ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT IN THE 1930S

During the Depression, the poorest Americans did not worry too much about what to do with their leisure time — most of them were struggling to get enough to eat and keep a roof over their heads. The richest citizens did not worry too much either — they could still afford to sail their yachts, travel extensively abroad, and keep up their memberships in exclusive clubs.

The leisure time of the average middle-class American, however, was affected the most by the Depression. Expensive sports, such as golf, which required membership in a club, were abandoned. Attendance at musical and theatrical performances was usually the next to go. Travel vacations also got the ax. So how did most Americans manage to relax and have fun during the Depression?

Games and Hobbies

In place of expensive activities, people took up a variety of smaller-scale and often homebound activities and hobbies. Parlor games, such as chess, checkers, dominoes, backgammon, jigsaw puzzles, and bridge, became popular. Backyard and basement sports included horseshoes, badminton, and table tennis. Hobbies, such as amateur carpentry, were practical and took people’s minds off of their financial worries. Even stamp collecting, thanks to President Roosevelt’s passion for the hobby, took on a new appeal.

Gambling became more widespread, perhaps because people were desperate for a lucky break to give them some relief from the gloom of the Depression. When national prohibition was finally repealed in 1933, thousands of taverns, amusement arcades, lodges, and clubs reopened. To attract customers, many of them promptly installed pinball games, slot machines, and punch boards, which offered prizes to those who punched out a lucky hole. In addition, organized betting, such as on horse races, had been legal in only six states in 1929; by the end of the thirties, it had spread to twenty-one. In 1938, the projections of a Gallup Poll indicated that more than half of the adults in the United States admitted that they had done some type of gambling in the past year. This ranged from relatively harmless fun, such as betting in a church lottery, to playing cards for money, to playing the "numbers," an illegal lottery based on winning combinations of numbers.

Spectator Sports

Fans still followed college football, but football weekends were no longer the huge parties they had been in the 1920s. During prohibition, alcohol was not as readily available, and alumni, who used to spend freely, were often hard pressed for cash. In 1931, for the first time in ten years, receipts from Big Ten football games dropped below two million dollars. Some schools whose stadiums had been built in the 1920s with financing from local bond issues could not pay the interest on their loans.

Although their revenues were weakened by faltering public support, other professional sports managed to survive. Attendance at professional baseball games held steady, and millions more fans listened to games on the radio. Loyal followings developed for stars such as "Pepper" Martin, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio. Joe Louis, a young African-American known as the "Brown Bomber," helped revive interest in boxing because of his stunning victories. For Louis’s bout with Max Baer in 1935 — which he won by a knockout — Yankee Stadium drew its first million-dollar gate since 1927. The newly established Golden Gloves tournament also attracted talented young fighters to the ring.

Golf fans were thrilled when in 1930 Robert T. ("Bobby") Jones won both the American and the British amateur and open golf championships, establishing an all-time record. Professional tennis, with stars such as William T. Tilden and Helen Wills Moody, maintained a faithful following, especially through newspaper and magazine coverage.