Time Frame of “The Glass Menagerie”

The Glass Menagerie takes place in 1937, during The Great Depression. The Depression had been ongoing for some time and its effects were widespread and deeply felt by the American public. Below are some additional events that were happening …

Social Trends:
• Popularity of the movies (by 1930, 90,000,000 people attended the movies weekly, including Tom Wingfield)
• Billie Holiday gains popularity for her “cool” jazz
• Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture gets noticed
• Workers’ Unions are on the rise
• The New York Yankees win the World Series
• Howard Johnson’s starts the trend of franchised restaurants

Political Events:
• Franklin D. Roosevelt is the President of the U.S.
• Neville Chamberlain becomes the British Prime Minister
• Japan invades China (the attack that some mark as the first battle of World War II)
• At Francisco Franco’s request for support, Adolph Hitler bombs Guernica

Financial Issues:
• Franklin D. Roosevelt states, “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished”
• Business activity suffers a sharp drop
• The Miller-Tydings Act allows manufacturers to fix the resale prices of brand-name merchandise

New in 1937:
• Supermarket shopping carts
• Drive-in banking
• Spam
• U.S. blood bank
• Antihistamines
• The Golden Gate Bridge
• Nylon patented