As the Great Depression gripped the nation, newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the New Deal—an ambitious series of programs aimed at restoring morale and putting Americans back to work. Hollywood responded with films that echoed the era’s hardships, championed reform, or critiqued the expanding federal bureaucracy.
Featuring selections from the Wolfsonian collection alongside clips from Our Daily Bread(1934), My Man Godfrey (1936), One Third of a Nation (1939), and others, this talk by chief librarian Frank Luca explores how cinema mirrored and shaped public perceptions of economic struggle, political hope, and national recovery.
Free and open to members
