Art of Making Do is the Subject of New Museum Exhibit

"Skint! Making do in the Great Depression", opens March 27 at Museum of Sydney, Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the exhibit will display the folk art and crafts of the 1930s.

Items like furniture made from boxes, rugs made from rags, and toy trains made from scrap wood, stowed away for years by specialist collectors of Depression-era art will be on display.

Annie Campbell, notes...

"These creative activities not only helped many people to brighten their homes but also provided an enjoyable diversion to pass the time," she says.

She adds that the Depression tradition of "making do" continued to thrive after the recession had passed.

Food for Thought: A New Permanent WPA?

A University of Missouri-Kansas City economist is proposing a system of direct job creation to combat unemployment.

Direct job creation programs have been common in the US and around the world. Americans immediately think of the various New Deal programs such as the Works Progress Administration (which employed about 8 million), the Civilian Conservation Corps (2.75 million employed), and the National Youth Administration (over 2 million part-time jobs for students). Indeed, there have been calls for revival of jobs programs like VISTA and CETA to help provide employment of new high school and college graduates now facing unemployment due to the crisis.

But what I am advocating is something both broader and permanent: a universal jobs program available through the thick and thin of the business cycle. The federal government would ensure a job offer to anyone ready and willing to work, at the established program compensation level, including wages and benefits package. To make matters simple, the program wage could be set at the current minimum wage level, and then adjusted periodically as the minimum wage is raised. The usual benefits would be provided, including vacation and sick leave, and contributions to Social Security.

Dancing Like Fred

The Great Depression also brought us what is now considered to be the Golden Age of Hollywood. Those glamorous scenes of Fred and Ginger dancing on air- she in her gorgeous feathered gown, he in his dapper tuxedo with tails-- have generally been viewed as escapist fantasy in a difficult era. But But Morris Dickstein, author of Dancing in the Dark, has a different theory as explained on On the Media.



In this report I especially enjoyed the expression "the proletariat of Oz."