1930s

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Great DepressionDust BowlSecond Sino-Japanese WarRape of NankingAmelia EarhartSalt MarchHindenburg disasterNazi Invasion of PolandKristallnacht
From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson shows the effects of the Great Depression; due to extreme drought conditions, farms across the south-central United States become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads; The Empire of Japan invades China, which eventually leads to the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1937, Japanese soldiers massacre civilians in Nanking; aviator Amelia Earhart becomes an American flight icon; German dictator Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party attempt to establish a New Order of German hegemony in Europe, which culminates in 1939 when Germany invades Poland, leading to the outbreak of World War II. The Nazis also persecute Jews in Germany, specifically with Kristallnacht in 1938; the Hindenburg explodes over a small New Jersey airfield, causing 36 deaths and effectively ending commercial airship travel; Mohandas Gandhi walks to the Arabian Sea in the Salt March of 1930. Popular comedy team The Three Stooges had prominence during the decade.

The 1930s (pronounced "nineteen-thirties" and commonly abbreviated as "the '30s" or "the Thirties") was a decade that began on January 1, 1930, and ended on December 31, 1939. In the United States, the Dust Bowl led to the nickname the "Dirty Thirties".

The decade was defined by a global economic and political crisis that culminated in the Second World War. It saw the collapse of the international financial system, beginning with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the largest stock market crash in American history. The subsequent economic downfall, called the Great Depression, had traumatic social effects worldwide, leading to widespread poverty and unemployment, especially in the economic superpower of the United States and in Germany, which was already struggling with the payment of reparations for the First World War. The Dust Bowl in the United States (which led to the nickname the "Dirty Thirties") exacerbated the scarcity of wealth. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office in 1933, introduced a program of broad-scale social reforms and stimulus plans called the New Deal in response to the crisis. The Soviet's second five-year plan gave heavy industry top priority, putting the Soviet Union not far behind Germany as one of the major steel-producing countries of the world, while also improving communications. First-wave feminism made advances, with women gaining the right to vote in South Africa (1930, whites only), Brazil (1933), and Cuba (1933). Following the rise of Adolf Hitler and the emergence of the NSDAP as the country's sole legal party in 1933, Germany imposed a series of laws which discriminated against Jews and other ethnic minorities.

Germany adopted an aggressive foreign policy, remilitarizing the Rhineland (1936), annexing Austria (1938) and the Sudetenland (1938), before invading Poland (1939) and starting World War II near the end of the decade. Italy likewise continued its already aggressive foreign policy, defeating the Libyan resistance (1932) before invading Ethiopia (1935) and then Albania (1939). Both Germany and Italy became involved in the Spanish Civil War, supporting the eventually victorious Nationalists led by Francisco Franco against the Republicans, who were in turn supported by the Soviet Union. The Chinese Civil War was halted due to the need to confront Japanese imperial ambitions, with the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party forming a Second United Front to fight Japan in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Lesser conflicts included interstate wars such as the Colombia–Peru War (1932–1933), the Chaco War (1932–1935) and the Saudi–Yemeni War (1934), as well as internal conflicts in Brazil (1932), Ecuador (1932), El Salvador (1932), Austria (1934) and British Palestine (1936–1939).

Severe famine took place in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union between 1930 and 1933, leading to 5.7 to 8.7 million deaths. Major contributing factors to the famine include: the forced collectivization in the Soviet Union of agriculture as a part of the First Five-Year Plan, forced grain procurement, combined with rapid industrialization, a decreasing agricultural workforce, and several severe droughts. A famine of similar scope also took place in China from 1936 to 1937, killing 5 million people. The 1931 China floods caused 422,499–4,000,000 deaths. Major earthquakes of this decade include the 1935 Quetta earthquake (30,000–60,000 deaths) and the 1939 Erzincan earthquake (32,700–32,968 deaths).

