Vintage Images Of 1930s Women's Fashion

1930s Historical Events

The 1930s witnessed the dawn of the Great Depression in the USA, which began following the Wall Street Crash on 29 October 1929. The great Wall Street Crash was an economic catastrophe that became infamously known as 'Black Tuesday', said to be the largest stock market crash in American history. the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined nearly 13 percent, according to an official US study between 1930 and 1933. It is said that over 9,000 US banks were dissolved whilst losing depositors' assets, which amounted to roughly $7 billion. Moreover, in the 1930s, there was no such thing as deposit insurance, meaning, no provision of a safety measure for savers at that time. In that era, when banks failed, millions of depositors lost their life savings, meaning, literally overnight, millions of Americans fell into a state of destitution. By 1933, about 25% of the total American workforce was unemployed, and because the USA was the world economic superpower, this event initiated far-reaching and seismic reverberations across the globe, economically, politically. and socially. This event had caused the longest and deepest depression in US history, and the extreme poverty had persisted for well over a decade. World War II began in Europe, when German invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Britain and France had already established a military alliance with Poland; therefore, both countries declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939.

The 1930s: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt (born 1882 - died 1945) was an American politician who was eventually elected as the 32nd President of the United States on 4 March 1933. It is noteworthy that Roosevelt was the only US President who served four terms in office, which is the record for the longest serving president in US history. But remarkably, Roosevelt was also the first president to serve his entire term in office with a severe physical disability. In 1921, Roosevelt was diagnosed with a disease called infantile paralysis, better known as polio (poliomyelitis), when he was just 39 years old. Even though Roosevelt had undergone many years of medical therapy, nevertheless, he continued to suffer the symptoms of being paralyzed from the waist down. As a result, Roosevelt had been permanently confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of his life. During Roosevelt's first few years in office, he legislated groundbreaking policy reforms to assist with the American economic recovery. He introduced reforms such as the Emergency Banking Act, the 1933 Banking Act, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, each of those major reforms had provided significant benefits to certain US financial businesses, in particular, the New Deal program (between 1933 and 1939) was a series of government policies designed to provide continued support over a significant period of time for many US financial sectors, but also, it provided the funding, organisation and implementation of public work projects, and the introduction of certain types of regulation reforms. Importantly, the New Deal had also provided special assistance for the poorest American citizens, including the introduction of a new measure called a deposit insurance to protect people's savings in the event of a bank insolvency.

Long before America had entered World War II, which began on 9 September 1939, Roosevelt had overseen the spectacular regeneration of the United States economy by way of implementing a war effort strategy to primarily give support to the European nations fighting against Germany and its Allies. Also, towards the end of World War II, Roosevelt had worked with the other world leaders to create the foundation for the United Nations. It is important to mention that Roosevelt was strongly criticized by US conservatives for a number of his domestic policies, who had argued that some of his Keynesian style policies had caused long-term damage to the United States economy, and Roosevelt was especially criticised for his controversial executive order in 1942, when he ordered the internment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans. Nevertheless, Franklin Roosevelt is best remembered for being the US politician who contracted a debilitating disease, but fought bravely against this personal crisis, meanwhile, undertaking the enormous challenges of the US Presidency, and eventually, he successfully navigated the United States through what was arguably considered to be the two greatest crises of the twentieth century, namely, the Great Depression, and World War II.

