The Great Depression and Entertainment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDUhTGXjEuk This is a link to a song that people may have listened to during The Great Depression.

                Music was important during The Great Depression. There were so few good events in the lives of the farmers who were forced to leave their homes. The people would scour the land for work while being forced to watch their children starve. With so few good times, it’s not surprising that people searched for something to lighten the mood. Everyone would gather to share stories and play music. When death tore families apart, gathering for entertainment was one of the few things that could bring people together. During The Great Depression it was rare for people to have a chance to see movies. When one person went to see a movie, they remembered everything they could so they could share it with everyone else which is shown in The Grapes of Wrath when the author writes, “And perhaps a man balanced twenty cents between food and pleasure, and he went to a movie in Marysville or Tulare, in Ceres or Mountain View. And he came back to the ditch camp with his memory crowded. And he told how it was.” (Steinbeck 326) Steinbeck also clearly shows how desperate people of the 1930’s were to find entertainment when he writes, “The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure, and they were hungry for amusement.” (Steinbeck 325)

                During The Great Depression 25 to 60 percent of people lost their jobs. This number was dependent on a person’s race. More African Americans lost jobs than white men. When people were losing everything else, they still had their voices. They could sing and some could play the harmonica or guitar. Some people lost so much that they were homeless. One couple spent a year of their lives living in a cave. Music may not have brought them food, but it was one of the few things able to provide hope to the miserable people.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=music+great+depression&qs=ds&form=QBIR#view=detail&id=6AA21D94C887BC7D5ADC8037C9EF9E19B612AF41&selectedIndex=3 http://www.pbs.org/jazz/time/time_depression.htm

Romanticism

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Destroyed+Homes&FORM=RESTAB#view=detail&id=48951CB3896C0282879D2E2F19BDC1EEF6C9A89B&selectedIndex=2

Edgar Allan Poe helped to shape the time he was born into. He helped to shape Romanticism by writing supernatural stories that reflected the writing of the time. Romanticism also helped to shape the way Poe wrote. If it was not the writing style of the time, Poe may have used different methods when producing his stories. Romanticism is shown clearly in Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher. The narrator in this story says, “At the termination of this sentence, I started, and for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came indistinctly to my ears what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo of the very cracking and ripping sound…” This quote in the story shows a supernatural aspect. The noises in the story Poe had the narrator read were the same as the ones in the house. It seemed as though the story was controlling what happened within the house. Another quote from the story that shows Romanticism in Poe’s story is when the narrator describes a scene saying, “Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me.” This quote portrays some entity coming out of the house when the Ushers have fallen. The house seemed to be connected to the life of the family. At the end of the story, it is said that the sister had managed to escape from her tomb and wander through the house. It is also stated that she was dead for about a week. Unscrewing the coffin lid and to moving the heavy door would be impossible for someone in her state. For her to do this, there would have to be some unnatural force helping her. Poe compares a tarn to the mental state of Roderick. By doing this, Poe brings out Romanticism when it is used as a form of nature. From nature to the supernatural, Poe was skilled in using the elements of Romanticism.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=roderick+usher&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=roderick+usher&sc=8-14&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&id=8A9AE60C5B7B1E80A49DA7559AF75902B72935C3&selectedIndex=3

Edgar Allan Poe

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=edgar+allan+poe&qs=bs&form=QBIR#view=detail&id=FE1593CF418D2386FEBDDA28B7985A8A0DAD89B5&selectedIndex=4

Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19^th, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. He had no parents to care for him by the time he was three years old. He went to stay with John and Frances Allan in Virginia. When he was older, he went to the University of Virginia. John Allan did not get along well with Poe and would not fully pay for his education. To pay for the rest of his collage, Poe started to gamble. He got himself into debt and had to return home to the Allan family. Upon his return, Poe found that his fiancée had become engaged to another man. His heart was broken until he fell in love with his cousin. They were married in 1836 when she was only 13 years old. Poe based many of his writings off of his newly found love. He wrote a nationally famous poem called The Raven in 1845. His wife died in 1847 when she was about 24 years old. Poe became depressed after losing his wife and his health slowly deteriorated. He died on October 7^th, 1849. Some of his fellow writers slandered Poe’s name after his death. People believed Poe had been an insane alcoholic, and Poe himself said “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/e/edgar_allan_poe.html

http://www.biography.com/people/edgar-allan-poe-9443160?page=2

Thomas Jefferson

                            

http://ryanziegler.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/thomas_jefferson.jpg

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13^th, 1743 on a small plantation outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. He began a formal education at 9 years old which showed him to be ambitious. He wanted people to act instead of speaking to show how they feel. He showed his thoughts on the way people should work when he said “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” Thomas was a lawyer as well as a gardener, artist, astronomer, and the third President of the United States. He was an accomplished writer which he proved by writing the Declaration of Independence. He also drafted the Virginia State Bill, which was made to establish religious freedom. He bought the Louisiana Purchase without full authorization and sent men to explore it. He was a serious supporter of the American cause and sold his personal library to help rebuild the Library of Congress that burnt down in a fire in 1814. Thomas Jefferson died at the age of 83.

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk254/mymoonbeam1/declaration-of-independence-729363.jpg

sources

¨http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/colonial/jb_colonial_subj.html

¨http://www.biography.com/people/thomas-jefferson-9353715

¨http://americanhistory.about.com/od/thomasjefferson/a/tj_lapurchase.htm

¨http://www.archives.com/genealogy/president-jefferson.html

¨http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/lewis-and-clark-expedition

¨http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/jeffersons-cause-death

¨http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/t/thomas_jefferson.html