With the advent of sound in 1927, the musical—the genre best placed to showcase the new technology—took over as the most popular type of film with audiences, with the animated musical fantasy film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) becoming the highest-grossing film of this decade in terms of gross rentals. In terms of distributor rentals, Gone with the Wind (1939), an epic historical romance film, was the highest-grossing film of this decade and remains the highest-grossing film (when adjusted for inflation) to this day. Popularity of comedy films boomed after the Silent era with popular comedians The Three Stooges and Marx Brothers. Popular novels of this decade include the historical fiction novels The Good Earth, Anthony Adverse and Gone with the Wind, all three of which were best-selling novels in the United States for 2 consecutive years. Cole Porter was a popular music artist in the 1930s, with two of his songs, "Night and Day" and "Begin the Beguine" becoming No. 1 hits in 1932 and 1935 respectively. The latter song was of the Swing genre, which had begun to emerge as the most popular form of music in the United States since 1933.

The world population increased from 2.05 to 2.25 billion people during the decade, with about 750 million births and 550 million deaths.

Politics and wars[edit]

Flag map of the world from 1930, nine years before World War II

Wars[edit]

At the outbreak of World War II, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland; by October 1939, they had divided the occupied territory between them in accordance with the secret part of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.

Internal conflicts[edit]

Major political changes[edit]

Germany – Rise of Nazism[edit]

United States – Combating the Depression[edit]

New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, May 18, 1933
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected President of the United States in November 1932. Roosevelt initiates a widespread social welfare strategy called the "New Deal" to combat the economic and social devastation of the Great Depression. The economic agenda of the "New Deal" was a radical departure from previous laissez-faire economics.

Saudi Arabia – Founding[edit]

Spain – Turmoil and Civil War[edit]

Colonization[edit]

Decolonization and independence[edit]

Other prominent political events[edit]

Europe[edit]

Soviet famine of 1930–1933. Starved peasants in the streets of Kharkiv, 1933

Africa[edit]

  • Hertzog of South Africa, whose National Party had won the 1929 election alone after splitting with the Labour Party, received much of the blame for the devastating economic impact of the Depression.

Americas[edit]

Asia[edit]

Mohandas Gandhi on the Salt March in 1930

Australia[edit]

Disasters[edit]

The German dirigible airship Hindenburg exploding in 1937
A dust storm approaches Stratford, Texas, in 1935, during the Dust Bowl
  • The China floods of 1931 are among the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded.
  • The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane makes landfall in the Florida Keys as a Category 5 hurricane and the most intense hurricane to ever make landfall in the Atlantic basin. It caused an estimated $6 million (1935 USD) in damages and killed around 408 people. The hurricane's strong winds and storm surge destroyed nearly all of the structures between Tavernier and Marathon, and the town of Islamorada was obliterated.
  • The German dirigible airship Hindenburg explodes in the sky above Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States on May 6, 1937, killing 36 people. The event leads to an investigation of the explosion and the disaster causes major public distrust of the use of hydrogen-inflated airships and seriously damages the reputation of the Zeppelin company.
  • The New London School in New London, Texas, is destroyed by an explosion, killing in excess of 300 students and teachers (1937).
  • The New England Hurricane of 1938, which became a Category 5 hurricane before making landfall as a Category 3. The hurricane was estimated to have caused property losses of US$306 million ($4.72 billion in 2010), killed between 682 and 800 people, and damaged or destroyed over 57,000 homes, including the home of famed actress Katharine Hepburn, who had been staying in her family's Old Saybrook, Connecticut, beach home when the hurricane struck.
  • The Dust Bowl, or "Dirty Thirties", a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940). Caused by extreme drought coupled with strong winds and decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops, or other techniques to prevent erosion, it affected an estimated 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2) of land (traveling as far east as New York and the Atlantic Ocean), caused mass migration (which was the inspiration for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck), food shortages, multiple deaths and illness from sand inhalation (see History in Motion), and a severe reduction in the going wage rate.
  • The 1938 Yellow River flood pours out from Huayuankou, China, inundating 54,000 km2 (21,000 sq mi) of land and killing an estimated 500,000 people.

Assassinations[edit]

Alexander I of Yugoslavia

Prominent assassinations include:

Economics[edit]

In the United States the significantly high unemployment rate lead many unemployed people to use freight trains in order to seek employment in various cities across the country

Science and technology[edit]

The Place de Varsovie in Paris during the World Expo in 1937, photographed using newly invented Agfacolor.

Technology[edit]

Many technological advances occurred in the 1930s, including:

Science[edit]

The discovery of the dwarf planet Pluto
  • Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto in 1930, which goes on to be announced as the ninth planet in the Solar System.
  • Albert Einstein's equations form the basis for creation of the atomic bomb.

