John Maynard Keynes Explains Cure to High Unemployment in His Own Voice (1939)

in Economics, History | June 21st, 2012

When some­one ques­tions the effec­tive­ness of Key­ne­sian eco­nom­ics, the obvi­ous reply is: Remem­ber World War II?

The British econ­o­mist John May­nard Keynes argued that there is a role for gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion when aggre­gate demand for goods and ser­vices drops, as it did dur­ing the Great Depres­sion. With­out increased pub­lic spend­ing to make up for decreased pri­vate spend­ing, he said, an econ­o­my will slide into a vicious cir­cle of low demand and low out­put, ensur­ing a pro­longed peri­od of high unem­ploy­ment. Gov­ern­ment thrift at such times will only deep­en the prob­lem. “The boom, not the slump,” said Keynes, “is the right time for aus­ter­i­ty.”

In 1939 dark clouds of war were gath­er­ing over Europe, but Keynes saw a sil­ver lin­ing: an oppor­tu­ni­ty to prove his the­o­ry cor­rect. He believed that the mas­sive gov­ern­ment-fund­ed war mobi­liza­tion would final­ly give suf­fi­cient stim­u­lus to end the Great Depres­sion. On May 23 of that year Keynes gave his famous BBC radio address, “Will Re-arma­ment Cure Unem­ploy­ment?” He said, in part:

It is not an exag­ger­a­tion to say that the end of abnor­mal unem­ploy­ment is in sight. And it isn’t only the unem­ployed who will feel the dif­fer­ence. A great num­ber besides will be tak­ing home bet­ter mon­ey each week. And with the demand for effi­cient labor out­run­ning the sup­ply, how much more com­fort­able and secure every­one will feel in his job. The Grand Exper­i­ment has begun. If it works–if expen­di­ture on arma­ments real­ly does cure unemployment–I pre­dict that we shall nev­er go back all the way to the old state of affairs. Good may come out of evil. We may learn a trick or two, which will come in use­ful when the day of peace comes.

When the day of peace did come, the Great Depres­sion was over and Eng­land and Amer­i­ca were embarked on a long peri­od of ris­ing eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty. In these times of reces­sion and gov­ern­ment aus­ter­i­ty, it may be good to remem­ber some­thing else Keynes said in his radio address: “If we can cure unem­ploy­ment for the wast­ed pur­pos­es of arma­ments, we can cure it for the pro­duc­tive pur­pos­es of peace.”

You can find Keynes’ clas­sic work, The Gen­er­al The­o­ry of Employ­ment, Inter­est and Mon­ey, in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Hayek vs. Keynes Rap

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The Complete History of the World (and Human Creativity) in 100 Objects

in History, Podcasts | June 21st, 2012

While we’re catch­ing up with his­tor­i­cal pod­casts, note that BBC Radio 4’s The His­to­ry of the World in 100 Objects (iTunes – RSS Feed – Web Site) has wrapped up and cov­ered all 100 objects. And not, mind you, just any old objects: these objects come straight from the col­lec­tion of the British Muse­um, and thus almost cer­tain­ly reveal the sto­ry of mankind more effec­tive­ly than most. For that has con­sti­tut­ed the pro­gram’s project since its incep­tion: to tell, for just under fif­teen min­utes at a stretch, one chap­ter of human his­to­ry as the trained eye can read it in an object like an ear­ly writ­ing tablet, a Chi­nese bronze bell, or an Egypt­ian clay mod­el of cat­tle. Don’t let the seem­ing plain­ness of these arti­facts fool you; the show approach­es them with all the most advanced audio pro­duc­tion tech­niques. And after you’ve lis­tened, you’ll real­ize that, looked at from a suit­ably his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive, there’s not a plain object in this bunch.

