson, Brooks 121, 122–​123, 124, 126, 131 audience, imagined 102–​142, 117, 145; Federal Theatre Project 103, 117–​118, 131, 145, 149; museum strategies 116–​117, 127, 128, 130, 132, 133 audience, museum 4, 5, 19–​20, 30–​31, 53, 59, 80, 88, 112, 132; connection and engagement 39, 40, 60, 74, 116–​117, 147; emotional response 7–​8, 9, 11, 12, 103–​105, 116–​117, 132, 143–​144; empathy 7–​8, 36, 92–​93, 104, 148–​149; exhibition experience 20, 37, 42, 75, 78–​79, 83, 84, 85, 112, 132, 133, 145, 148; iconic images 30–​31

audience, theatre audience 103, 114, 117–​118, 120–​122, 123, 126, 127, 128–​130, 131, 132, 133, 145, 149; see also audience, imagined Bethlehem graveyard and steel mill. Pennsylvania (Evans) 146 Bird, Caroline 4, 26 n.38, 110 Blitz, The exhibition 7–​8 Bourke-​White, Margaret 35, 81, 82, 98 n.66 ‘Brains Trust’, Roosevelt’s 18, 34, 77 Brave New World: Australia 1930s exhibition 102 breadlines 12, 19, 30, 80, 85, 144; see also relief Bungalow installation (Michigan History Museum) 22, 48, 73, 79–​85, 102, 115, 150; see also Michigan History Museum; Michigan in the Twentieth Century exhibition Bustard, Bruce 118, 124, 127–​128, 149 Caldwell, Erskine 35, 81, 82, 98 n.66 California: agribusiness 54, 55, 56, 59, 61; agriculture 53–​55, 61; exhibition 53; industrial action 54–​55, 55–​58; migrant and migratory workers 54, 60; see also Dust Bowl migrants; Grapes of Wrath, The; Steinbeck, John Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union 55, 58 Carnivàle 33 charity and relief, private 15, 16, 22, 70, 79, 82, 83, 84, 94 cinema 77, 112, 121 Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) 17–​18, 34, 38

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152 Index Civil Works Authority 118, 119 class, social 6, 9, 15, 42, 43–​44, 58, 61, 70, 80, 82, 83, 86, 90, 91, 92, 101 n.125, 103, 115, 121, 125, 139 n. 100 Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) 45, 46, 47, 51, 55 communism 41, 44, 55, 56, 124–​125; American workers and 58–​59; attitudes to 57–​58, 131, 147; Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) 55, 57, 58, 60, 124, 124–​125 Conjur Man Dies (Federal Theatre Project) 122 context, historical 38–​39, 61–​62, 71, 74, 83, 94, 109, 123, 132; see also place Coughlin, Father 79, 80–​81, 111, 114 counter-​narratives see alternative narratives Cradle Will Rock, The (Federal Theatre Project) 125–​126 Culture Urban Future (UNESCO) 5, 72, 89, 148 Cumberland Heritage Village Museum (Ottawa) 102 dark tourism 9, 11, 91 Dies Committee 123, 131, 147 disaster studies 6, 42, 144 Documenting America, 1935–​1943 exhibition 38 Documents of America: The Rural Scene exhibition 37 Dust Bowl 30–​69, 144; narrative 22, 39–​44, 60, 91, 144, 148; see also Dust Bowl migrants Dust Bowl migrants 31–​37, 40, 53, 54, 55, 55–​58, 91, 110, 144, 148; attitudes to 9, 34–​35, 41, 81–​82, 87; in literature 22, 31, 33, 53, 106; photography 31–​34, 39–​44, 53, 59, 60, 82, 94, 110; see also agricultural workers; Dust Bowl; Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography project; Lange, Dorothea; Steinbeck, John; strikes and industrial action; union movement emotions: audience 103–​105, 116–​117; Depression era 102–​103, 104–​105, 118, 143–​144; in exhibitions 7–​8, 9, 11, 12, 103–​105, 116–​117, 132,