Popular culture[edit]

Literature and art[edit]

Best-selling books[edit]

The best-selling books of every year in the United States were as follows:[13]

Film[edit]

Highest-grossing films[edit]

Year Title Worldwide gross Budget Reference(s)
1930 All Quiet on the Western Front $3,000,000R $1,250,000 [# 1][# 2][# 3][# 4]
1931 Frankenstein $12,000,000R ($1,400,000)R $250,000 [# 5][# 6]
City Lights $5,000,000R $1,607,351 [# 7]
1932 The Sign of the Cross $2,738,993R $694,065 [# 8][# 9][# 10][# 11]
1933 King Kong $5,347,000R ($1,856,000)R $672,255.75 [# 12]
I'm No Angel $3,250,000+R $200,000 [# 13][# 14]
Cavalcade $3,000,0004,000,000R $1,116,000 [# 15][# 3]
She Done Him Wrong $3,000,000+R $274,076 [# 16][# 17][# 18]
1934 The Merry Widow $2,608,000R $1,605,000 [# 19][# 10]
It Happened One Night $2,500,000R ON $325,000 [# 20][# 21]
1935 Mutiny on the Bounty $4,460,000R $1,905,000 [# 10]
1936 San Francisco $6,044,000+R ($5,273,000)R $1,300,000 [# 19][# 10]
1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs $418,000,000+S7 ($8,500,000)R $1,488,423 [# 22][# 23]
1938 You Can't Take It With You $5,000,000R $1,200,000 [# 24][# 25]
1939 Gone with the Wind $390,525,192402,352,579

($32,000,000)R GW

$3,900,0004,250,000 [# 26][# 27][# 28][# 29]

Radio[edit]

On October 30, 1938 Orson Welles' radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds is broadcast, causing panic in various parts of the United States
  • Radio becomes dominant mass media in industrial nations, serving as a way for citizens to listen to music and get news- providing rapid reporting on current events.
  • October 30, 1938: Orson Welles' radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds is broadcast, causing panic in various parts of the United States.

Music[edit]

The most popular music of each year was as follows:[16]

Fashion[edit]

The most characteristic North American fashion trend from the 1930s to 1945 was attention at the shoulder, with butterfly sleeves and banjo sleeves, and exaggerated shoulder pads for both men and women by the 1940s. The period also saw the first widespread use of man-made fibers, especially rayon for dresses and viscose for linings and lingerie, and synthetic nylon stockings. The zipper became widely used. These essentially U.S. developments were echoed, in varying degrees, in Britain and Europe. Suntans (called at the time "sunburns") became fashionable in the early 1930s, along with travel to the resorts along the Mediterranean, in the Bahamas, and on the east coast of Florida where one can acquire a tan, leading to new categories of clothes: white dinner jackets for men and beach pajamas, halter tops, and bare midriffs for women.[17]

Revolutionary designer and couturier Madeleine Vionnet gained popularity for her bias-cut technique, which clung, draped, and embraced the curves of the natural female body. Fashion trendsetters in the period included The Prince of Wales (King Edward VIII from January 1936 until his abdication that December) and his companion Wallis Simpson (the Duke and Duchess of Windsor from their marriage in June 1937), socialites like Nicolas de Gunzburg, Daisy Fellowes and Mona von Bismarck, and Hollywood movie stars such as Fred Astaire, Carole Lombard, and Joan Crawford.

Typical fashions in the 1930s:

Architecture[edit]

The Empire State Building became the world's tallest building when completed in 1931

Visual arts[edit]

Social realism became an important art movement during the Great Depression in the United States in the 1930s. Social realism generally portrayed imagery with socio-political meaning. Other related American artistic movements of the 1930s were American scene painting and Regionalism which were generally depictions of rural America, and historical images drawn from American history. Precisionism with its depictions of industrial America was also a popular art movement during the 1930s in the USA. During the Great Depression the art of photography played an important role in the Social Realist movement. The work of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Margaret Bourke-White, Lewis Hine, Edward Steichen, Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, Marion Post Wolcott, Doris Ulmann, Berenice Abbott, Aaron Siskind, Russell Lee, Ben Shahn (as a photographer) among several others were particularly influential.

