Remembering the Great Depression
"The title for the event is taken from the use of 'whose names are unknown' that was put on foreclosed properties during the Great Depression," according to Kathleen Vogel Matthews, Adult Education Coordinator of Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society.
The event will include the music of the 1930s that helped raise the spirits of a whole country during the Great Depression. Additionally, the music will be performed to historical narrative and images from the Great Depression and New Deal years. Farm Security Administration has provided the images for this event from documentary photographers such as Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein and Walker Evans. "The images that will be showcased at this event are strong and poinent while the music chosen for the event tells the story of the era in a personal way," Matthews said.
The Blue Eagle Sting Band will be on hand to perform at the event, playing a set of rare songs that they compiled from out-of-print recordings and extensive research at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution. A few songs you can expect to hear include "Foreclosure Blues", "I Don't Want Your Millions Mister", and "We Have FDR Back Again". All of the songs that will be performed have themes of fear, loss and determination, along with humorous political and social commentary, and playful camaraderie. "The event is very moving and informative, but the music has a good rhythm, as the event is not meant to be depressive--just serious," said Matthews.
The event will take place on Wednesday, July 16, at 7 PM, in The Historical Society Museum, located at 25 Nottingham Court at Elmwood Avenue. Admission for the event is $10 for the general public and $8 for students and members of the Historical Society. For additional information, call 716.873.9644 extension 301, or go to bechs.org.
Furthermore, the program "Whose Names Are Unknown: Songs & Images from the Great Depression" will be available to schools and groups as a presentation. For more information about the program, click here.
Photo courtesy of about.com @ http://history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blygd42.htm
What Others Have To Say
What Do You Think?
Related Articles
-
Take A Trip Down Memory Lane
Maybe you read about this one last December, or maybe you took the time and looked over this one in April, and perhaps you considered attending this event back in June. Whatever your reasoning for putting it off, there’s no time like the present for Forgotten Buffalo, unless of course it’s the past.
Forgotten Buffalo Tours take participants on a journey into the history of the area, always striving to produce a unique and entertaining outing. Their success has allowed them to … - Today, 12:42pm
- Continue Reading
- Join the conversation
-
Party For The Parks - The Way A Park Should Be Seen
Last evening was the first time that I have ever attended the event, Party for the Parks held at the Marcy Casino. The parks gala started up just as the Burchfield-Penney showing was winding down, and has happened more than a few times this summer, the non-stop rain kept everyone guessing. By guessing, I mean that every time the band members would even look at their instruments the rain would start to fall. It was a good thing that the upper terrace was covered and the Marcy Casin … - Today, 11:15am
- Continue Reading
- Join the conversation
-
It's Time To Break Out The Red, White, And Blue For Puerto Rico
According to Miguel Santos, one of the founders of the Puerto Rican Day Parade of WNY, starting the parade six years ago was a way of “recognizing that Buffalo’s Latino population continues to grow and we decided that it would be a great way to recognize this segment of the population.” Inspired by the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in NYC, Santos, who is a local activist in the Latino community, got a call from Jose Rodriguez, and the rest is history.
Santos says, “We … - Today, 10:15am
- Continue Reading
- Join the conversation
-
Burchfield-Penney Art Center Comes Alive
For the first time in over a hundred years, Buffalo has unveiled a brand new ($33,000,000, 84,000 sq.’) museum. Yesterday, hundreds of people met at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center to witness, not one, but three, ribbon cuttings. Fans and supporters were greeted by trumpeting didgeridoos as they walked into the vaulting entranceway – a walk that led them past the museum café, the gift shop, the learning center, a conference center, studios, gallery spaces, and more gallery s … - Today, 9:20am
- Continue Reading
- 17 Comments
Comment Options
marcia2
Interesting and very ironic that this program is being promoted at this time when the country is starting to see signs of something so similiar starting to happen this very day....Everyday the media is reporting another major bank failure. Rignt now the FDIC can bail these banks out, but how long will it be before some other entity is required to bail out the FDIC.
Report this
NewBuffalo
If our politicians and greedy corporations don't get their heads out of their underside we will be in another one soon........
Report this
becker
NewBuffalo: Yes, it is all about the greedy corporations and politicians... and it has nothing to do with lack of personal accountability or financial responsibility. Blame the big, nameless entities instead of looking at our own spending or even who we elect into office.
Report this
blackrocklifer
The distribution of wealth in America is very similar to the days before the depression. Maybe we can change that by electing progressives willing to challege the right wing that has dominated politics for far too long. Then again todays paper has Satish Mohan whining that Amherst deserves more county sales tax revenue, at the expense of Buffalo, so maybe not.