143–​144; vulnerability and 86–​87, 102–​103, 104, 110, 112, 118, 132, 147–​148; see also fear; resilience; vulnerability empathy, engaging 7–​8, 36, 42, 92–​93, 104, 148–​149 Evans, Walker 34, 37, 40, 146 exhibitions 8, 146–​147; closure of 10, 21; limitations 147–​148, 149; nature of 5–​6, 30–​31, 59–​60; purpose 5, 12; strengths and weaknesses 11–​12; successful, 117, 145, 149; see also entries under titles of individual exhibitions Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm. Cimmaron County, Oklahoma (Rothstein) 32 Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography 1, 21, 32, 34–​35, 37–​39, 61–​62, 85, 103; Dust Bowl narrative 39–​44; exhibitions of 38–​39; framing the Great Depression 40–​41; purpose of 40; risks in use of 40–​41; use of 49–​50; see also Lange, Dorothea; Lee, Russell; photography; Rothstein, Arthur; Stryker, Roy FDR: The Intimate Presidency exhibition 21, 102, 106, 107–​110; FDR Centennial Committee 107; goal 109, 110; planning 107–​108; strategies 110, 116–​117 fear 4, 17, 18, 19, 37, 41, 49, 52, 71, 79, 80, 90, 91, 92, 93, 102, 104, 105, 112–​113, 120, 121, 131, 146, 147, 149, 150 Federal Art Project (FAP) 34, 83, 106, 109–​110, 119, 120, 124, 126; attitudes to Depression-​era art 106; exhibitions on 10, 105–​106, 109–​110, 124, 126–​127; photography 34, 38; see also Federal One Federal Emergency Relief Act (FERA) 17, 43–​44 Federal One/​federal arts projects 21, 23, 102, 103, 118–​120, 124; employment of artists 118–​120; exhibitions on 10, 21, 105–​110, 124–​127; Federal Music Project 119, 120, 124; Federal Writers Project 54–​55, 119, 120, 124; purpose 106,

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Index 153 124; see also Federal Art Project; Federal Theatre Project Federal Theatre Project 23, 43, 70, 103, 105, 117–​118, 120–​127, 119–​124, 133; audience 103, 114, 117–​118, 120–​122, 123, 126, 127, 128–​130, 131, 132, 133, 145, 149; Children’s Theatre 120, 122, 125; closure of 117–​118, 123, 125–​126, 131, 147; content 124–​125, 126–​127, 128–​130, 131; creation and implementation 107–​108; exhibiting 118, 124–​127, 127–​131, 133, 149; impact and influence 123–​124, 128; inclusiveness 121–​122, 126; interference in 123, 125–​126; interpretation of 105, 118, 132; labour, focus on 124–​125, 126–​127; minorities, engagement with 121–​122; Negro Unit 122; oral history 125; politics and 121, 122, 123, 124–​127, 147; popularity 129–​130; purpose 120, 131; work in 120, 122, 126; see also audience, imagined; Living Newspapers Fireside Chat, FDR’s 30, 102, 114, 116, 129, 150 Flanagan, Hallie 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 129, 131, 133 Flint Sit-​Down Strike 22, 31, 44, 45–​47, 79, 104; exhibition 47–​53, 61; see also Michigan History Museum; Michigan in the Twentieth Century exhibition Ford Company 13, 45, 49–​50, 51, 52; Ford Henry 52 Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum 21, 36–​37, 38, 107; interpretation 36–​37 FSA photography see Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography General Electric (GE) 13, 16, 47, 113–​114 General Motors (GM) 13, 45–​47 Getting By tour 22, 75 Getting In exhibition 7, 116–​117 Grand Central Palace (New York) photographic exposition 37 Grapes of Wrath, The (Steinbeck) 22, 31, 32, 33, 55, 56, 57, 71; see also National Steinbeck Center (California); Steinbeck, John Great Crash, The exhibition 105, 106