The Works Progress Administration part of the Roosevelt Administration's New Deal sponsored the Federal Art Project, the Public Works of Art Project, and the Section of Painting and Sculpture which employed many American artists and helped them to make a living during the Great Depression.

Mexican muralism was a Mexican art movement that took place primarily in the 1930s. The movement stands out historically because of its political undertones, the majority of which of a Marxist nature, or related to a social and political situation of post-revolutionary Mexico. Also in Latin America Symbolism and Magic Realism were important movements.

In Europe during the 1930s and the Great Depression, Surrealism, late Cubism, the Bauhaus, De Stijl, Dada, German Expressionism, Symbolist and modernist painting in various guises characterized the art scene in Paris and elsewhere.

People[edit]

Actors/entertainers[edit]

Filmmakers[edit]

Walt Disney introduces each of the Seven Dwarfs in a scene from the original 1937 Snow White

Musicians[edit]

Louis Armstrong, 1936

Influential artists[edit]

Salvador Dalí
Frida Kahlo

Painters and sculptors[edit]

Photography[edit]

Dorothea Lange in 1936

Sports figures[edit]

Jack Craword, Australian World number 1 tennis player
Joe DiMaggio, center fielder for the New York Yankees, 1937

Global[edit]

United States[edit]

Criminals[edit]

Al Capone

Prominent criminals of the Great Depression:

See also[edit]

Timeline[edit]

The following articles contain brief timelines which list the most prominent events of the decade:

References[edit]

  1. ^ Bix, Herbert P. (1992). "The Showa Emperor's 'Monologue' and the Problem of War Responsibility". Journal of Japanese Studies. 18 (2): 295–363. doi:10.2307/132824. JSTOR 132824.
  2. ^ Hunt, Lynn. "The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures" Vol. C since 1740.Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
  3. ^ Zabecki, David T. (1999). World War II in Europe: an encyclopedia. New York: Garland Pub. p. 1353. ISBN 0-8240-7029-1. Archived from the original on 22 December 2016. Retrieved 12 January 2011.
  4. ^ "Manchukuo " Archived 2007-12-21 at the Wayback Machine Encyclopædia Britannica
  5. ^ A. L. Unger (January 1969). "Stalin's Renewal of the Leading Stratum: A Note on the Great Purge". Soviet Studies. 20 (3): 321–330. doi:10.1080/09668136808410659. JSTOR 149486.
  6. ^ "The first central committee of IMRO. Memoirs of d-r Hristo Tatarchev", Materials for the Macedonian liberation movement, book IX (series of the Macedonian scientific institute of IMRO, led by Bulgarian academician prof. Lyubomir Miletich), Sofia, 1928, p. 102, поредица "Материяли за историята на македонското освободително движение" на Македонския научен институт на ВМРО, воден от българския академик проф. Любомир Милетич, книга IX, София, 1928.
  7. ^ "Inflation and CPI Consumer Price Index 1930–1939". Archived from the original on 2014-05-04.
  8. ^ "White Chocolate Made Of". www.thenibble.com. Archived from the original on 24 February 2011. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
  9. ^ "Pangborn-Herndon Memorial Site". Aviation: From Sand Dunes To Sonic Booms. National Park Service. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  10. ^ "Howard R. Hughes, Jr.--The Record Setter". www.centennialofflight.net. Archived from the original on 2017-06-30. Retrieved 2017-12-24.
  11. ^ Del Barco, Mandalit. Revolutionary Mural To Return To L.A. After 80 Years. Archived 2018-05-02 at the Wayback Machine npr. October 26, 2010. Retrieved June 19, 2015.
  12. ^ Rondeau, Ginette La América Tropical Archived 2014-10-07 at the Wayback Machine Olvera Street Website Accessed 14 November 2014
  13. ^ Hackett, Alice Payne; Burke, James Henry (1977). 80 Years of Bestsellers: 1895–1975. New York: R. R. Bowker Company. pp. 109–127. ISBN 0-8352-0908-3.
  14. ^ "History of The Three Stooges: Pop-Culture Icons Forever". Tedium: The Dull Side of the Internet. 2021-10-27. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
  15. ^ Robert Johnson Biography Archived 2011-03-24 at the Wayback Machine. Allmusic
  16. ^ "1930s Music: What Songs Were Most Popular?". Retrieved 2022-11-23.
  17. ^ Wilcox, R. Turner: The Mode in Fashion, 1942; rev. 1958, pp. 328–36, 379–84