The 1930s: Mahatma Gandhi's Salt March

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (born 1869 - died 1948) was an Indian lawyer who later became an anti-colonial nationalist and a pacifist. According to certain academics, Gandhi had built his reputation for using methods of non-violent protests in order to campaign for civil rights while he was living in South Africa, and when Gandhi eventually returned to India in 1915, the name Mahatma (meaning revered one) was attributed to him by the local Indian people of the village where he resided. One of Gandhi's most famous and successful civil protest campaign occurred in March 1930, when he launched the Salt March, which was aimed against the British government for imposing tax on salt in India, a controversial policy that had adversely impacted on some of the poorest sections of the Indian community. The long political protest walk began on 12 March 1930, from Sabarmati Ashram at Ahmedabad, then through what is now the western Indian state of Gujarat, and finally, the march ended at a coastal village called Dandi, which is situated on the Arabian Sea coast. The march had taken 24 days, ending on 5 April 1930, and it had covered a distance of over 240 miles. In addition, over the course of the Salt March protest, approximately 60,000 protesters joined the march. Mahatma Gandhi became known for leading nonviolent campaign protests to help achieve India's independence from British rule, which finally occurred in 1947. A few months later, the nation grieved after Gandhi was assassinated as he journeyed to a prayer vigil in New Delhi on 30 January 1948. Gandhi was shot by a Hindu fanatic called Nathuram Vinayak Godse, and following the tragedy, it was later revealed that the assassin's motive had been that he was strongly against some of Gandhi's political ideas.

The 1930s: The Rise Of Dictatorships

During the 1930s, many parts of Europe witnessed the alarming rise of militarism and dictatorships. The expansionist ideals of those nations had led to ruthless acts of aggression against neighbouring states and many other nations, which in turn heralded the dawn of World War II. The main aggressors were said to be Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, and the Soviet Union, all of which had formed different types of government systems that were essentially totalitarian and nationalistic. But it is noteworthy that the British Empire was already established as a notorious regime (colonialism), which dated back hundreds of years. Additionally, in the 1930s, the world supremacy of the British navy was being challenged by nations such as Germany and the United States. The most notorious leaders who ruled under a dictatorship in that era were Adolphe Hitler (German), Joseph Stalin (Russian), Benito Mussolini (Italian), General Hideki Tojo (Japanese), and Francisco Franco (Spanish). Many academics argued that there were several reasons for this phenomenon. Firstly, following World War I, certain conditions had been created for the rise of the working-class people in many nations across Europe, which initiated an increase in class conflicts within those nations. And the Great Wall Street Crash, in 1929 (USA), caused many nations around the world to experience economic and social deprivation throughout the 1930s. As a consequence, these events gave rise to a contentious political debate regarding whether sovereignty should remain within the control of the privileged few or should the less privileged majority be given a greater participation in government affairs. Also, the economic volatility and instability that ensued across Europe had initiated a kind of political vacuum that caused the emergence of radical dictatorial and nationalistic systems of government in many nations across the world.

The 1930s: Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park mansion is located at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The mansion was purchased in May 1938 by Admiral Hugh Sinclair, who was head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Bletchley Park was acquired to be utilized as a secret intelligence codebreaking centre for the British Secret Intelligence and officially became operational in 1939. The organisation recruited and housed a group of exceptionally talented individuals, sometimes referred to as social misfits, whose mission was to break enemy codes in WWII. The talented team of codebreakers was credited with reducing the duration of the war and had saved many lives in the process. In particular, the Bletchley codebreakers who were known as Ultra, and led by British mathematician Alan Turing, became famous for deciphering the Enigma machine in July 1941, which was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius. The same team was also responsible for creating an automatic calculating machine called Colossus in 1943, which later assisted them with deciphering the sophisticated German Lorenz cipher machine. The main team of cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park was W.T. Tutte, John Tiltman, Tommy Flowers, Hugh Foss, Shaun Wylie, Alan Stripp, Dilly Knox, John Herivel, Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, Edward Travis, Tony Sale, John R.F. Jeffreys, Jean Briggs Watters, Joyce Aylard, Joan Clarke, and Alan Turing.

