FDR takes over

March 31, 2009

Leisure Guy, in his leisure no doubt, has some time to look seriously at political criticism and its accuracy.  For example, recently he wondered about the claim that FDR didn’t do anything to help the U.S. out of the depression, and perhaps helped prolong it.  [I have corrected a minor error; he had FDR being inaugurated in January of 1933.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the last president to be inaugurated in March; the term was changed to start in January during his presidency.]

This graph is from an interesting post by Paul Krugman, but I was fascinated to see that you can tell when FDR took office. He was elected, as you know, at the end of 1932, and he took office in late January [March] of 1933. Can you find that spot on the graph?

1931

But of course, Right Wingers will tell you that FDR made the Depression worse. Some will even say that FDR started the Great Depression.

Leisure Guy didn’t include a link to Krugman’s post, drat it.  It doesn’t appear to be this one, though it covers some of the same territory.  Update: Oh, here it is:  “Partying like it’s 1931.”

3 Comments | Economics, Employment, FDR, Great Depression, History, John Maynard Keynes, Politics, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

How do you know it’s as bad as it is?

March 20, 2009

My father lived through the Great Depression.  That was what we noted whenever he cheered when somebody got a job with the Post Office.  “It’s a steady job,” he’d say.  “The Post Office doesn’t lay people off.  They have good health care, and a pension.”

That was then.  My father died in 1988.

This is now.

Yeah, it’s that bad.

3 Comments | Economics, Employment, Government, Great Depression, History | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Great Depression in music and images – look what good film can do

March 14, 2009

History is Elementary once again shows why we ought to be reading her stuff regularly, pointing to the short film “Pennyland” by Eddie and Frank Thomas.

I dare you to plug that into your lesson plans, teachers.  When you do, drop back and tell us in comments what you did, will you?

More:

Leave a Comment » | Bell Ringers, Great Depression, History, History and art, History audio sources, History images, History Methods and Tools, History video sources, Movies, Music, Video and film | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

History for fun, not profit (other than a little drink)

October 14, 2008

E Clampus Vitus has tens of thousands of members across seven Western states, though nowhere are the groups eccentric ways more alive than in California. Above, Noble Grand Humbug Scott Neilsen, left, and Steve Slonecker at Eds Restaurant in Twain Harte.

Caption from the New York Times: E Clampus Vitus has tens of thousands of members across seven Western states, though nowhere are the group's eccentric ways more alive than in California. Above, Noble Grand Humbug Scott Neilsen, left, and Steve Slonecker at Ed's Restaurant in Twain Harte. Photo fro the New York Times, by Jim Wilson.

You don’t think history can be fun? Consider the group of Californians known as Clampers, who gather to celebrate history in a place called Twain Harte (ask any California historian, or American literature mavin, how the town got its name):

“It’s a common saying that no one has been able to tell if they are historians that like to drink or drinkers who like history,” said Dr. Robert J. Chandler, a senior historian at Wells Fargo Bank and a proud member of the group’s San Francisco chapter. “And no one knows because no one has been in any condition to record the minutes.”

Whether a historical drinking society or a drinking historical society, the Clampers claim tens of thousands of members in 40 chapters across seven Western states, though nowhere are the group’s strange ways more alive than in California, where members are said to have included Ronald Reagan; John Huston, the film director; and Herb Caen, the famous San Franciscan master of the three-dot journal. Some Clamper membership claims, of course, can be suspect. It is true, however, that many noted historians have been members, as is the current director of the State Office of Historic Preservation.

I already like the bunch:  The Order of E Clampus Vitus.

Read about them in the New York Times. The Times carries a series of stories based on the WPA-produced state guide books (Works Progress Administration).  Each one of these articles would be a good topic of focus for a lesson plan.  Other articles in the series so far include:

See also the introduction to the series, and go back in time to read the .pdf of the story announcing the creation of the WPA, intended to created 3.5 million jobs in the Great Depression.

Leave a Comment » | Capturing history, Current History, Education, FDR, Great Depression, History, Lesson plans, Travel, WPA - Works Progress Administration | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Guess who said it: Quote for the day

January 26, 2007

The first step to maintained equality of opportunity amongst our people is, as I have said before, that there should be no child in America who has not been born, and who does not live, under sound conditions of health; who does not have full opportunity for education from the kindergarten to the university; who is not free from injurious labor; who does not have stimulation to ambition to the fullest of his or her capacities. It is a matter of concern to our government that we should strengthen the safeguards to health. These activities of helpfulness and of cooperation stretch before us in every direction. A single generation of Americans of such a production would prevent more of crime and of illness, and give more of spirit and progress than all of the most repressive laws and police we can ever invent — and it would cost less.

Who said it? Who prescribed such a “socialist” plan for our children? John Dewey?  Hillary Clinton?  Answer below the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Accuracy, Education, Herbert Hoover, Leadership, Lesson plans, Politics, Presidents, Quotes | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

After the end, Hoover showed the way for Bush

December 28, 2006

Herbert Hoover, White House Portrait

Herbert Hoover, White House Portrait

Herbert Hoover is one of the great foils for U.S. history courses. The Great Depression is on national standards and state standards. Images from the dramatic poverty that resulted win the rapt attention of even the most calloused, talkative high school juniors. Most video treatments leave students wondering why President Hoover wasn’t tried for crimes against humanity instead of just turned out of office.

In most courses, Hoover is left there, and the study of Franklin Roosevelt‘s event-filled twelve years in office (with four elected terms) takes over the classroom. If Hoover is mentioned again at all in the course, it would likely be for his leading humanitarian work after World War II.

But there is, hiding out in California, the Hoover Institution. Hoover’s impact today? Well, consider some recent fellows of the Hoover Institution: Condaleeza Rice, Milton Friedman, George Shultz, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Gary Becker, Diane Ravitch, Chester Finn. The Hoover Institution, “at Stanford University,” is the conservatives’ anchor in the intellectual and academic world.

Hoover’s legacy is being remade, constantly, through his post-Presidential establishment of an institution to promote principles of conservatism (and liberalism in its old, almost archaic education sense). The Hoover Institution has carried Hoover’s ideas and principles back into power.

Dallas has been wracked recently with the shenanigans and maneuvers around the work of Southern Methodist University to be named as the host for the George W. Bush Presidential Library. In a humorous headline last week the Dallas Morning News (DMN) said such a library could lead Dallas’s intellectual life in the future (the headline is different in the on-line version — whew!).

Humor aside, there is grist for good thought there. Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments | Business Ethics, Dissent, Economics, Franklin Roosevelt, Freedom - Economic, Freedom - Political, Great Depression, Herbert Hoover, History, Politics, Presidents | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

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