Since A His­to­ry of the World in 100 Objects has fin­ished its jour­ney to the present day, the new lis­ten­er has no oblig­a­tion to begin in the ancient world and work their way for­ward. You might well pre­fer to begin at the end, as it were, and draw insights from one of our every­day objects like a cred­it card (albeit, in this broad­cast, one that con­forms to Shar­i’a law), or a slight­ly futur­is­tic object now enter­ing our every­day lives like a solar-pow­ered lamp. From there, you can delve deep­er and deep­er into our cul­ture and tech­nol­o­gy’s past: the nifty lamp gives way to the cred­it card which gives way to a David Hock­ney paint­ing, which gives way to the HMS Bea­gle’s chronome­ter to the mechan­i­cal galleon and a Kore­an roof tile until you’re back at the Mum­my of Horned­jitef. If you get back that far and still find your­self long­ing for more from host Neil Mac­Gre­gor, be aware that he’s got a new, 20-part his­tor­i­cal series going called Shake­speare’s Rest­less World. The range of source mate­r­i­al may have nar­rowed, but the depth remains.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Rome in 179 Pod­casts

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps – Peter Adamson’s Pod­cast Still Going Strong

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Historic Barn Etchings Tell Tale of Hard-Working Children

in History | June 20th, 2012

Since Cana­di­an Con­fed­er­a­tion, it was the pol­i­cy of the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment to pro­vide edu­ca­tion to Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples through a sys­tem of church-run Res­i­den­tial Schools. The idea was that by sep­a­rat­ing the chil­dren at an ear­ly age from their par­ents’ influ­ence, they might be more eas­i­ly assim­i­lat­ed into white Cana­di­an soci­ety, includ­ing the Chris­t­ian reli­gion. (A very sim­i­lar fate befell Aus­tralian Abo­rig­i­nal chil­dren after 1931.) The Methodist and Pres­by­ter­ian church­es, and the Unit­ed Church of Cana­da, explic­it­ly sup­port­ed the goals of assim­i­la­tion and Chris­tian­iza­tion.

Mount Elgin Indus­tri­al School, oper­at­ing near Lon­don, Ontario between 1851 and 1946, was one such insti­tu­tion. Apart from attend­ing school itself, the native chil­dren had to work day and night at a near­by barn. Recent­ly, schol­ars dis­cov­ered words and draw­ings all over the barn walls left behind by some of the 1,200 chil­dren forced to work there. Described as the “Dead Sea Scrolls” of this dark chap­ter in Cana­di­an his­to­ry, the words tell a mov­ing tale of chil­dren iso­lat­ed from friends and fam­i­lies, work­ing very hard under less than ide­al cir­cum­stances.

On June 20 2012, a mon­u­ment to the sur­vivors of Cana­di­an res­i­den­tial schools will be unveiled on the site of Mount Elgin Res­i­den­tial School.

Here are some his­tor­i­cal pho­tos of Mount Elgin Res­i­den­tial School.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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1905 Video: The Funeral of Hiram Cronk, The Last Surviving Veteran of the War of 1812

in History | June 16th, 2012

200 years ago today, Amer­i­ca stunned the world when it declared war on Britain, begin­ning what’s now called The War of 1812. The Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War had end­ed only 29 years ear­li­er. But despite agree­ments made with the Treaty of Paris (1783), the British kept pres­sur­ing the Unit­ed States, try­ing to sti­fle Amer­i­ca’s trade with France and the young nation’s expan­sion into the North­west Ter­ri­to­ry, among oth­er things. So the two coun­tries went to war again.

Now fast for­ward 93 years and watch as Hiram Cronk, the last sur­viv­ing vet­er­an of the war, gets laid to rest. Cronk, a shoe­mak­er by trade, served with the New York Vol­un­teers in the defense of Sack­et­t’s Har­bor, and lived to be 105 years old. Above, you’ll see crowds lin­ing the streets of Brook­lyn and watch­ing the mil­i­tary pro­ces­sion pass by. Some 25,000 peo­ple paid their respects that day.

via matthi­as­rasch­er

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Found: Lost Great Depression Photos Capturing Hard Times on Farms, and in Town

in Education, History, Life, Photography | June 13th, 2012

Dur­ing the Great Depres­sion, the Farm Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion took on the task of “intro­duc­ing Amer­i­ca to Amer­i­cans” through pho­tog­ra­phy. The FSA hired Dorothea Lange, Walk­er Evans, Gor­don Parks and oth­er artists to cap­ture images of ordi­nary Amer­i­cans, specif­i­cal­ly poor farm­ers.

Some of the images are now icon­ic, notably Lange’s image of a des­ti­tute migrant moth­er of sev­en. That image and most oth­ers are cat­a­loged in the col­lec­tions of the Library of Con­gress, but some lan­guished and were for­got­ten. Oth­ers end­ed up in gen­er­al cir­cu­la­tion, so that, in the­o­ry, any­one with a library card could check out an orig­i­nal print.

