Signs of the Times: 1933-1942

World’s Fair, 1940. Court of States across reflecting pool, toward replica of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. Gottscho-Schleisner Collection, Library of Congress

1933 1938 • Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural speech: • Thorton Wilder’s Our Town opens on Broadway, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” wins Pulitzer Prize. • FDR’s first Fireside Chat. •Walt Disney’s animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released. 1934 •Wages and Hours Act passed, banning child labor •Diego Rivera’s Rockefeller Center mural, with and establishing the 40 hour work week. portrait of Lenin, dismantled. • Hurricane blows through Long Island and New • Dionne quintuplets born in Ontario. England killing 680 people. • Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) • Orson Welles causes panic with War of the Worlds established to police securities industry. radio broadcast. • Irving Berlin releases “God Bless America” with 1935 Kate Smith singing it on Armistice Day. •Works Progress Administration (WPA) established. • Hallie Flanagan named director of Federal Theatre 1939 Project (FTP). •World’s Fair opens in Flushing Meadows, New • Radio shows, Fibber McGee & Molly and York; introduces public to television. Backstage Wife, debut. • John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath published. • Gershwin’s and Bess opens in New York • John Lomax and wife Ruby finish recording the City. folk music of 300 rural artists. • League of Nations condemns Germany’s • Germany invades Poland. Great Britain and rearmament policy under Adolf Hitler. France declare war on Germany. • Nazi government revokes German citizenship of • Wizard of Oz premieres, starring Judy Garland. Jews. • abolished. • Italy, under Mussolini, invades Ethiopia. 1940 1936 • Abbott & Costello debut on NBC Radio. • Orson Welles directs an all black cast in FTP •Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of funded production of Macbeth. Great Britain. • Robert Frost’s A Further Range wins a Pulitzer • German troops enter Paris and attack Denmark Prize. and Norway. • Margaret Mitchell publishes Gone with the Wind. • Alien Registration (Smith) Act requires registration • Charlie Chaplin’s film, Modern Times, released. and fingerprinting of over 5 million aliens. • Bing Crosby records, “Pennies from Heaven”. •World’s Fair closes. • Jessie Owens wins four gold medals in track and field at summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. 1941 • Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. 1937 • Germany invades the Soviet Union. • First Social Security checks issued. • The United States enters World War II. • Dedication of Appalachian Trail. • FTP’s most popular production, Power, premieres 1942 in . • Federal Art Projects end. • Basque town of Guernica destroyed by German bombs. • Crash of the Hindenburg. • Japan invades China.