The poorest era in American history was, surprisingly, culturally rich.

Though the Depression elicits thoughts of dust bowls and soup lines, it was also filled with groundbreaking movies, books and art that left indelible imprints on the psyche of the nation. Think of Dorothy and Toto skipping down the yellow brick road, the utterance of “Rose bud” in Citizen Kane and Scarlett O’Hara’s promise to rebuild her beloved Tara—and try to imagine America without such cultural references.

In Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression, Morris Dickstein dives into art of the 1930s and explores what he calls the “inner history” of the Depression—the country’s collective hopes, insecurities, dreams and fears that sprang from dark financial days. A literary critic and professor at City University of New York Graduate Center, Dickstein writes that while the average American was struggling to survive, artists, writers and filmmakers were—aided by grants from the federal government—producing some of the most complex and vivid work in America’s cultural history.

Dickstein talks to AARP Bulletin Today about why times of social crisis can inspire artists and what that might mean for culture today.

Q. Why this title—Dancing in the Dark?

A. It comes from a 1931 song by Dietz-Schwartz, from a musical called The Band Wagon, and it was one of the most famous songs of the ’30s. I thought it was a song about dancing on the ballroom floor. But when I listened to it closely, especially the version recorded by Bing Crosby, I realized it’s about something much more serious: it’s about dancing but being surrounded by the darkness of life itself, the darkness of a social situation. And this is exactly what my book is about: how a period of great social difficulty nevertheless produced one of the most lively, buoyant cultures that America has ever seen.

Q. What’s the link between social hardship and cultural productivity?

A. In a period of social crisis, people need more entertainment. They certainly need cheap entertainment, which movies and popular music were at the time. The early years of the Depression saw the demise of swank entertainment like nightclubs and the rise of cheap, readily available entertainment, like radio, sports and movies. The recording industry took a huge hit, then came back in the early ’30s with a slowly improving economy and the invention of the jukebox. Many people got their music through the radio, especially through live hookups at performances by big swing bands like Benny Goodman’s or Duke Ellington’s.

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