Hannah Cho
English 103
Professor Luke
Major Research Paper
November 13, 2010
The Lifestyle during 1940s in New York City
During the 1940’s United States of America seems to be blooming with new technology and beginning and the end of a war. During this time, World War II already started where we went to war with Japan, the rise of the women working labor, the end of depression, the start of new types of automobiles, African American weren’t being discriminated anymore and had the right to vote, and lastly the beginning of Cold War. New York City seemed to be the center of the business of entertainment which seems like it didn’t affect the economy or the financial status during the years of war. The Movie Miracle on 34th Street which I will be comparing with showed how during the 1940’s, the people that was portraying in the movie depicts on shopping for the holiday and advertising Macys market. This movie portrayed life in the New York City realistically to the economic and financial existence at that time.
In the years of the 1940s, America altered in various ways in the economy and from the financial market. During December of 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt was the current president at this time which he led our country go to war with Japan. When the Japanese bombed us in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; it killed hundreds of civilians, soldiers and medical workers. Women weren’t allowed to work before, because they were titled to stay home and take care of their man and kids. Because of the amount of estimated population during that time in the U.S.A, there was an estimate of one hundred and thirty two million people at this time. While men were being drafted to go to war, there weren’t enough men to stay to work so they hired women. According to the statistics, there seem to be fewer men and more women. The populations of men were six million people, and women were about seven million people. After they’ve came back from the war, women were to go back to their men and took care of them. During World War II, this was the start of the working women labor.
During World War II, racism towards African American still existed but towards Asian Americans started to exist. While the war was going on, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered his officials to put approximately one hundred and ten thousand Japanese and Japanese Americans into a “camp”, only because of Americans injustice towards them. But during the WWII people got over that phase because African American were being patriotic and worked with the soldiers during the Japanese war. Therefore, it seemed like racism finished; which gave the African Americans the privilege to vote, and the officials apologizing to the Japanese Americans that were held in the camp by giving them each survivors twenty thousand dollars. Prior to WWII, there was this Great Depression, where people lost jobs, prices decreased because there weren’t any income in any business and people suffering from the crash of the stock market. There was unemployment of eight million people, which our nation went through a governmental debt of forty three billion dollars. People with jobs had a minimum wage of forty three cents per hour, which to us might seem a little but during that time it was a decent amount for a living, to buy foods, clothing and other miscellaneous items. But nowadays, everything seems like its twenty dollars or above, due to our economic situation and the outrage of our debt in our country. During the war, market started to bloom when people started to buy weapons and other utilities to fight in war. While we were going through debts and the Great Depression and Wars, New York City seemed to be relaxed about these traumatic events.
New York City was another city of Hollywood, where there’s entertainment everywhere you go, and celebrities starring in a movie or opening up a Broadway shows. There is a movie called Miracle on 34th Street which took place in the heart of midtown Manhattan, which depicted the lifestyle during 1947. The New York Times wrote an article called “Miracle on 34th Street, With Edmund Gwenn in the Role of Santa Claus, at Roxy -- 'Web' at Loew's Criterion” written by a journalist name Bosley Crowther; which his commentary about the movie was that Kris Kringle was this old guy who needed help. Crowther didn’t understood why Walker still let Kringle work when he kept telling everyone that he was Santa Claus. Crowther also stated about the movie as being “commercialism” because everything in this movie was business. I felt like this movie advertised more on Macys, Bellevue Hospital and the U.S. post office. I pinpointed Bellevue Hospital because, when Kringle had an argument with Sawyer who gave the psychological test when Kringle first started; Kringle got frustrated and hit Sawyer in the head with his cane which forced Kringle to go this hospital. Even though, Sawyer could have said he could take him to a “Hospital” he implies and says Bellevue Hospital. Personally, I feel like this movie is being like “commercialism” because the fact that this movie advertised a lot with Macys. This movie made viewers feel like since it was the Christmas month and Macys had this traditional Thanksgiving parade; us people were suppose to go buy Christmas gifts in Macys. I also agreed with Crowther opinion stating that this movie was like a business movie, because almost everything was being advertised in this movie. There was this one shot where this lady brought her daughter to see Santa Claus and there was this one item she wanted but didn’t sell in Macys, so Kringle tells the daughter’s mother to go buy it down the street by another toy store. The lady made a complaint to Mr. Macy, the owner of Macys, that she didn’t like the fact that Kringle told her and her daughter where to buy this certain toy, and she specifically came to Macys to shop here for her daughter.