Books and Magazines on Film[edit]

  1. ^ "Biggest Money Pictures". Variety. June 21, 1932. p. 1 – via Archive.org. Cited in "Biggest Money Pictures". Cinemaweb. Archived from the original on July 8, 2011. Retrieved July 14, 2011.
  2. ^ Cormack, Mike (1993). Ideology and Cinematography in Hollywood, 1930–1939. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-312-10067-4. Although costing $1250000—a huge sum for any studio in 1929—the film was a financial success. Karl Thiede gives the domestic box-office at $1500000, and the same figure for the foreign gross.
  3. ^ a b Balio, Tino (1996). Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise, 1930–1939. Vol. 5 of History of the American Cinema. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-20334-1.
    • Cavalcade: p. 182. "Produced by Winfield Sheehan at a cost of $1.25 million, Cavalcade won Academy Awards for best picture, director, art direction and grossed close to $4 million during its first release, much of which came from Great Britain and the Empire."
    • Whoopee: p. 212. "Produced by Sam Goldwyn at a cost of $1 million, the picture was an adaptation of a smash musical comedy built around Eddie Cantor...A personality-centered musical, Whoopee! made little attempt to integrate the comedy routines, songs, and story. Nonetheless, Cantor's feature-film debut grossed over $2.6 million worldwide and started a popular series that included Palmy Days (1931), The Kid from Spain (1932), and Roman Scandals (1933)."
  4. ^ Hell's Angels
    • Balio, Tino (1976). United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 110. Hughes did not have the "Midas touch" the trade press so often attributed to him. Variety, for example, reported that Hell's Angels cost $3.2 million to make, and by July, 1931, eight months after its release, the production cost had nearly been paid off. Keats claimed the picture cost $4 million to make and that it earned twice that much within twenty years. The production cost estimate is probably correct. Hughes worked on the picture for over two years, shooting it first as a silent and then as a talkie. Lewis Milestone said that in between Hughes experimented with shooting it in color as well. But Variety's earnings report must be the fabrication of a delirious publicity agent, and Keats' the working of a myth maker. During the seven years it was in United Artists distribution, Hell's Angels grossed $1.6 million in the domestic market, of which Hughes' share was $1.2 million. Whatever the foreign gross was, it seems unlikely that it was great enough to earn a profit for the picture.
  5. ^ Feaster, Felicia. "Frankenstein (1931)". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
  6. ^ Block & Wilson 2010, p. 163. "It drew $1.4 million in worldwide rentals in its first run versus $1.2 million for Dracula, which had opened in February 1931."
  7. ^ Vance, Jeffrey (2003). Chaplin: genius of the cinema. Abrams Books. p. 208. Chaplin's negative cost for City Lights was $1,607,351. The film eventually earned him a worldwide profit of $5 million ($2 million domestically and $3 million in foreign distribution), an enormous sum of money for the time.
  8. ^ Birchard, Robert S. (2009). Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-3829-9.
  9. ^ Ramsaye, Terry, ed. (1937). "The All-Time Best Sellers – Motion Pictures". International Motion Picture Almanac 1937–38: 942–943. Kid from Spain: $2,621,000 (data supplied by Eddie Cantor)
  10. ^ a b c d Sedgwick, John (2000). Popular Filmgoing In 1930s Britain: A Choice of Pleasures. University of Exeter Press. pp. 146–148. ISBN 978-0-85989-660-3. Sources: Eddie Mannix Ledger, made available to the author by Mark Glancy...
    • Grand Hotel: Production Cost $000s: 700; Distribution Cost $000s: 947; U.S. box-office $000s: 1,235; Foreign box-office $000s: 1,359; Total box-office $000s: 2,594; Profit $000s: 947.
    • The Merry Widow: Production Cost $000s: 1,605; Distribution Cost $000s: 1,116; U.S. box-office $000s: 861; Foreign box-office $000s: 1,747; Total box-office $000s: 2,608; Profit $000s: -113.
    • Viva Villa: Production Cost $000s: 1,022; Distribution Cost $000s: 766; U.S. box-office $000s: 941; Foreign box-office $000s: 934; Total box-office $000s: 1,875; Profit $000s: 87.
    • Mutiny on the Bounty: Production Cost $000s: 1,905; Distribution Cost $000s: 1,646; U.S. box-office $000s: 2,250; Foreign box-office $000s: 2,210; Total box-office $000s: 4,460; Profit $000s: 909.
    • San Francisco: Production Cost $000s: 1,300; Distribution Cost $000s: 1,736; U.S. box-office $000s: 2,868; Foreign box-office $000s: 2,405; Total box-office $000s: 5,273; Profit $000s: 2,237.
  11. ^ Shanghai Express
    • Block & Wilson 2010, p. 165. "Shanghai Express was Dietrich's biggest hit in America, bringing in $1.5 million in worldwide rentals."
  12. ^ King Kong
    • Jewel, Richard (1994). "RKO Film Grosses: 1931–1951". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 14 (1): 39. 1933 release: $1,856,000; 1938 release: $306,000; 1944 release: $685,000
    • "King Kong (1933) – Notes". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved January 7, 2012. 1952 release: $2,500,000; budget: $672,254.75
  13. ^ "I'm No Angel (1933) – Notes". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved January 7, 2012. According to a modern source, it had a gross earning of $2,250,000 on the North American continent, with over a million more earned internationally.
  14. ^ Finler 2003, p. 188. "The studio released its most profitable pictures of the decade in 1933, She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel, written by and starring Mae West. Produced at a rock-bottom cost of $200,000 each, they undoubtedly helped Paramount through the worst patch in its history..."
