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Year 11
AQA

1930s American popular culture

I can explain how popular culture developed in the 1930s.

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New
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Year 11
AQA

1930s American popular culture

I can explain how popular culture developed in the 1930s.

Download all resources
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Share activities with pupils
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These resources will be removed by end of Summer Term 2025.

Switch to our new teaching resources now - designed by teachers and leading subject experts, and tested in classrooms.

These resources were created for remote use during the pandemic and are not designed for classroom teaching.

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. The New Deal extended specific support to help jobless artists.
  2. Jazz remained popular although many individual artists suffered.
  3. Radio ownership doubled in the 1930s.
  4. A wide range of literature, ranging from novels to comics, flourished.
  5. Cinemas remained a very popular form of entertainment.

Keywords

  • Congress - the group of elected politicians responsible for passing laws in the USA are known as Congress

  • Escapism - escapism refers to types of entertainment or imagination that help you to forget about your work and your problems

Common misconception

During the Great Depression, Americans had significantly less access to entertainment.

Americans continued to access entertainments on a large scale. Radio ownership doubled, cinema attendance recovered as a form of escapism and new forms of popular literature like comics flourished.


To help you plan your year 11 history lesson on: 1930s American popular culture, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Show students a short clip from either the Wizard of Oz (1939), Snow White (1938) or 42nd Street (1933). Ask students why, despite falling incomes, millions of Americans continued to visit cinemas to watch films like these.
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Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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Starter quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
Write the missing word. Something may be declared if it is not allowed under the laws of a political system.
Correct Answer: unconstitutional, Unconstitutional
Q2.
How many Americans were unemployed by 1933?
5 000 000
Correct answer: 13 000 000
21 000 000
29 000 000
Q3.
What type of opponent to the New Deal was Alf Landan?
business owner
radical
Correct answer: Republican
Supreme Court judge
Q4.
Who proposed the 'Share Our Wealth' plan?
Alf Landan
Charkles Coughlin
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Correct answer: Huey Long
Q5.
Write the missing word. In 1937, President Roosevelt introduced an unpopular plan to the Supreme Court but this faced widespread opposition and was abandoned.
Correct Answer: pack, Pack
Q6.
Starting with the earliest, sort the following events and periods into chronological order.
1 - USA gains independence
2 - World War One
3 - Roaring Twenties
4 - Great Depression
5 - World War Two

Exit quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
Write the missing word. refers to types of entertainment or imagination that help you to forget about your work and your problems.
Correct Answer: Escapism, escapism
Q2.
How did radio ownership in the USA change between 1930 and 1940?
Correct answer: doubled
halved
remained the same
Q3.
What was Duke Ellington famous for?
Hollywood actor
Correct answer: jazz musician
radio host
soldier
Q4.
How many artists were employed by Federal Project Number One?
5000
10 000
20 000
Correct answer: 40 000
Q5.
Which example best demonstrates that Federal Project Number One was able to benefit ordinary Americans well as artists?
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) hired 3 000 000 workers
Correct answer: Weekly music classes were provided for 132 000 children and adults
40 000 artists were employed to work on the Federal Project Number One
Q6.
Starting with the earliest, sort the following stages of film history into chornological order.
1 - most films were silent
2 - cinemas began showing talkies
3 - Great Depression began
4 - cinema attendance fell for a short periodfore recovering
5 - 'Wizard of Oz' released in released in colour

Additional material

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