1930s – History and SPL Programs

Check out our 1930s Board on Pinterest to be taken back to the Thirties!

At the beginning of the 1930s, more than 15 million Americans–fully one-quarter of all wage-earning workers–were unemployed. President Herbert Hoover did not do much to alleviate the crisis: Patience and self-reliance, he argued, were all Americans needed to get them through this “passing incident in our national lives.” But in 1932, Americans elected a new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who pledged to use the power of the federal government to make Americans’ lives better. Over the next nine years, Roosevelt’s New Deal created a new role for government in American life. Though the New Deal alone did not end the Depression, it did provide an unprecedented safety net to millions of suffering Americans. Source.

Read More About:

The Great Depression

“A New Deal for the American People”

The First Hundred Days

American Culture During the 1930s

The Second New Deal

The End of the Depression

Source: The 1930s. (2012). The History Channel website. Retrieved 2:05, June 6, 2012, from http://www.history.com/topics/1930s.

Join us this week for these “Between the Decades” Programs.

Ancestry.com Lab – Tuesday, June 12 @ 10:30AM – A Librarian will give a quick review of the site, and then you can search away for the rest of the session! Class size is limited. Please register.

Decades Documentaries – Life in the Thirties (1930s) – Tuesday, June 12 @ 2PM – Project Twenty – An exhilarating look at life in the 1930s, an era rich with discovery and excitement despite the turmoil of the Great Depression. Alexander Scourby narrates this “Project Twenty” program that spans from the Crash of 1929 to 1939’s New York’s World Fair and includes footage of bank nights at the movies, Benny Goodman and the birth of Swing, pinball machines and bingo. 60 min.

Sewickley: A History – Wednesday, June 13 @ 7PM – We are pleased to welcome Harton Semple, executive director of the Sewickley Valley Historical Society, who will present a history of the Village. Please register.