  15. ^ Solomon, Aubrey (2011). The Fox Film Corporation, 1915–1935: A History and Filmography. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-6286-5.
    • Way Down East: p. 52. "D.W. Griffith's Way Down East (1920) was projected to return rentals of $4,000,000 on an $800,000 negative. This figure was based on the amounts earned from its roadshow run, coupled with its playoff in the rest of the country's theaters. Griffith had originally placed the potential film rental at $3,000,000 but, because of the success of the various roadshows that were running the $4,000,000 total was expected. The film showed a profit of $615,736 after just 23 weeks of release on a gross of $2,179,613."
    • What Price Glory?: p. 112. "What Price Glory hit the jackpot with massive world rentals of $2,429,000, the highest figure in the history of the company. Since it was also the most expensive production of the year at $817,000 the profit was still a healthy $796,000..."
    • Cavalcade: p. 170. "The actual cost of Cavalcade was $1,116,000 and it was most definitely not guaranteed a success. In fact, if its foreign grosses followed the usual 40 percent of domestic returns, the film would have lost money. In a turnaround, the foreign gross was almost double the $1,000,000 domestic take to reach total world rentals of $3,000,000 and Fox's largest profit of the year at $664,000."
    • State Fair: p. 170. "State Fair did turn out to be a substantial hit with the help of Janet Gaynor boosting Will Rogers back to the level of money-making star. Its prestige engagements helped raked in a total $1,208,000 in domestic rentals. Surprisingly, in foreign countries unfamiliar with state fairs, it still earned a respectable $429,000. With its total rentals, the film ended up showing a $398,000 profit."
  16. ^ Block, Alex Ben (2010), She Done Him Wrong, p. 173, The worldwide rentals of over $3 million keep the lights on at Paramount, which did not shy away from selling the movie's sex appeal. In: Block & Wilson 2010.
  17. ^ Phillips, Kendall R. (2008). Controversial Cinema: The Films That Outraged America. ABC-CLIO. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-56720-724-8. The reaction to West's first major film, however, was not exclusively negative. Made for a mere $200,000, the film would rake in a healthy $2 million in the United States and an additional million in overseas markets.
  18. ^ Block & Wilson 2010, p. 135. "Total production cost: $274,076 (Unadjusted $s)."
  19. ^ a b Turk, Edward Baron (2000) [1st. pub. 1998]. Hollywood Diva: A Biography of Jeanette MacDonald. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22253-3.
    • The Merry Widow: p. 361 Cost: $1,605,000. Earnings: domestic $861,000; foreign $1,747,000; total $2,608,000. Loss: $113,000.
    • San Francisco: p. 364 Cost: $1,300,000. Earnings: domestic $2,868,000; foreign $2,405,000; total $5,273,000. Profit: $2,237,000. [Reissues in 1938–39 and 1948–49 brought profits of $124,000 and $647,000 respectively.]
  20. ^ "Wall St. Researchers' Cheery Tone". Variety. November 7, 1962. p. 7.
  21. ^ Dick, Bernard F. (2008). Claudette Colbert: She Walked in Beauty. University Press of Mississippi. p. 79. ISBN 978-1-60473-087-6. Although Columbia's president, Harry Cohn, had strong reservations about It Happened One Night, he also knew that it would not bankrupt the studio; the rights were only $5,000, and the budget was set at $325,000, including the performers' salaries.
  22. ^ Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  23. ^ Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio
    p. 207. "When the budget rose from $250,000 to $1,488,423 he even mortgaged his own home and automobile. Disney had bet more than his company on the success of Snow White."
    p. 237. "By the end of 1938, it had grossed more than $8 million in worldwide rentals and was ranked at the time as the second-highest-grossing film after the 1925 epic Ben-Hur".
    p. 255. "On its initial release Pinocchio brought in only $1.6 million in domestic rentals (compared with Snow White's $4.2 million) and $1.9 million in foreign rentals (compared with Snow White's $4.3 million)."
  24. ^ 1938
    • You Can't Take It With You:"You Can't Take It With You Premieres". Focus Features. Archived from the original on September 13, 2012. You Can't Take It With You received excellent reviews, won Best Picture and Best Director at the 1938 Academy Awards, and earned over $5 million worldwide.
    • Boys Town: Block, Alex Ben (2010), Boys Town, p. 215, The film quickly became a smash nationwide, making a profit of over $2 million on worldwide rentals of $4 million. In: Block & Wilson 2010.
    • The Adventures of Robin Hood: Glancy, H. Mark (1995). "Warner Bros Film Grosses, 1921–51: the William Schaefer ledger". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 1 (15): 55–60. doi:10.1080/01439689500260031. $3.981 million.
    • Alexander's Ragtime Band: Block, Hayley Taylor (2010), Alexander's Ragtime Band, p. 213, Once the confusion cleared, however, the film blossomed into a commercial success, with a profit of $978,000 on worldwide rentals of $3.6 million. In: Block & Wilson 2010.
  25. ^ Chartier, Roy (September 6, 1938). "You Can't Take It With You". Variety. Retrieved September 13, 2011.
  26. ^ "Gone with the Wind". The Numbers. Nash Information Services. LLC. Retrieved February 8, 2013.
  27. ^ "Gone with the Wind". Boxoffice. Retrieved May 29, 2016.
  28. ^ Gone with the Wind at Box Office Mojo
  29. ^ Hall & Neale 2010, p. 283 ."The final negative cost of Gone with the Wind (GWTW) has been variously reported between $3.9 million and $4.25 million."

