HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN

I just got this DVD two days ago, and I have already seen it several times! It is a NBC news production, part of Project Twenty, and is really one of the earliest forms of the documentary. It is primarily just film footage, still photographs, a sound-track of some of the popular songs of the Thirties, and an ongoing narrative of the important topics of that decade. Some of them are: rampant unemployment, The New Deal, the farm crisis, The Dust Bowl, the unions, and entertainment issues like music and movies. This TV documentary was produced in 1959, and I am reading "The Coming of the New Deal" by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (I want to read his memoirs that were just released), which was published in 1959 as well. A fun recreation is to watch a little footage then run back to my volume and read some pages explaining how The New Deal was set up. The particulars are fairly complicated, but will eventually be understood after some effort. Understanding The New Deal should be a goal of every American, then they could make more responsible decisions when casting their votes! Will Rogers` comments about the National Recovery Act are appreciated. Because of the long-term repercussions of The New Deal, it is important to fatham the details and their lingering effects. Issues such as Social Security (it will benefit you to review all of the developments of SS) and entitlements are still controversial even today. Since "Life in the Thirties" and "The Coming of the New Deal"are so old I have to assess their significance by using my experience in historiography, or the history of history itself. So far they seem to hold up, as a result of sound methods of research and analysis. Film footage of the thirties goes a long way to putting me back into those times, by viewing buildings, people, dress, cars, and events. The lure of Fascism or Communism is more apparent when every fourth man is unemployed, and sees no way out of a failing capitalist system. And when you see thousands of desperate people in a bread line you can go well beyond the cold statistics to observe the gravity of the situation. The survival of the nation and the democracy lay in the balance in 1933. In just a couple of years FDR was able to improve conditions, so that by 1935 some stability was established. I`m still puzzled by the fact that the crash of 1929 brought on the Great Depression? The stock market crash of October 19th, 1987 (my sisters` birthdays), which has been in the news a lot lately, began to recover the very next day, October 20th. Apparently Ben Bernacke, the chairman of the federal reserve, has studied the causes of the Crash of 1929, so it might be nice to read some of his writings and see more clearly his theories of economics. These early TV documentaries hepled me learn history when I was a kid (lots of visuals help me learn). Right now I am watching The Hindenberg Disaster again, and it is still as intense as ever! Do not forget the Lindbergh kidnapping, often labled the crime of the century. FDR is rather more of a hero to me now, then when I was a kid. Lord knows I did not want to hear about that era in the 1960s...The Generation Gap was into effect at that time, & strongly mind you!"Happy Days Are Here Again"! If FDR could make the American people optimistic again in the early thirties, under those dire circumstances, then he must be a great man-in my book! ...the music goes around, and around, and it comes out here...done on a rinky-tink-piano and the jitterbug, swing swing...