Report this
NewBuffalo
BECKER....Get with it. you can elect millionaire #1 or #2 for president. what a choice, neither has interest in the common man only large corporations that line the campaign pocket book. Corporations close plants here due to the pressure put on the people in office to make these unfair trade deals with places like china. The government bailing out financial institutions comes from the taxpayer, that is you and me.
Report this
heathersmiles
Has there been a time when the distribution of wealth was different than it is today? Was there a time in the history where all were equally wealthy? I would think that the depression was the closest we came to equality in wealth distribution and that was a time when we were all poor and suffering. Just a thought.
Report this
PaulBuffalo
Heathersmiles, the Depression was NOT a time when the US came closest to equality in wealth distribution. It was actually the impetus for changes in economic policy that fostered the middle class. Roosevelt's WPA program alone put thousands to work, so they could begin to afford what was being produced. It can be argued that the period of the 1930s through 1980s was actually a bubble because it was a period in US history when economic policy encouraged the prospects for a middle class. Certainly, the American dream is a more distant reality for more people.
Report this
davvid
Obama 08'
Report this
al-alo
don't blame me, I voted for Norman Thomas.
Report this
PaulBuffalo
"I am not the champion of lost causes, but the champion of causes not yet won." - Norman Thomas
Report this
wizardofza
Nottingham Terrace not Court.
Report this
becker
Well this pretty mucsums up the ultra-liberal mentality of the BRO readers. Norman Thomas, a man who that the ACLU was too conservative for his blood. I think a better quotation to cite would be: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."
that sounds like the agenda of the hard left, too bad it is a failed proposition economically. This might just be the thing that drives us into a depression. Not corporate policies that keep people employed, but the blind devotion to reducing everything to the lowest common denominator in the name of social equality and justice.
Report this
al-alo
wow Becker, did you get into the chili peppers again? I guess nobody likes a presidential history joke. its just like thanksgiving at my parents house all over again.
and your pronouncements are not quite accurate since basically all of Europe (and most of the world) has some sort of mixed socialist economy. and to some degree all of the world does - including the U.S.
Report this
PaulBuffalo
Becker, I understood that al-alo was having a bit of fun. I do have to ask, though, which corporate policies are keeping people employed right now? It may be helpful to distribute this information to IndyMac, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Bear-Stearns, Steve & Barry's, Starbuck's, Wilson's Leather, Lillian Vernon, The Gap, etc.
Report this
sonyactivision
I'd really like to see an exhibit more narrowly focused on Buffalo during the Depression. While these iconic images from the dust bowl region have been amply promulgated, Those from Buffalo would give us a deeper look into the things about this city that changed dramatically as well as those that hardly changed at all. The story of Buffalo during these times is well worth telling.
Report this
NewBuffalo
I wonder if during the Great Depression if corporate CEO'S got paid millions as people were laid off and companies went bankrupt....I think NOT...something is VERY WRONG today.....GREED......
Report this
blackrocklifer
Becker- "Failed proposition economically"? Are you refering to the last 8 years of right wing control? The "hard left" has never been in power but we can see the dramatic results of allowing the hard right agenda to dominate our nation.
Report this
rubygreta
The Great Depression WAS NOT caused by the top X% controlling most of the wealth. The working and middle classes were doing just fine in the 1920's. This is what caused it:
1) The virtual outlawing of immigration in the 1920's, during a time when the country needed it desperately. 2) Smoot Hawley Tariff in 1930 brought world trade to a halt. 3) Hoover and Congress raised top tax rates to 65%. 4) Federal Reserve raised interest rates when the economy was slowing.
Without 1, 2, 3, and 4, the Crash of 1929 would have been led to nothing more than a recession (by mid-1930 the market had gained back half its losses). Blame the stupid politicians then, and blame the stupid politicians now for causing the mortgage crisis and the energy crisis.
Report this
PaulBuffalo
Rubygreta, I agree with your points regarding the causes of the depression, but wealth distribution at the time of the depression was imbalanced. The following is a section from Roosevelt's 1932 democratic nomination address:
'In the years before 1929 we know that this country had completed a vast cycle of building and inflation; for ten years we expanded on the theory of repairing the wastes of the War, but actually expanding far beyond that, and also beyond our natural and normal growth. Now it is worth remembering, and the cold figures of finance prove it, that during that time there was little or no drop in the prices that the consumer had to pay, although those same figures proved that the cost of production fell very greatly; corporate profit resulting from this period was enormous; at the same time little of that profit was devoted to the reduction of prices. The consumer was forgotten. Very little of it went into increased wages; the worker was forgotten, and by no means an adequate proportion was even paid out in dividends—the stockholder was forgotten.'