Kris Kringle who plays as Santa Claus plays a leading role in this movie, which gets caught up in thinking that he is the real Santa. This situation made Doris Walker, who hired Kringle, thought that he might be suffering from some mental issue, but later in the movie, he and other witnesses proved that he really was Santa Claus. Throughout the movie, it drew some aspects that were interesting about how the movie portrayed their financial status. For the duration of this movie, even after the Depression and during the wars; people in this movie didn’t show that they were suffering from all these events. At the beginning of the movie when all the people were getting ready to walk the Thanksgiving parade, Kringle finds a drunk Santa and complaints it to Walker, Walker fired the drunk Santa and hires Kringle which made it seem like hiring people wasn’t a problem at that time. Also, there was a scene where Kringle makes an investment on a house for Walker and her daughter at the end of the movie. This scene didn’t really make sense to me because of the fact that he was working in Macy’s to be a part time Santa Claus for the holiday, and working for a minimum wage salary which was about forty three cents an hour; couldn’t understand how he was able to have enough money to buy a house and buy other children’s toys for Christmas. Also had a lot of scenes where he had made other purchases for other kids. And since it was the month of Christmas; you see crowds of people shopping for Christmas gifts in Macys. While Macys were going through the Great Depression and World War II, it showed how Macys recovered from the traumatic event by allowing people to purchase items and pay later. Throughout the years of the late 1940s to the late 1960s, Macys opened up twice as much it had before which made the company multi billionaires. This movie portrayed how the life of New Yorkers went on their daily lives; celebrating Thanksgiving, attending the Thanksgiving parade by Macy, shopping for Christmas and cooking meals for the holiday. Even though based on the statistics during the 1940s, the population of people that didn’t work was about eight hundred and twenty thousand people; which didn’t show in the movie that some of the people were suffering without money and food during the holiday.
In reality in New York City, going back to the 1940’s, there seem to be a lot of openings for entertainment. For example: Walt Disney Pinocchio opened, sports for the first time started to televise such as hockey, boxing and college basketball. Opera was televised as well as; Charlie Chaplin who invested and opened two theaters in NYC making it accessible to people to watch some of his comedies; even Citizen Kane opened and got a hit from his audience. Although, people population was about one hundred and thirty two million in the United States; in NYC approximately there were thirteen million people with an employed people of five million people. The MTA was still NYC’s way of transportation; during December of 1946, there was a report of 8.8 million people riding the subway, but within those two years, NYC subway doubled their amount from five cents to ten cents a ride. This increase in prices with the MTA shows how the financial status and the economy were starting to flourish and get passed the Great Depression. Other accessories such as a Polaroid camera valued around ninety dollars, floor lamp was around ten dollars, and shoes went from five to six cents a pair.
Miracle on 34th Street showed some aspects on the style of living during the time of the movie. During the time of this movie, Miracle on 34th street made a gross income of three million dollars. From my uncle’s resource, movie theatre tickets use to cost forty cents a ticket during 1946, so in order for the movie to make three million dollar gross income with a forty cents a ticket, there should be seven million five hundred thousand audiences attending this movie. From thousands of unemployed people and millions of employed people in NYC, the movie didn’t seem to portray the non working class. In this movie, there was a young boy where he is seen cleaning the locker room and explaining to Kringle how he loves to clean floors for work. This illustrates that even low class workers had jobs.
Miracle on 34th street represented and illustrated the original life in New York City in 1947. While America closed their curtain from these disturbing events such as the World War 2 and the Great Depression, people seemed to go on their daily lives and work and enjoy the NYC entertainment life. Living in New York City from past to present seems not much of a change because of the business industry. Every scene in this movie was like an advertisement for viewers to go shop at. This movie portrays life in the NYC to be realistic in some ways excluding the non workers; but the movie showed how everyone in the movie who came out to the parade would do things that everyday people would do and enjoy themselves, and also shop at shopping malls. In most part the movie, it depicted some unrealistic part but wasn’t too sure if Kringle purchased these items. At the end when he purchased the house for Walker, they went in and saw Kringle’s exact cane that he left right by the fire place, which the metaphor seemed like he bought the house that Walker’s daughter wanted. Although, people suffered from terrible anguishes during the 1940s; the statistics showed the unemployment in America of eight million people in 1940, five million people were employed in NYC during the same year. This movie showed that people came out to watch this movie and went on their daily lives just like how the movie portrayed with the actors.
Bibliography
Sixteenth census of the United States: 1940. Washington D.C: , 1943. Web. 17 Nov 2010. <http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/33973538v2p5.pdf>.
Goodwin, Sue. "American Cultural History." (1999): n. pag. Web. 17 Nov 2010. <http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade40.html>.
Crowther, Bosley. "New York Times." Miracle on 34th Street (1947): n. pag. Web. 17 Nov 2010. <http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?_r=2&res=9401E7DB103EE13BBC4D53DFB066838C659EDE&scp=3&sq=miracle%20on%2034%20street&st=cse>.
About the White House. Washington D.C: , Web. 17 Nov 2010. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/harrystruman>.
"The 1940's Introduction." 20th Century American Sources (2010): n. pag. Web. 17 Nov 2010. <http://decades.sirs.com/decadesweb/decades/do/decade?urn=urn%3Asirs%3AUS%3BTOPIC%3B0000017813>.
"1940's shoe." Web. 17 Nov 2010. <http://www.costumes.org/classes/uafcostumeshop/pages/costumehistcollect/1940sshoes.htm>.
Chart 1
"Logarithm of US Consumer Price Index (average 1982-1984 = 100 percent)." Measuring Worth. Web. 17 Nov 2010. <http://www.measuringworth.com/graphs/graph.php?year_from=1940&year_to=1949&table=US&field=DOLLAR&log=LOG>.
Chart 2
"US Population (in millions)." Measuring Worth. Web. 17 Nov 2010. <http://www.measuringworth.com/graphs/graph.php?year_from=1940&year_to=1949&table=US&field=POPULATION&log=>.
"Macy's, Inc. History." Macy's. Sangby & Eby, n.d. Web. 2 Dec 2010. <http://www.macysinc.com/AboutUs/History/default3.aspx>.
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