Changing attitudes toward charity : the values of depression-era America as reflected in its literature
File(s)
Date
2011-12Author
Stary, Steven M.
Advisor(s)
Dingledine, Don
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
As a time of economic and political crisis, the Great Depression influenced authors who sought to rewrite America's underlying mythology of rugged individualism into one of
cooperative or communal sensibility. Through their creative use of narrative technique,
the authors examined in this thesis bring their readers into close identification with the
characters and events they describe. Creating connection between middle-class readers
and the destitute subjects of their works, the authors promoted personal and communal
solutions to the effects of the Depression rather than the impersonal and demeaning forms
of charity doled out by local governments and private charities. Meridel Le Sueur's articles 'Women on the Breadlines" "Women are Hungry" and "I Was Marching along with Tom Kromer's novel Waiting for Nothing, are examined for their narrative
technique as well as depictions of American attitudes toward charitable giving and
toward those who receive charity. The works of Le Sueur and Kromer are shown as a progression culminating in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath later in the decade. By
the end of the 1930s significant progress had been made in changing American values
toward communal sensibility through the work of these authors and the economic
programs of the New Deal, but the shift in attitude would not be completely
accomplished or enduring.
Subject
Poverty in literature
National characteristics - American- in literature
American literature - Themes, motives
Permanent Link
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/60987Description
A Thesis Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of
Arts-English