Report this
Biniszkiewicz
There has been an extraordinary concentration of wealth at the top end of the food chain in the US for the past thirty years. The economic distribution looks far more like Latin America today than it did in 1980.
Long before the Depression there was serious unrest regarding income distribution. McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo by an Anarchist, which at the time was a movement to break the wealthiest classes' stranglehold on society's distribution of wealth. Teddy Roosevelt was very liberal for his day, breaking up trusts, taxing the rich, passing worker protections, fighting the cozy relationship industrial giants enjoyed with his predecessor.
Technically speaking, fire and police and military protection are examples of socialism that most of us are fine with (we all pay to supply these services for the common good). Our payment for most roads, schools, courts, et al are examples of socialism. Anti slavery laws, child labor protection laws, work place safety laws are all aspects of socialist interference with unfettered free markets. Most of us would be appalled by a world without any socialist policies protecting the common good.
Americans like to think of things in terms of black and white. Keep it real simple. Socialism: bad. Free Market: good. Real simple goes down easy for those troubled by the effort of thinking. Problem is, simple thinking begets simpletons. And failure. See: current occupants, executive branch.
Report this
blackrocklifer
Good point Biniszkiewicz, Its about balance and fairness, something we have not seen for some time. Few would advocate for a strict socialist state but we need to protect citizens from the excess of capitalism. Greed is a powerful force and unfettered "free" markets have a record of inflicting great pain on the majority for the profit of a few.
Report this
rubygreta
Bill Gates is worth 50 billion dollars. If Bill Gates did not exist would the poor be better off? Of course not.
Socialist brainwashing in the schools has taken its toll on too many posters here.
Report this
PaulBuffalo
Bill Gates' father and Warren Buffet have said repeatedly that the tax rate on the ultra-rich is too low. Have they been brainwashed?
Report this
blackrocklifer
Socialist brainwashing? which school has that program? Sorry rubygreta but the schools tend to be on the conservative side, evolution and birth control are even watered down to placate the vocal right wing minority.
Report this
PaulBuffalo
Democrats and Republicans can be faulted for the current state of the economy. Neither of the presidential candidates wants to admit that the US is facing an era of health care rationing, reduced Social Security benefits, and higher taxes on the wealthy. The Concord Coalition has been discussing these issues since the early 1990s and, based on information from the GAO itself, they forecast a very challenging future.
Report this
marcia2
We can debate and pontificate for hours on end over who or what caused the "Great Depression", but the fact of the matter is that the "Middle Classes" are swiftly being eliminated in this country, there is no doubt about it....There are some very interesting documentaries online that explain in great detail why this is happening...http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=70668650671711857&q=&hl=en
Report this
blackrocklifer
PaulBuffalo- I agree, Democrats and Republicans can both be faulted for the current state of the economy, but don't be polite, Republicans deserve to take credit for the past 8 years of peace and prosperity.
Report this
rubygreta
Buffet is the biggest fraud going. If he thinks he has been undertaxed all these years, why doesn't he write a check out tomorrow to the US Treasuary for 10 billion dollars. He'll still have 40 billion to play with
Report this
buffaloweiner
NO ONE IN BUFFALO HAS TO REMEMBER THE DEPRESSION BECAUSE THE DEPRESSION NEVER LEFT BUFFALO....
50% OF THE PEOPLE LEFT 50% OF THE HOUSING IS DEMOLISHED AND REMAINS UNBUILT 50% OF THE CITY IS DEMOLISHED AND REMAINS UNBUILT 75% OF THE INDUSTRY & BUSINESS IS DEMOLISHED AND REMAINS UNBUILT
THE DEPRESSION NEVER LEFT....THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT THE REST OF THE NATION HAS DESCENDED TO THE LEVEL OF BUFFALO INSTEAD OF BUFFALO RISING OUT OF DEPRESSION
Report this
PaulBuffalo
Rubygreta, you raised some interesting initial points regarding the depression, so why are you sidetracking into a rant about socialism? I agree that politicians should accept some of the blame regarding the mortgage crisis. However, I reside near Countrywide's massive corporate headquarters and their downfall was simply because they got greedy and extended mortgages to folks who would never qualify for them. Their bank, Indymac, is now being investigated for fraud. It's another case of greed. Although many folks on Wall Street complain about the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation -- a measure that requires honest financial reporting under penalty of arrest -- it has actually helped to limit the difficulties that are occurring presently.
