Hope Among Us Yet

Book excerpt: In Hope Among Us Yet, David Peeler examines art and literature of the Great Depression to reveal a common pursuit and common dream in the work of writers, photographers, and painters who turned their talents toward the utter dislocation and despair of 1930s America. Thrust out of the gilded world of the 1920s by the extent of the crisis, these artists used their canvases, cameras, and pens to condemn capitalism and seal its demise with stunning evidence of its evils. As the years drew on, however, artists began to dream of a new, more equitable social order, and the solace of those dreams rather than the earlier vilification came to dominate Depression art. Discussing the photographs and paintings (many of them reproduced in this book), the essays and novels of the Depression era, David Peeler shows that in their pursuit of the reality of 1930s America, social artists also dreamed of a rebirth of Western art. But, as American capitalism revived with the onset of World War II, hopes for a new order faded, and the vision of the Depression's artists remained the unfilled prophecy of their works.