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'Let America Be America Again' (Langston Hughes, 1935)

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'Let America Be America Again' (Langston Hughes, 1935)

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Langston Hughes was a major part of the 20s Harlem Renaissance. He inspired a whole style of poetry by incorporating elements of jazz.  In Let America Be America Again,  Hughes discusses the 'dream' America was supposed to be and contrasts it with the reality of America as it is. He focuses on racial and social injustice, as well as the economic struggles of US citizens.

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Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

O, let America be America again- And yet must be-the land where
The land that never has been yet-

every man is free. The land that's mine-the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain-
All, all the stretch of these great green states-
And make America again!

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Let America Be America Again - Let America be America again.

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Depression Era Recipes are actually common on the internet to this day. People who lived through the Depression often posted or published some of the food they made with little money for ingredients. A common one is 'water pie.' This article is captioned "Even though we're living on $900 a year." The recipes are marketed as affordable over anything.

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This graphs shows the population of Manhattan in the 19th to 21st century. While there were other periods of time where the population lowers, the most noticeable is in the 30s. The graph plummets dramatically during the Depression, never fully returning to its peak in the 20s. People were leaving the city at high rates.

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This is a lithograph - a type of print - depicting New York City. The title 'New York No. 1' displays the irony in calling the city great. There is an ominous feeling to the print -- the stormy sky and broken bridge seem feel 'dangerous.' There are people sitting on the half-repaired street, possibly a reference to the many homeless.

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[Passing the shop after school...] (Charles Reznikoff)

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[Passing the shop after school...] (Charles Reznikoff)

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I couldn't figure out when this poem was written -- it says between 1918 and 1975, which is a pretty wide gap. However I felt that whenever it was written. it reflects parts of the Depression. It focuses on children and their perspective of  financial stress and guilt when spending too much.

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Passing the shop after school, he would look up at the sign

and go on, glad that his own life had to do with books.

Now at night when he saw the grey in his parents' hair and

heard their talk of that day's worries and the next:

lack of orders, if orders, lack of workers, if workers, lack of

goods, if there were workers and goods, lack of orders

for the tenth time he said, "I'm going in with you: there's more

His father answered, "Since when do you care about money?

You don't know what kind of a life you're going into-

but you have always had your own way."

He went out selling: in the morning he read the

Buyers in The Times; he packed half a dozen samples into

a box and went from office to office.

Others like himself, sometimes a crowd, were waiting to thrust

their cards through a partition opening.

When he ate, vexations were forgotten for a while. A quarter

past eleven was the time to go down the steps to Holz's

He would mount one of the stools. The food, steaming

fragrance, just brought from the kitchen, would be

dumped into the trays of the steam-table.

Hamburger steak, mashed potatoes, onions and gravy, or a

knackwurst and sauerkraut; after that, a pudding with a

square of sugar and butter sliding from the top and red

fruit juice dripping over the saucer.

A Fourth Group of Verse, Section 33: "Passing the shop after school" from The Poems of Charles Reznikoff by Charles Reznikoff, Edited by Seamus Cooney. Repreinted by permission of Black Sparrow Books, an imprint of David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. Copyright 2005 by Charles Reznikoff.

Source: Poems 1918-1975: The Complete Poems of Charles Reznikoff (Black Sparrow Press, 1977)

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[Passing the shop after school...] by Charles... | Poetry Foundation

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Passing the shop after school, he would look up at the sign and go on, glad that his own life had to do with books.

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This political cartoon was published in a Chicago newspaper. Selling food on the streets were common in urban areas, for people without jobs to make some money. The title of 'Philanthropist' has a double meaning - it appears to be the rich person, spending money on apples, but the seller is the one giving away all to survive. The apples can also represent the money that the rich kept and the rest lost.

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'To Elsie,' (William Carlos Williams, c. 1938)

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'To Elsie,' (William Carlos Williams, c. 1938)

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William Carlos Williams is one of the most famous American poets. He is best known for his poem This is just to say. To Elsie  is a political commentary on the poverty and economic climate of the 30s. Each stanza has the same line pattern, except for the last two, which mirror each other. The line
"we degraded prisoners

destined

to hunger until we eat filth," stood out to me in particular.

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The pure products of America

mountain folk from Kentucky

or the ribbed north end of

with its isolate lakes and

valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves

devil-may-care men who have taken

out of sheer lust of adventure-

and young slatterns, bathed

to be tricked out that night

from imaginations which have no

peasant traditions to give them

sheer rags-succumbing without

under some hedge of choke-cherry

which they cannot express-

Unless it be that marriage

with a dash of Indian blood

will throw up a girl so desolate

that she'll be rescued by an

sent out at fifteen to work in

some doctor's family, some Elsie-

brain the truth about us-

ungainly hips and flopping breasts

and rich young men with fine eyes

as if the earth under our feet

and we degraded prisoners

to hunger until we eat filth

while the imagination strains

going by fields of goldenrod in

the stifling heat of September

It is only in isolate flecks that

and adjust, no one to drive the car

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To Elsie by William Carlos Williams | Poetry Foundation

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The pure products of America mountain folk from Kentucky or the ribbed north end of with its isolate lakes and valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves devil-may-care men who have taken out of sheer lust of adventure- and young slatterns, bathed to be tricked out that night from imaginations which have no

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This painting is of a food cart owner in a city. Looking closely, you see that he is practically carrying the city in his cart. This may represent how the city was 'carried by' and full of people selling food for a living. He is looking at the ground desperately, showing his burden. Intentionally included or not, francs are a unit of currency, tying in the economic climate as well.

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Many people in cities were hit hard by the Depression. There were few jobs, and those who did have them were payed little money. Riots such as this began, led by the growing communist party, protesting monopolies and unemployment rates in New York. Around 35,000 people attended, and there was tension between rioters and the police.

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This video shows footage taped during the Great Depression. The narrator gives historical information about the 30s. A lot of the footage is located in cities, showing the crowded streets and closing of buildings.

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Great Depression (stock footage / archival footage)