I agree with Biniszkiewicz' statements above. We don't live in an black/white world. The US is a blend of so many viewpoints and philosophies. The many challenges that confront our country must reach beyond mere political rhetoric and any one doctrine.
Report this
WholeLottaJibbaJabbah
Anyone catch that special on PBS the other day, about how Communist Russia collapsed because it went through both rapid and radical Economic & Political changes, but 10 years prior (1979) China did the same thing only it didn't want to give up having all the power over the people? (Not sure what it was called, it was on late on Tuesday) It's quite interesting that all our stuff is made over there now, along with most of our jobs and the fact that China has a growing capitalistic/consumeristic population. Basically the special was straight to the point, giving you the REAL HISTORY of why we are in this predicament. It's not all about oil people. It is about cocky politicians, greedy banks (and wealthy/greedy persons who own the banks) and that we think we're the greatest got damn country in the god damn world. I wouldn't be surprised to see the wealthiest persons in the world swoop in and buy up whatever smaller time banks that are left in this country, just like how they did back during the depression. P.S. It's interesting to see people who lived through the Great Depression, my grandpa did, he's still alive and kicking and I've never seen that man waist an ounce of food.
Report this
tonyarmani
"blackrocklifer - The "hard left" has never been in power"....and for good reason, Americans enjoy prosperity, capitalism, and keeping all that they earn.
Report this
Jolopy
I'm new to the political scheme so here are my questions. Are California and New York considered Left states? Highest taxes in the country, medicaid, all the programs for the extremely low to low income and the ideas on immigration? Recently trying to give illegals a license. California debating putting drinking fountains in the desert for the illegals running over? California its illegal to ask for identification to see if someone is a border jumper or an actual citizen? These are simple questions that I have wondered? Maybe someone can tell me where I fall on this scale. I believe people have lost the mentality of working hard for the things you need. People look to much to the government for help. (example SSI, and welfare, medicaid) I believe that people should get some help from the government but not to the extreme it is in New York where everyone is buddy buddy and should be helped out. I feel that some of these programs are what is hurting are government. If we didn't have to spend the money on some of these programs I feel that the government would have more money for education and the important things. Also the people who make a career out of medicaid and welfare would realize that they wont be able to have a kid every 3 yrs to keep the benefits and will actually have to work. Please don't hate me or give me all 1 star ratings, I am just wondering where I fall and I read some of the posts by some of you and you seem well informed on politics. Thank you.
Report this
WholeLottaJibbaJabbah
Jolopy, Google Ron Paul. I think you'd like him.
Report this
WholeLottaJibbaJabbah
We need Victory Gardens!
Report this
PaulBuffalo
Jolopy, I agree that you should look up Ron Paul, too. I think he was the most enlightened Republican candidate. However, the Republican establishment wanted nothing to do with Ron Paul because he advocated removal of overseas US military bases. Republicans will gladly cut social programs, but they balk at cutting defense. If social programs are to be cut, I see no reason why defense spending should not also be cut accordingly.
I appreciate your sincerity, Jalopy, as you're thinking about these issues. As I mentioned previously, I would recommend the Concord Coalition, a respected bipartisan group that has been reporting on the US deficit and the national debt since the early 1990s.
Report this
WholeLottaJibbaJabbah
We need Victory Gardens!
Report this
PaulBuffalo
TonyArmani, you actually keep all that you earn? Would you be interested in sharing how you achieve your tax-free lifestyle with BRO readers and the IRS?
Report this
blackrocklifer
TonyArmani- Some Americans "enjoy prosperity" but many WORKING AMERICANS struggle to pay the bills. This country made great progress in building a strong middle class by SHARING the wealth and closing the gap between rich and poor. Ronald Reagan began the attack on working people and George Bush has pretty much completed the job. The Democrats (and Bill Clinton) didn't try very hard to stop this so maybe its time to give the left a try.
Report this
tonyarmani
brl - next time you drive through the east side seeing people "sharing" your money smoking crack and playing dice, or drive down the highway watching the union working crew laugh on a half hour coffee break, you can think back to the great sharing idea...
Report this
Colin
1. Yes, sharing is bad.
2. Anybody who thinks that any aspect of our government reflects the "hard left" is delusional. The most prominent person who might possibly be considered "hard left" is probably Ralph Nader. He's a good activist, and if you've survived a serious car crash, you may owe him your life, but he's not very influential in the grand scheme.
Report this
blackrocklifer
tonyarmani- I was refering to WORKING PEOPLE getting their fair share, but when I drive down that highway I do think of how my tax dollars are wasted subsidizing the 990 so the more affluent can get home to East Amherst.
Report this