The 1930s: The Soviet Union Famine

Three major famines took place in the history of the Soviet Union during the 20th century (1921-1922, 1932-1933, and 1946-1947). However, the Soviet Union famine, which occurred between 1932 and 1933, was said to be the most devastating of the three. This famine had affected the major grain-producing regions of the USSR, which spanned Ukraine, the Northern Caucasus, the Volga Region, Kazakhstan, South Urals, and West Siberia. A study by researchers estimated that at least 5 million people died of hunger across the Soviet Union between 1932 and 1933. This study also included the death of at least 3.9 million Ukrainians, a tragedy which is also known as 'Holodomor' Ukrainian term which literally means death by hunger. According to historians, due to extreme desperation, many of the starving population of the land had resorted to cannibalism. It is said that the result of the Great Russian famine of the 1930s was partly caused by Joseph Stalin's policy of forced collectivization, a government program designed to accelerate the process of industrialization within the USSR. However, given that Ukraine possessed vast regions of rich farm land from which to cultivate agriculture, and importantly, Ukraine's economy was progressing better than most other states within the USSR at that particular time, this controversial new law by Stalin's regime was viewed as a personal assault on the Ukrainian peasantry (also known as Kulaks), who were successful wealthy farmers and landowners, and they had stubbornly resisted efforts made by the Soviet regime to compel them to relinquish their privately owned farm lands to join a much larger state run cooperative.

The Russian term kulak originated in the midst of the 1917 Russian Revolution, during which the communist forces had accused the wealthy peasant farmers (in this case, the term peasant was said to be a misleading usage) of unfairly withholding grain from the wider community, at a time when food was in short supply. Kulak is an old derogatory Russian term for tight-fisted, the Soviet propaganda machine had labelled wealthy peasants as kulaks, because Joseph Stalin's regime had declared them as enemies of the Russian state, and a new law had been inaugurated stating that kulaks must be exiled or eliminated as a class by death sentences or imprisonment so that Stalin's program of collectivization could be advanced. As to what extent collectivization had exacerbated the 1930s Russian famine is debatable. But the other contributing factors for this disastrous event were the reverberations of the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War, which had already taken place within the previous two decades. Moreover, the unfortunate occurrence of certain natural disasters had dramatically reduced the agricultural production across the USSR. Also, at that particular time, some of the railway transport systems within the Soviet Union were said to be in very poor working condition, and as a result, those networks were unable to transport food supplies efficiently across many different regions of the Soviet Union.

The 1930s: The Empire State Building

The Empire State Building was built in Manhattan, New York City, USA, on 1 May 1931. The idea for this building originated from American business executive John J. Raskob. His inspirational idea had attracted keen interest from a group of prominent investors, including former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith. The investors employed a notable architecture association called Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, who eventually designed an Art Deco style skyscraper, and following its completion, the Empire State Building was said to be an architectural masterpiece. The main building contractor was Starrett Brothers and Eken, which later became known as the Starrett Corporation. The Empire State was constructed by 3,400 workers, and it was completed in a new record-breaking time of 12 months and 45 days. Unfortunately, during the building's construction 5 workers had lost their lives, and the cause of death was said to be accidental. The Empire State Building is 1,250 feet tall to the top of its roof, but 1,454 feet tall to the top of its antenna. It was originally built to host corporate business offices and to be the tallest, most magnificent observation site that the world had ever witnessed.

It has been documented that George Washington, who later became the very first United States President in 1789, had written a letter in 1785, in which he expressed his gratitude and admiration for New York's fortitude during the American Revolution (1765 - 1783), and he had referred to that state as 'the Seat of the Empire', according to some historians that source is the derivative for the name Empire State Building. At the time of completion, the Empire State Building was the tallest in the world and remained so for nearly 40 years. The classic blockbuster movie King Kong was released in 1933. It was directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. The Screenplay was by James Creelman and Ruth Rose. The original story was by Merian Cooper and Edgar Wallace, and it starred Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, and Bruce Cabot. This movie was famously remembered for featuring iconic scenes of the giant beast valiantly battling to the death against fighter airplanes on top of the 102-story Empire State Building, which is widely considered to be one of the most memorable and spectacular endings in the history of cinema.

1930s Women's Fashion

In the 1930s, women wore long length dresses and skirts, midi length bias-cut dresses, sometimes with belted waist and puff sleeves, or large yokes and collars. Also fashionable were long elegant evening gowns, which were sometimes backless or sleeveless, high waisted sailor pants with long and short sleeve blouses, wide leg trousers, matching suits with long skirts or wide leg trousers, and beach pyjamas, also casual sports clothes, hats in various styles and sizes ,with gloves and jewellery.