American Studies.

Week Twenty-Eight

Tuesday, April 2, 2024 5:50 AM


Tuesday

Welcome back! 

Writing day. Finish synthesis on the American Dream and peer edit.

Homework- Finish essay.


Wednesday

Overview of The Great Depression- Keynote Presentation

Begin actively reading textbook in class.

Homework - Read pages 654-664 in the textbook.





Thursday

Essential Questions

What were the causes of the Great Depression?


How did people cope with the Great Depression?


What were the effects of the Great Depression?


How does the Great Depression change the American identity?


- Devastation


- Escapism


- Optimism


-The New American Dream




Devastation

Writing: Noted historian Paul Boyer stated that, “The facts and statistics tell the story of the Great Depression.” Read and analyze the facts and stats and tell the story of the Great Depression.


60 Interesting Facts on the Great Depression


Read Robert Burns’ “To a Mouse”, and discuss in small groups. Get to the deeper meaning of the poem.


“In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!” - ROBERT BURNS - “TO A MOUSE”




Video Clip - Short intro to the Great Depression




Make connections between the video clip and the passage from Burns’ poem. 


Bridge: The elderly couple in the clip said that the song “Blue Skies” best describes the abundant optimism of the 1920’s. What modern song best describes your generation?



-Use specific lines from the following songs to describe how this generation felt/coped with the Great Depression. Pick out a metaphor from each song and explain.


"Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries," lyrics by Lew Brown, music by Ray Henderson (1931)


People are queer, they're always crowing, scrambling and rushing about;

Why don't they stop someday, address themselves this way?

Why are we here? Where are we going? It's time that we found out.

We're not here to stay; we're on a short holiday.


Life is just a bowl of cherries.

Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious.

You work, you save, you worry so,

But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.


So keep repeating it's the berries,

The strongest oak must fall,

The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned

So how can you lose what you've never owned?

Life is just a bowl of cherries,

So live and laugh at it all.


Life is just a bowl of cherries.

Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious.

At eight each morning I have got a date,

To take my plunge 'round the Empire State.

You'll admit it's not the berries,

In a building that's so tall;

There's a guy in the show, the girls love to kiss;

Get thousands a week just for crooning like this:

Life is just a bowl of . . . aw, nuts!

So live and laugh at it all!


"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931)


They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,

When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.

They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,

Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?


Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;

Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?


Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,

Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,

And I was the kid with the drum!


Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.

Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?


Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,

Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,

And I was the kid with the drum!


Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.

Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?


Bridge: Consider the last two lines from “Brother”. Ask the students what they think of these lines. Why does Harburg use the name “Al” at the end? How would it change the song and its meaning to leave “Al” out? (ans: It personalizes the persona. It’s similar to Melville’s first line in Moby Dick...”Call me Ishmael”. Speilberg does this in Schindler’s List as well with the girl in the red coat. All of them force the audience to focus on one single individual.) 


- Here are other individual stories from the Depression. What themes do you notice, and which of them resonates with you?


Video Clip - Life in the Thirties





Closing: How have the “best laid plans” of these people gone askew, and deteriorated into “grief and pain? Cite specific examples. How did it happen? What were the causes of the Great Depression?


Homework - Finish the chapter in the textbook.


Friday

The Great Depression Webquest

Begin active viewing of The Grapes of Wrath

Homework - Review the chapter in the textbook. Take notes and be ready for a quiz over this chapter!