Recent­ly a pho­tog­ra­phy cura­tor with the New York Pub­lic Library tracked down the miss­ing images—some 1,000 of them—and cre­at­ed a spe­cial online archive where they can final­ly be seen.

Many depict rur­al life: A 91-year-old woman sits in front of her North Car­oli­na cab­in. A work­er takes a break from carv­ing a dirt road into the New Mex­i­co land­scape. A black man in black face pre­pares to per­form in a trav­el­ing med­i­cine show. The chil­dren of migrant fruit pick­ers in Michi­gan sit for­lorn­ly on a truck.

But not all the pho­tographs doc­u­ment the plight of rur­al Amer­i­ca. Some of the col­lec­tion’s most pow­er­ful images are of Amer­i­cans strug­gling in cities. Here two young girls play out­side in a Bal­ti­more slum. Three peo­ple sit out­doors on a Sun­day in New Orleans. And then we cap­ture a scene on the Low­er East Side of New York City.

Not sur­pris­ing­ly Dorothea Lange’s work is among the strongest in this col­lec­tion. One of the most pow­er­ful images comes sev­er­al pages into her work’s archive, so be sure to click through. The sto­ry behind “From Texas ten­ant farmer to Cal­i­for­nia fruit tramp” (the first image above) sums up the era: “1927 made $7000 in cot­ton. 1928 broke even. 1929 went in the hole. 1930 went in still deep­er. 1931 lost every­thing. 1932 hit the road.”

Kate Rix is an Oak­land-based writer. See more of her work at .

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Explorer David Livingstone’s Diary (Written in Berry Juice) Now Digitized with New Imaging Technology

in History, Religion, Science, Technology | June 7th, 2012

One of the 19th century’s most intrigu­ing fig­ures, the Scot­tish explor­er David Liv­ing­stone may be best known for words uttered by a reporter when the two men met on the shores of Lake Tan­ganyi­ka: “Dr. Liv­ing­stone, I pre­sume?”

David Liv­ing­stone dis­ap­peared in Africa for six years before meet­ing the famous­ly quot­ed Hen­ry Mor­ton Stan­ley. He was a hero in Vic­to­ri­an Eng­land for his rags-to-rich­es sto­ry of an impov­er­ished boy who went on to become a sci­en­tif­ic inves­ti­ga­tor and anti-slav­ery cru­sad­er. Liv­ing­stone became impas­sioned about the poten­tial of Chris­tian­i­ty to erad­i­cate the slave trade in Africa and took his mis­sion­ary work into the African inte­ri­or.

An avid chron­i­cler of his adven­tures, Liv­ing­stone left behind a num­ber of jour­nals, but one of his most vivid accounts—of a mas­sacre hit wit­nessed in 1871—has been inac­ces­si­ble until now. Liv­ing­stone’s 1871 Field Diary cap­tures a five-month peri­od when the explor­er was strand­ed in a vil­lage in the Con­go. He had run out of paper and ink to main­tain his usu­al jour­nal, so he impro­vised by writ­ing over an old copy of The Stan­dard news­pa­per using ink made from the seeds of a local berry.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with British and Amer­i­can archivists, the UCLA Dig­i­tal Library Pro­gram used spec­tral imag­ing tech­nol­o­gy to dig­i­tize the del­i­cate mate­r­i­al. Over­all the site offers an inter­est­ing pre­sen­ta­tion of Livingstone’s work, though the diary pages them­selves aren’t too leg­i­ble. Crit­i­cal notes are abun­dant and intrigu­ing, and diary pages appear side-by-side with tran­scrip­tions. View­ers can zoom in to study Livingstone’s spi­dery script writ­ten per­pen­dic­u­lar to the news­pa­per copy. The spec­tral imag­ing process itself is worth a look. With­out this tech­nique, the diaries appear as noth­ing more than ghost­ly scrib­bles.