Great Depression 1, 53; American experience of 12–​19, 37–​38, 117, 145–​146; housing 70–​101; interpreting 104–​105, 149; legacies of 19; in literature 31–​34, 53–​60, 90–​91, 106, 118; myths of 13, 59; perceptions of 40–​41, 47, 144; understanding 70–​71, 144; see also Wall Street crash Greenbelt House Museum (Maryland) 22, 70, 76, 80; audience experience 78–​79; establishment 78–​79; exhibition 76–​79, 82–​83, 102, 145 Greenbelt (Maryland) settlement, creation of 71, 76–​77, 80; population of 77–​78; see also Greenbelt House Museum Hindenburg, crash of the 112–​113 historic houses see house museums History Wars 10, 21 Hobo Jungle see homelessness; shantytowns Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present exhibition 85 home: role of 72–​73; see also homelessness; house museums; housing homelessness 14–​15, 62; attitudes to 90–​91; compressing difference 88–​89, 94–​95; framing 90–​91; interpretations of 9, 22, 70–​71, 72, 85–​91, 91–​94, 148–​149; in literature 90–​91; representation of 90–​91, 92–​93; shelters 14–​15, 88; transients 70, 84, 90; understanding of 86–​87; vulnerability 72, 79, 90–​91, 93; women 88–​89; see also housing; poverty; shantytowns Hoover, President Herbert 1, 16–​17; Great Depression responses 15, 16–​17, 18, 81 Hoovervilles see homelessness; shantytowns Hopkins, Harry 9, 31, 43, 118, 119, 120, 121 Houseman, John 122, 125–​126, 133 house museums 22, 73–​74, 75, 93–​94; advantages of 74; defined 73–​74; see also Greenbelt House Museum; Lower East Side Tenement Museum

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154 Index housing 73, 81; belonging 22, 70–​101, 145; immigrant 93–​94; instability 9, 12, 70, 80, 85, 87; installations 84–​85; interpretations 9, 22, 22, 70–​77, 81–​83, 93–​95, 145; kit homes 79; reform legislation 75, 80, 93; understanding the Great Depression 70–​71; vulnerability 22, 70–​71, 76, 79–​85, 93, 94–​95; see also Greenbelt House Museum; homelessness; Lower East Side Tenement Museum; Michigan History Museum; Michigan in the Twentieth Century exhibition; Museum of Vancouver; poverty; shantytowns

function of 129–​130; see also audience, theatre; Federal Theatre Project local/​regional vs. national narrative 47, 48, 47, 51, 53, 59, 60, 62, 75–​76, 113, 115, 143–​144, 145 Look magazine 37, 81 Lower East Side Tenement Museum (New York) 22, 59, 70, 71, 80, 82, 83, 93–​94; Baldizzi family/​ apartment 75, 76, 80, 82, 93; Getting By tour 22, 75; Gumpertz apartment 75; interpretation 74–​79, 102, 145; neighbourhood 75–​76; oral history 75; origins of 74–​75; radio 115–​116; see also housing

Ickes, Harold 118, 119 icons/​iconic images and narrative 1, 30–​31, 39–​40, 62, 78, 143, 145–​146, 147; creation of Depression era 31–​37; see also Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography project; Lange, Dorothea; photography; Steinbeck, John imagined audience and the arts, the 102–​142; see also audience, imagined immigrants 7, 14, 41, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 83, 93–​94, 95, 116–​117; see also Lower East Side Tenement Museum Immigration Museum (Melbourne) 7, 116–​117 Imperial War Museum (London) 7–​8, 103–​104 In Dubious Battle (Steinbeck) 53, 55–​58, 59, 60 Injunction Granted (Federal Theatre Project) 122, 125–​126 Invisible Scar, The (Bird) 4, 110 It Can’t Happen Here (Lewis) 121, 125

Macbeth (Federal Theatre Project) 122, 133 Man Beside Wheelbarrow (Lange) 2–​3, 42 marginalisation and the marginalised 6–​7, 8, 51, 53, 54–​55, 71, 72, 77, 84, 93–​94, 94–​95, 143–​144, 147, 149; commentary on 81–​82, 83–​84; museums and 146–​150; see also homelessness media: consumers of 105, 110, 112, 145; in exhibitions 108–​109, 110–​115, 116–​117, 145; see also radio Merseyside Maritime Museum (Liverpool) 7–​8, 103–​104 Michigan History Museum 21–​22; exhibition 47–​53, 130, 143–​144, 145; see also Flint Sit-​Down Strike; Michigan in the Twentieth Century exhibition Michigan in the Twentieth Century exhibition, “1930s Section”: African-​Americans  51; artefacts 48–​49; Bungalow installation 22, 48, 73, 79–​85, 102, 115, 150; divisiveness 51–​52; exhibition 21–​22, 47–​53, 143–​144; homelessness 85; New Deal 47, 48; oral history 48, 84; photography 49–​50; response to 52, 61; success of 53, 56, 60, 61–​62, 145; union action 49–​52, 145; union hall 47–​48, 50–​51, 61; women’s experiences 49, 51; see also Michigan History Museum Migrant Mother (Lange) 1–​2, 31, 36, 39–​40, 57; as an icon 1, 39–​40, 147;

