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(2) Course Lecture: Week #7 Today’s Lecture Covers The Following: • Meridel Le Sueuer • Agee & Evans • Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Post World War II America • Betty Friedan • William Whyte • J.C. Holmes.
(3) MERIDEL LE SUEUER Meridel Le Sueur was the daughter of socialist feminist parents, Marion Wharton and Alfred Le Sueur. She was raised in the Midwestern U.S. surrounded by radical farmers, populists and the IWW. Wanting to pursue her literary talents she moved to the East Coast where lived with Emma Goldman and was friendly with literary figures like John Reed and Edna St. Vincent Millay. Le Sueuer's first article was published in 1927. She continued to write widely-acclaimed journalism and experimental fiction into her 90s. She incorporated political themes into her poetry and fictional writings as well as reportage on labor struggles, the plight of Indians, farm and rural people, the poor during the Depression, and women's issues. A member of the Communist Party, during the McCarthy-era 1950s, she was blacklisted but wrote prolifically, stashing work in her home..
(4) AGEE & EVANS – LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN & WOMEN (1) •This book is a Depression-era classic of famous photographs and text that examines the live of the rural poor. Poverty in the rural areas is as devastating as poverty in the city. •Sharecroppers are also known as “tenant farmers”. One should be aware of the special conditions that result from seasonal patterns of work and production in an agrarian (peasant) society; also, the workers’ dependency on an almost feudal economic system..
(5) AGEE & EVANS – LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN & WOMEN (2) Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers in their generations giving counsel by their understanding, and proclaiming prophecies;leaders of the people in their deliberations and in understanding of learning for the people, wise in their words of instruction; those who composed musical tunes, and set forth verses in writing; rich men furnished with resources, living peaceably in their habitations -- all these were honored in their generations, and were the glory of their times.. The LORD apportioned to them great glory, his majesty from the beginning. There were those who ruled in their kingdoms, and were men renowned for their power, There are some of them who have left a name, so that men declare their praise. And there are some who have no memorial, who have perished as though they had not lived; they have become as though they had not been born, and so have their children after them. Ecclesiasticus 44:1-9.
(6) FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT “THE FOUR FREEDOMS” • Before entering the War, FDR urged support for countries that had come under attack by the Axis military. Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act, which allowed Americans to extend loans of “military supplies” to any country that was threatened by aggression and whose national defense could be interpreted as “vital to the defense of the United States.” • The “Four Freedoms” were part of the President’s annual address to Congress. • An expression of fundamental human and political rights, perhaps indicative of what would arise in the form of a United Nations document after the war. It is also indicative of an ongoing international movement that promotes an understanding of “universal” human rights..
(7) FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT “I HATE WAR SPEECH” On October 6, 1937 in Chicago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt warns of a steadily-increasing danger of armed conflict menacing the United States. Without naming any nation as responsible, the Chief Executive finds a threat in present attacks from the air on civilians, and ships attacked and sunk by submarines in time of peace and without cause or notice. Gravely, the President asserts that if such things can happen in other parts of the world, America cannot feel secure for long. Universal Newsreel presents the President's speech as a historic document, and gives with it a dramatic view of incidents of aggression which called forth Mr. Roosevelt's impassioned warning." scenes of parade outdoors, sound of FDR speaking outdoors under tent, silent scenes of war inserted into FDR's speech, FDR says, “I Hate War”..
(8) POST WORLD WAR II AMERICA (1) •America after the War was “victorious,” not only as a military power. It had come away from WW II with its economy bolstered by war production, unlike its European allies who had suffered destruction of their infrastructures. •An “American era” that reflected a certain degree of chauvinism that had come with victory and infected the American mentality; but America’s role and success in the war also reflected the definite reality of the U.S. as having become the “preeminent military and economic power in the world” (T&S, 1376). •By 1955 the U.S. was producing half of the world’s goods. America had entered an era of prosperity..
(9) POST WORLD WAR II AMERICA (2) •The “cold war” had begun immediately after the War with the emergence of two great Communist powers: the Soviet Union and The Peoples Republic of China who would challenge America’s hegemony as a world leader. An ideological battle ensued between the forces of democratic capitalism and totalitarian communism. This led to a certain “cold war mentality” among Americans that led to the “witch hunts” of Joe McCarthy and the Un-American Activities Committee. •When General Eisenhower was elected to the presidency in 1952, the nation returned to an era of conservative republicanism..
(10) BETTY FRIEDAN – THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE DISCUSSION: What do you gather from Friedan’s conclusion?. If I am right, the problem that has no name stirring in the minds of so many American women today is not a matter of loss of femininity or too much education, or the demands of domesticity. It is far more important than anyone recognizes. It is the key to these other new and old problems which have been torturing women and their husbands and children, and puzzling their doctors and educators for years. It may well be the key to our future as a nation and a culture. We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: "I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.".
(11) W.H. WHYTE, JR. - THE ORGANIZATION MAN •“By the mid-1950s, white-collar (salaried) workers outnumbered bluecollar (hourly-wage) workers for the first time in American history” (T&S, 1439). Before 1929: 31% vs. the 1950s: 60%. •This parallels the rise of large corporations that displaced or acquired through mergers smaller enterprises. “The traditional notion of the hardworking, strong-minded individual advancing by dint of competitive ability and creative initiative gave way to the concept of a new managerial personality and an ethic of corporate cooperation and achievement (T&S, 1440).” •Whyte’s book examined the rise of the “organization man” as it countered the old Protestant work ethic and the rugged individualism of earlier American centuries (Turner’s “frontier thesis”). It was replaced by a groupthink type of individual who shunned individualism as tended to conform to the status quo. Refer also to De Toqueville..
(12) J.C. HOLMES – NOTHING MORE TO DECLARE •The Beat Generation is the name given to a group of artists, writers and social bohemians who rebelled against the conformity of the post-War years and chose to live an open and free existence that was anti-materialistic and which sought mystical enlightenment. •The Beats were part of a general rebellion at the time that was also reflected in other forms of rebellion in response to the alienation of youth. •In many respects they hark back to the Transcendentalists of the 1830s in their attention to eastern mysticism and spirituality, individualism, romantic inclinations. •I’ve included by own review of a series of books about the Beat generation that offers its own perspective as the Beats continued to influence a new generation of 1960's youth..
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