Essay On 1930s Entertainment

Imagine only having three main ways of entertainment. This is how it was during the 1930s. The Great Depression was going on during the ‘30s. A lot of people had wanted to be entertained as the Library of Congress states, “Even during “hard times” and war time, people needed to be entertained. The Americans in the 1930s and 1940s were no exception. They enjoyed many forms of entertainment, particularly if they could do so inexpensively” ( “Art and Entertainment in the 1930s and 1940s” 1). The Americans of the 30s did not have many forms of entertainment. The newest form of electronics back then were movies and the radio. Many people couldn’t afford these electronics so they had to use their imagination to create their own entertainment. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem, Scout, and Dill have to make their own form of entertainment. The three main ways of entertainment in the 1930s were: movies, music, and imagination. Electronics weren’t very big in the 1930s. The first invention that was big in entertainment were movies. Dill says that he has seen Dracula. Jem doesn’t seem to believe him and asks Dill to recite the movie (Lee …show more content…
Radios were expensive to buy, but once you got one listening to it was free. The Wessels Living History Farm says this about radio, “Radio was the nation’s first mass medium, linking the country and ending the isolation of rural residents. Radio was so important that the 1930 Census asked if the household had a radio. Radio provided free entertainment…” (Having Fun-Radio 1). In the 30s it didn’t matter how much money people had, because everyone was poor. They were just happy as long as they had a radio. In To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus, Aunt Alexandra, Calpurnia, and most other characters had a radio (Lee 29). Americans at the time loved their radios. They would play it while doing chores or while playing, much like how people nowadays listen to music.