| The Glass
Menagerie takes place in 1937 (Gone With the Wind has already
been published and the headline on Tom’s newspaper reads “Franco Triumphs”).
Below are some events that were happening during that time.
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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, New York Yankees win the World Series and Howard Johnson’s starts the trend of franchised restaurants. |
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 Two), and at Francisco Franco’s request for help, Adolph Hitler bombs Guernica. |
Franklin D. Roosevelt states, “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished,” business activity suffers a sharp drop, and the Miller-Tydings Act allows manufacturers to fix the resale prices of brand-name merchandise. |
“I never knew that the Lord rented space .... These Northern Episcopalians! I can understand the Southern Episcopalians, but these Northern ones, no” (Amanda Wingfield, Act I, scene 1). The practice of some Episcopal churches of labeling the pews with names of church members was unfamiliar to (and unwanted by) Amanda. The practice was popular however, and ensured families the same seat each Sunday. At the start of the twentieth century, the U.S. census listed 700,000 Episcopalians. By the mid-thirties, the Episcopal religion was introduced in many towns by people like Tennessee’s grandfather (an Episcopal minister) and was spreading throughout the United States. |
Supermarket shopping carts, drive-in banking, Spam, U.S. blood bank, antihistamines, Golden Gate Bridge, nylon is patented. |
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