labour and the labour movement 124–​125, 126–​127, 143, 145–​146; see also employment; strikes and industrial action; unemployment; union movement Lange, Dorothea 1–​3, 31–​32, 33, 34, 35–​36, 39, 53, 57–​58, 59, 82, 85–​86, 106, 143, 144 see also Man Beside Wheelbarrow; Migrant Mother Lee, Russell 34, 35, 36, 40, 82 Life magazine 32–​33, 37 Living Newspapers 70, 109, 117–​118, 122–​123, 125–​126, 128–​131, 132;

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Index 155 framing of 1, 82; use of image 1–​2, 39, 42 Molella, Art 108, 109 murals 37, 48, 52, 106–​107, 118–​119, 120; Treasury Department 108–​109, 110, 119, 124 museology 84–​85; debates 103–​104; discourse 102–​103; integrative 72; New Museology 3–​4, 5, 10, 21 Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) (Seattle) 86, 92, 94–​95, 147 Museum of Vancouver 84: Asian community 70, 83–​84, 147; home recreation 70, 71; immigrants 70; homelessness 85, 147; porch recreation 70, 83–​84, 85, 94, 145; shantytown recreation 70, 71, 83, 92 museums: industrial 51; nature of 143–​144; risks for 52–​53; role of 4–​6, 8, 86, 89, 103–​104, 112, 149; strategies 23, 104–​105; strengths of 12; threats to 10–​11; vulnerability 23, 70–​71; see also entries under the names of individual institutions exhibitions; house museums; vulnerability National Archives and Records Administration (Washington) 10, 21, 118, 124–​127, 149 National Endowment for the Arts 10, 106 national identity 57–​58, 74 National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) 17, 45, 125 National Museum of American Art/​ National Collection of Fine Arts (Washington) 20, 105, 106, 109 National Museum of American History (Washington) 2, 21, 38, 102, 106, 107–​110; see also FDR: The Intimate Presidency National Portrait Gallery (Washington) 20, 105 National Steinbeck Center (California) 22, 44; context 55, 56–​58, 59–​ 60, 104; exhibition 55, 59–​60, 145–​148; interpretation 126–​127; misinterpreting Steinbeck 55–​60, 61; see also Steinbeck, John Negro mother teaching children numbers and alphabet in the home of

sharecropper. Transylvania, Louisiana (Lee) 35, 36 New Deal 1, 21, 34, 47, 74, 75, 119: art 108, 109–​110; communication in 106–​107; elements of 17–​19; exhibitions 21, 105, 118, 124–​127, 149; photography 34–​36; projects 31, 48, 53, 71, 76–​78, 83, 102; see also Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography; Federal Art Project; Federal One; Federal Theatre Project; Roosevelt, President Franklin Delano: Great Depression responses; Works Progress Administration/​Works Projects Administration (WPA) New Deal for the Arts, A exhibition 21, 118, 124–​127, 149; strategy 126–​127; strengths of 126–​127; vulnerability 124–​125 Oakland Museum of California 85–​86 objects, reliance on 48–​49, 127, 128, 143, 150; see also icons/​iconic images and narrative Office of War Information 23–​24, 34 Official Images; New Deal Photography exhibition 38–​39 ‘Okies’ 9; see also Dust Bowl migrants “… One-​Third of a Nation” (Federal Theatre Project) 122, 123, 129 oral history 7, 75, 125, 149 Other, the: interpretation of 91–​94; representation of 85, 91–​95; see also marginalisation and the marginalised period rooms 73; see also Greenbelt House Museum; house museums; Lower East Side Tenement Museum photography 34–​35, 37, 38, 106, 126: critiques of 63 n.15, 98 n. 66; documentary 1–​2, 31–​33, 35–​36, 37–​38; effects of 34–​35, 36; exhibition of 21, 36–​37, 38, 147; poverty 1–​3, 34–​35, 40–​41, 126; purpose of 37–​38; use of 34–​37, 37–​39, 40, 49–​50, 147; see also Farm Security Administration (FSA) photography; icons/​iconic images and narrative; Lange, Dorothea; Lee, Russell; Rothstein, Arthur; Stryker, Roy place 71–​72, 83–​84; sense of 144–​146; impact of 145–​146