Pre­vi­ous to keep­ing this field diary, Liv­ing­stone embarked on a mis­sion to find the source of the Nile Riv­er, which he misiden­ti­fied. But his the­o­ries about cen­tral African water sys­tems are fas­ci­nat­ing. Liv­ing­stone was the first Euro­pean to see Mosi-oa-Tun­ya, “the smoke that thun­ders,” water­fall, which he renamed Vic­to­ria Falls after his monarch. His diaries pro­vide a peek into a time when explo­ration was dan­ger­ous, dif­fi­cult and even dead­ly. Liv­ing­stone died of Malar­ia in present-day Zam­bia, where his heart is buried under a tree. The rest of his remains were interred at West­min­ster Abbey.

Kate Rix is an Oak­land based free­lance writer. See more of her work at .

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Rare Color Footage of the 1939 World Series: Yankees v. Reds

in History | June 5th, 2012

The 1939 World Series was­n’t much of a con­test. The Yan­kees, led by Joltin’ Joe DiMag­gio in cen­ter field, had won the last three cham­pi­onships. And they won this con­test rather eas­i­ly too, sweep­ing the Cincin­nati Reds in four straight games. Yes­ter­day, mem­bers of the Red­dit com­mu­ni­ty unearthed some rare col­or footage of the ’39 Series. In it, we catch glimpses of the Old Yan­kee Sta­di­um, the actu­al House That Ruth Built; pitch­ers doing a dif­fer­ent kind of windup; and a reminder that you could once buy five razors for 25 cents. Find more infor­ma­tion on those at the Inter­net Muse­um of Safe­ty Razors.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Prince­ton v. Yale, 1903: The Old­est Col­lege Foot­ball Game on Film

Lou Gehrig, Yan­kee Leg­end, Stars in 1938 West­ern Rawhide

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Robert Penn Warren Archive Brings Early Civil Rights to Life

in Education, History, Law, Politics | June 5th, 2012

While an under­grad­u­ate at Van­der­bilt Uni­ver­si­ty in Ten­nessee, writer Robert Penn War­ren began writ­ing about the south and its tur­bu­lent racial his­to­ry. He trav­eled through­out the Unit­ed States and inter­viewed men and women involved with the Civ­il Rights Move­ment, record­ing each con­ver­sa­tion on a reel-to-reel tape recorder—a project that result­ed in the 1965 book Who Speaks for the Negro? This month, Van­der­bilt University’s Robert Penn War­ren Cen­ter for the Human­i­ties makes a full dig­i­tal record avail­able of Warren’s research for the book—an impres­sive and well-con­struct­ed col­lec­tion of inter­views with his­tor­i­cal fig­ures includ­ing Ralph Elli­son, James Bald­win and Mal­colm X. The rich­ness of the site is its con­nec­tive design. Each inter­view is tagged by top­ic, includ­ing a subject’s link to broad­er issues or to oth­er inter­vie­wees, mak­ing evi­dent through user expe­ri­ence the com­plex nature of the Civ­il Rights Move­ment. A search for the NAACP, for exam­ple, yields mul­ti­ple inter­views fea­tur­ing dif­fer­ent points of view on the organization’s for­ma­tion along with PDFs of orig­i­nal let­ters and the search­able text of news­pa­per arti­cles about ear­ly NAACP demon­stra­tions. But the site’s audio offer­ings are its most pow­er­ful assets.

The mate­r­i­al offers a potent por­trait of a his­tor­i­cal moment and is rich with ref­er­ences to pol­i­tics, art and spe­cif­ic con­flicts over inte­gra­tion. The group inter­views with uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents and pro­test­ers are worth a lis­ten, both for the con­tent and for the ear­ly 1960s group dynam­ics. When War­ren inter­views men and women togeth­er, men tend to speak first and at most length. But the views expressed are fas­ci­nat­ing, as in one case when a female sit-in par­tic­i­pant gives her opin­ion about assim­i­la­tion.

“My first reac­tion of course would be, think­ing of Socrates: Know thy­self. We do face the prob­lem of amal­ga­ma­tion into the whole of Amer­i­can life, being Amer­i­cans first, say, or being what I would like to term Negro Amer­i­cans or Black Amer­i­cans. I think that we as black men have an oblig­a­tion to know our­selves as black men and be proud of what we are, and con­tribute to Amer­i­ca what we could actu­al­ly offer to this cul­ture.”

Kate Rix is an Oak­land based writer. See more of her work at .

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Mal­colm X at Oxford, 1964

Great Cul­tur­al Icons Talk Civ­il Rights (1963)

MLK’s Omi­nous Final Speech

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