Monday


The Great Depression Through Film and Song






Unwelcome Guest- Woody Guthrie

To the rich man's bright lodges 

I ride in this wind 

On my good horse, I call you 

My shiny black Bess 


To the playhouse of fortune 

To take the bright silver 

And gold you have taken 

From somebody else 


And as we go riding 

In the damp foggy midnight 

You snort, my good pony 

And you give me your best 


For you know and I know 

Good horse 'mongst the rich ones 

How oftimes we go there 

An unwelcome guest 


I never took food 

From the widows and orphans 

And never a hardworking man I oppressed 


So take your pace easy 

For home soon like lightning 

We soon will be riding 

My shiny black Bess 


No fat rich man's pony 

Can ever overtake you 

And there's not a rider 

From the east to the west 


Could hold you a light 

In this dark mist and midnight 

When the potbellied thieves 

Chase the unwelcome guest 


I don't know, good horse 

As we trot in this dark here 

That robbing the rich 

Is for worse or for best 


They take it by stealing 

And lying and gambling 

And I take it my way 

My shiny Black Bess 


I treat horses good 

And I'm friendly to strangers 

I ride and your running 

Makes my guns talk the best 


And the rangers and deputies 

Are hired by the rich man 

To catch me and hang me 

My shining black Bess 


Yes, they'll catch me napping one day 

And they'll kill me 

And then I'll be gone 

But that won't be my end 


For my guns and my saddle 

Will always be filled 

By unwelcome travelers 

And other brave men 


And they'll take the money 

And spread it out equal 

Just like the Bible 

And the prophets suggest 


But men that go riding 

To help these poor workers 

The rich will cut down 

Like an unwelcome guest


Escapism - The West


“It should not be denied. . . that being footloose has always exhilarated us. it is associated in our minds with escape from history and oppression and law and irksome obligations, with absolute freedom, and the road has always led west.”

--Wallace Stegner 


“But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before.” - Huckleberry Finn


California - The Land of Milk and Honey







The original expression, "a land flowing with milk and honey", is a reference in the Hebrew Bible to the agricultural abundance of the Land of Israel. The first reference appears in the book of Exodus during Moses' vision of the burning bush.


Do Re Mi
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie


Lots of folks back East, they say, is leavin' home every day,
Beatin' the hot old dusty way to the California line.
'Cross the desert sands they roll, gettin' out of that old dust bowl,
They think they're goin' to a sugar bowl, but here's what they find
Now, the police at the port of entry say,
"You're number fourteen thousand for today."

Oh, if you ain't got the do re mi, folks, you ain't got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi.

You want to buy you a home or a farm, that can't deal nobody harm,
Or take your vacation by the mountains or sea.
Don't swap your old cow for a car, you better stay right where you are,
Better take this little tip from me.
'Cause I look through the want ads every day
But the headlines on the papers always say:

If you ain't got the do re mi, boys, you ain't got the do re mi,
Why, you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see;
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi.



Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad - Woody Guthrie/Grateful Dead

Goin' down the road feelin' bad.

Goin' down the road feelin' bad.

Goin' down the road feelin' bad.

I don't want to be treated this away.


Goin' where the climate suits my clothes.

Goin' where the climate suits my clothes.

Goin' where the climate suits my clothes.

I don't want to be treated this away.


Goin' down the road feelin' bad.

Goin' down the road feelin' bad.

Goin' down the road feelin' bad.

I don't want to be treated this away.


Goin' where the water tastes like wine.

Goin' where the water tastes like wine.

Goin' where the water tastes like wine.

I don't want to be treated this away.


Goin' down the road feelin' bad.

Goin' down the road feelin' bad.

Goin' down the road feelin' bad.

I don't want to be treated this away.


Goin' where the chilly winds don't blow.

Goin' where the chilly winds don't blow.

Goin' where those chilly winds don't blow.

I don't want to be treated this away.



Promised Land - Chuck Berry/Grateful Dead

I left my home in Norfolk Virginia, California on my mind.

Straddled that Greyhound, it rode me past Raleigh, and on across Caroline.


Stopped in Charlotte and bypassed Rock Hill, and we never was a minute late.

We was ninety miles out of Atlanta by sundown, rollin' 'cross the Georgia state.


Had motor trouble it turned into a struggle, half way 'cross Alabam,

the 'hound broke down left us all stranded in downtown Birmingham.


Straight off bought me a through train ticket, right across Mississippi clean

And I was on the midnight flyer out of Birmingham

Smoking into New Orleans.


Somebody help me get out of Louisiana

Just help me get to Houston town.

People are there who care a little 'bout me

And they won't let the poor boy down.


Sure as she bore me, she bought me a silk suit, put luggage in my hands,

And I woke up high over Albuquerque

On a jet to the promised land.


Workin' on a T-bone steak a la carte,

Flying over to the Golden State;

When the pilot told us in thirteen minutes

We'd be headin' in the terminal gate.


Swing low sweet chariot, come down easy

Taxi to the terminal zone;

Cut your engines, cool your wings,

And let me make it to the telephone.


Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia,

Tidewater four ten on nine

Tell the folks back home this is the promised land callin'

And the poor boy's on the line.


Homework -Study.