Works cited[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • Brendon, Piers. The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s (2000) global political history; 816pp excerpt
  • Cornelissen, Christoph, and Arndt Weinrich, eds. Writing the Great War – The Historiography of World War I from 1918 to the Present (2020) free download; full coverage for major countries.
  • Gardiner, Juliet, The Thirties: An Intimate History. London, Harper Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-00-724076-0 on Britain
  • Garraty, John A. The Great Depression: An Inquiry into the Causes, Course, and Consequences of the Worldwide Depression of the Nineteen-Thirties, As Seen by Contemporaries (1986).
  • Grenville, J.A.S. A History of the World in the Twentieth Century (Harvard UP, 1994) pp 160–251.
  • Grossman, Mark. Encyclopedia of the Interwar Years: From 1919 to 1939 (2000). 400pp. worldwide coverage
  • Lewis, Thomas Tandy, ed. The Thirties in America. 3 volumes. Pasadena: Salem Press, 2011.
  • Watt D.C. et al., A History of the World in the Twentieth Century (1968) pp 423–463.

External links[edit]

  • The Dirty Thirties – Images of the Great Depression in Canada
  • America in the 1930s Extensive library of projects on America in the Great Depression from American Studies at the University of Virginia
  • The 1930s Timeline year by year timeline of events in science and technology, politics and society, culture and international events with embedded audio and video. AS@UVA