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156 Index poverty 10, 13, 15, 16, 84, 88, 91, 95, 129; attitudes to 9, 81–​82, 86–​87, 91, 92–​93; deserving/​undeserving poor 42–​43, 86; “idle poor” 16–​17; old vs. new poor 86–​87, 95; photography 1–​3, 34–​35, 37, 40–​41, 82, 98 n.66, 126; presentation of 40–​41, 62, 81–​82, 91, 92, 93, 124; rural vs. urban 40, 41, 62; stereotypes 9, 16–​17, 34–​35, 41–​42, 81–​82, 98 n.66 Power farming displaces tenants from the land in the western dry cotton area. Childress County Texas, Texas Panhandle, aka Tractored Out (Lange) 33 Power (Federal Theatre Project) 122, 126, 129 Prints for the People exhibition 106 Public Works Administration 18, 118, 119 racism 41, 75, 77–​78, 84, 86, 87, 150 radio 105, 110–​115; audience 115, 130, 131, 132, 145; community 114; development of 110–​111; in exhibitions 75, 79, 80, 89, 102; Father Coughlin’s show 80–​81, 111, 114; in homes 111; interpretation of 115–​116; mass culture and 111–​112; programming 112; Roosevelt’s use of 30, 102–​103, 108–​109, 110, 114, 116, 129, 150, 108–​109, 115–​118, 132, 149, 150; shared listening 111, 113–​114, 115; soap operas 113, 132; see also audience, imagined; media relief 9, 14–​18, 43–​44, 22, 46, 75, 77, 79, 86, 87, 88, 103, 109, 119, 120, 123, 124, 147; cost 15–​16, 119; dole payments 17, 44, 119; see also charity and relief, private; Federal One; Works Progress Administration/​Works Projects Administration (WPA) Resettlement Administration 1; greenbelt towns 77, 80; photography 34–​35; see also Farm Security Administration (FSA); Greenbelt (Maryland) settlement; Greenbelt House Museum resilience 1, 2, 3–​4, 9, 42, 92–​93, 94, 113, 143, 146, 148, 149 Revolt of the Beavers (Federal Theatre Project) 122, 126

risk, exposure to 6–​7, 148 Roosevelt, President Franklin Delano 1, 9, 16, 17, 30, 70; Great Depression responses 17–​19, 31, 74, 77, 81, 104, 119; on radio 30, 102–​103, 108–​109, 110, 114, 116, 129, 150; see also FDR: The Intimate Presidency exhibition; Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; New Deal; relief Rothstein, Arthur 31, 32, 33, 34, 40 Sculpture and the Federal Triangle exhibition 106 Shahn, Ben 85, 106, 126 shame 43–​44 shantytowns (Hoovervilles, Hobo Jungles) 15, 19, 22, 70, 71, 83, 85, 92–​94, 95, 147 shelter: vulnerability and 70–​101; see also homelessness; housing Smithsonian Institution 10, 20, 21, 102, 106, 107; see also National Museum of American History; National Museum of American Art; National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Institution Archives 20, 106 spectacle 10, 35, 40, 91, 92, 94, 147 Spirit of the Blitz: Liverpool in the Second World War exhibition 7–​8, 103–​104 stakeholders of 4, 5, 9, 10–​11, 48–​49, 52, 53, 144, 145 Steinbeck, John 22, 32–​33; on agricultural strikes 55, 55–​58; context 57, 59, 126–​127; radicalism 56–​57; see also Grapes of Wrath; In Dubious Battle; National Steinbeck Center; Their Blood is Strong stoicism 1, 2–​3, 9, 4, 35, 43, 86, 93 Strikers guarding window entrance to Fisher body plant number three. Flint, Michigan (Sheldon) 49, 50 strikes and industrial action 22, 31, 43, 44, 45–​51, 61, 126, 145–​146: agricultural 22, 54–​55, 56–​59, 61, 104; auto workers 22, 45–​47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 61; communism and 56, 58–​59, 60; exhibition 47–​53; longshoremen 43, 53, 58; Michigan exhibition 47–​53, 145; 1912 Bread and Roses Strike 51, 52; see also Flint Sit-​Down Strike; labour and

