Login

Publications  •  Project Statistics

Glossary  •  Schools  •  Disciplines
People Search: 
   
Title/Abstract Search: 

Dissertation Information for Stephen Louis Recken

NAME:
- Stephen Louis Recken

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Washington State University (USA) (1980)

ADVISORS:
- None

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected

Title: THE MYTHIC COMMUNITY: THE SEARCH FOR ORDER IN THE 1930S

Abstract: "Many themes marked American culture in the 1930s, but one of the most dominant and pervasive was a concern with community, an ideal associated with such traditional values as shared experience, emotional bonds, mutual obligations, and homogeneous roots. The most severe depression in American history and the advent of international conflict made a sense of community particularly appealing to many Americans. Americans longed for the reputed goodness of a rural lifestyle, for a return to a simpler past, and for a life among neighbors like themselves. In the case of the middle-class readership of popular journals, which are the basis for this study, reaction against complex urban-industrial life seldom took the form of actual, physical flight from the cities, or a practical return to village life. Instead, a large and significant segment of American opinion identified with ""community"" values, and with a conservative, group oriented lifestyle popularly viewed as a legacy of the nation's past. Americans wished, in short, to be freed from the diverse threats of the uncertain present.

In the 1930s, a majority of Americans resided in urban areas, but at the same time, many Americans acted as if they lived, or wished they lived, in a tightly-knit village setting. The recurring motif of community in popular journalism provided essentially a framework of values and attitudes never precisely defined, but capable of capturing the perceptions of a large number of Americans. Although it was partly an unconscious pattern of belief, it shaped conscious behavior and provided a means of accommodating traditional values with the exigencies of the 1930s. Ultimately, this pervasive ideal was a reaffirmation of fundamental values, an image of a desired reality rather than an active political program.

Although the theme of community marked virtually every level of American culture in the 1930s, nowhere was it so evident as in popular magazines. The present study deals with the theme of community as it appeared in six periodicals--Reader's Digest, Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Ladies Home Journal, Scribner's, and Cosmopolitan, each with a circulation of about two million. One of every 10 Americans read at least one of these magazines each month. These journals supplied insights into the opinions of an influential, white, middle-class audience as it responded to foreign and domestic tribulations.

Urban centers have always evoked ambivalent feelings in American culture, but after the Crash of 1929 even more fear and awe was focussed on cities. Because it was capable of disrupting small town life, technology also evoked conflicting views from Americans. If the dominant view was positive and optimistic, a strong, sometimes scarcely articulated countercurrent existed throughout the decade suggesting that machines created, and would continue to create, fearsome problems.

Popular journals of the 1930s were preoccupied with the role of the individual in the community setting. Magazine articles often stressed the importance of ""belonging,"" and attempted to redefine success and happiness in ways which conformed to the social and economic realities of the period. Conservative, familial values and non-material definitions of success were paramount in many articles. Women's happiness depended on having a home and a family; women were warned that they were not temperamentally suited for careers in the professional world. Finally, when Americans looked to foreign affairs, to the rise of fascism in Germany, for example, they typically applied the idealized standards of a remembered village morality."

MPACT Scores for Stephen Louis Recken

A = 0
C = 1
A+C = 1
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:33:31

Advisors and Advisees Graph