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Index 157 the labour movement; Michigan History Museum; Michigan in the Twentieth Century exhibition; National Steinbeck Center; Steinbeck, John; unemployment; union movement Stryker, Roy 34–​35, 37, 40 Sturges, Preston 91 Sullivan’s Travels (Sturges) 91 Survey Graphic journal 37 Swing Mikado, The (Federal Theatre Project) 122, 133 Taylor, Paul 1, 32 Tenement Museum, Lower East Side see Lower East Side Tenement Museum Terkel, Studs 114, 125, 130 theatre, filming 128, 130 theatre project see Federal Theatre Project; Living newspapers Their Blood is Strong (Steinbeck) 32, 57 This Great Nation Will Endure: Photographs of the Great Depression exhibition 21, 36–​37, 38, 147 Thompson, Florence Owens see Migrant Mother (Lange) Tobacco Road (Caldwell) 35, 81 Tractored Out (Lange) 33 Triple-​A Plowed Under (Federal Theatre Project) 122, 125 Tugwell, Rexford (Rex) 34, 77

92–​93, 118, 129–​130; audience, museum 36–​37, 53, 117, 118, 128, 146, 148; changing society 42–​43; homelessness 72, 79, 90–​91, 93; housing 22, 70–​71, 73, 76, 79–​85, 93, 94–​95; images of 3–​4, 41–​42, 71, 147, 150; interpreting 6–​10, 11, 12–​20, 22–​23, 31, 42–​43, 61–​62, 70–​71, 93, 103–​105, 110, 117–​118, 132, 143–​144, 146, 147–​149; marginalisation 72, 93–​94, 147, 149; narrative of 4–​12, 31, 42–​43, 47, 72, 143, 144; nature of 6–​7; shelter 70–​101; unions, labour and industrial action 14–​15, 43, 47, 53, 61, 104, 124–​125; war and 19; see also emotions; fear; homelessness; housing; resilience; unemployment

unemployment 1–​2, 13–​15, 16, 43–​44, 52, 80–​81, 145, 146; rates 18–​19; see also charity and relief, private; dole payments; relief union movement: development of 43, 45–​47, 119, 124–​125; in literature 53, 55–​58, 59, 60; views of 55–​57; see also labour and labour movement; strikes and industrial action United Auto Workers 46–​47, 50–​51, 52 US Steel 13–​14, 45

Wagner, Sen Robert 17, 75, 45, 51, 55, 76, 125 Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act) 45, 51, 55, 125 Wall Street crash 13, 14, 19, 37, 79, 80, 106, 107 War of the Worlds (Wells/​Welles)  112 welfare capitalism 13, 16, 27 n.42 Welles, Orson 112, 122, 125–​126, 133 Welty, Eudora 62 women: Depression experience 88–​89; homelessness 88, 148; employment 119; perspectives of 133; radio listeners 113 work, depicting 20, 43, 44, 45, 49, 50–​51, 53, 58, 59–​62, 124–​127, 131, 145–​146; see also Michigan History Museum; Michigan in the Twentieth Century exhibition; National Steinbeck Center; Steinbeck, John; strikes and industrial action Works Progress Administration/​Works Projects Administration (WPA) 18, 31, 34, 38, 44, 54–​55, 31, 106, 118–​120; see also Federal One

vulnerability 4, 53, 94, 129–​130, 143, 144, 145–​146, 147; attitudes to 42–​43, 47, 86–​87, 90–​91,

You Have Seen Their Faces (Caldwell and Bourke-​White) 35, 63 n.15, 81, 82, 98 n.66

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