HIST 1103-W9: Great Depression, Brazillian Authoritarianism, US Civil Rights

Class of July 2nd.

Mauricio Drumond, “Sport and Authoritarian Rule in the Brazilian and Portuguese Estados Novos”
How did the Estado Novos (New States) in Portugal and Brazil use sport to help them rule? How similar and different was their use of sport to the use of sport in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany? 

"Faced with insoluble economic problems and/or an increasingly revolutionary working class, the bourgeoisie now had to fall back on force and coercion, that is to say, on something like fascism." (pp. 403-4)

• Not technically Fascist, but copied after Italian concept of Stato Nuovo

• Sport was able to control consent, draw people to institutions, promote a national identity

Salazar vs Vargas 

• Salazar, Portuguese - sports not significant, Portugal=agrarian. “Serious, stern, austere man”

• Vargas, Brazilian - “softly-spoken and shrewd politician" - industrialization. 

• Soccer via a new National Stadium is pushed under Salazar (ironic). Opens 1944, brings people together

 Sport & youth 

• 1930s, Portuguese feel they’re “decaying.” Creates boy/girl youth clubs (MP/MPF) that control all sport/school activities w/ minors

• Brazilians don’t have. Try to make ONJ (National youth organization) but doesn’t work due to internal government division

Sport & leisure

• Brazil - funded institutions for leisure activities in working class to fulfill promise to “end class struggle”

• Portugal - FNAT (National Foundation for Joy at Work) pushes leisure activities (healthy, lessen burdens on workers)

Sporting Interventions

• Germany/Italy - government takes over sports to serve the party. Brazil/Portugal follow the same pattern.

  • Vargas - “National Council of Sports” w/ power to ban activities deemed “unpatriotic” & to rename clubs if referencing other nations

  • Salazar - controlled competitive sport/influence over Olympic committee

• Differences: Portugal, more education than spectacle. Brazil, soccer esp, propaganda

• Ultimately, Portugal flopped in sports, distancing the government from it, and Brazil flourished.

Nazi Germany - military

RR: The Donaldson Film Network, “John Donaldson: 33 Seasons Barnstorming”.
What was Barnstorming, and why do think it was appealing to many baseball players, including full-time major-league players?

• Barnstorming - travelling from place to place for brief appearances instead of having one home city.

• John Donaldson - black man in baseball. 

• Barnstorming - allowed rural America (farmers, poorer citizens) the ability to get entertainment through banned or unwelcome players from the main organization

• Able to travel a lot, explore America. Crowds are appreciative of entertainment. Lucrative (at least Donaldson’s route was) with reliable income. 

RR: Belt Magazine, “Commemorating Chicago’s Red Summer of 1919”, July 30, 1919.
What efforts were made to commemorate Chicago’s Red Summer of 1919, and do you think these sorts of efforts can be effective?

• Eugene Williams - swimming in Lake Michigan, floated into “whites only” section, stoned to death. Riots ensued - 38 people killed, 500 injured, 1000 Black family homes destroyed

• Effort of reconciliation - 100 people floated in the water and also led a bike tour of important locations to the Red Summer

• Theme of “no justice no peace”

• “You can either ignore [history] or you can face it and draw strength from that. As a human being, you make those choices to sort of ignore your weaknesses and shut it down and that’s to your own detriment, I think. So I think as a society, it’s the same sort of thing. We look and reflect and we have a chance to grow out of it.” (Kelsey Taylor from the article)

BQ: Why did the Western democracies struggle to find answers to the Great Depression and why did Authoritarian and fascist governments seem to have the answers? What Civil Rights were African Americans fighting for during the Interwar Period? 

Smaller note: what was Brazilian authoritarianism and what was distinct about it? Was it fascism? How was baseball a way of beating Jim Crow laws?

• Capitalist frameworks (laissez-faire) and political system unable to handle sudden collapse

• Authoritarian regimes seized control and employed people (see Stalin’s “100% employment rate”) through military expansion, industrialization, scapegoating/nationalism

• Civil rights = basic safety (anti-lynching), right to vote, jobs (fair labor practices), desegregation of public spaces/housing

Fascism + Corporatism

• The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton 

• Corporatism: private property, but industry for state purposes

• Authoritarian government, communitarian values

• Uses extreme nationalism, scapegoats (Italians, unions - ex race, religion, politics)

Corporatism: organizing society into “corporations,” subordinate to the state. Ex Mussolini as the brains, and each organ system (corporations) serves his needs

• Organized into industrial/professional corporations

• Aesthetics: philosophical study of beauty and taste 

  • Neoclassism-pillars, curved facades. Strength, powerful

Brazil Beginnings

• Independence, 1822

• Military overthrew monarchy, 1889

• Republican constitution, 1891-1930 (“Coffee Elite,” industrialization, cash crops, urbanization in Southeast)

  • Diverse society

• Do well in WW1 b/c demand for agricultural products.

• Hit hard by the Great Depression (dec. with coffee, rubber exports)

Brazil, 1929-45 + Integralista

• Gentilo Vargas - president after 1933, over authoritarianism 1937-45 (WAR)

  • Allied w/ Integralista (green shirt) Fascist movement

  • Plino Salgado after going to Mussolini’s Italy. “Merging of Indigenous Brazilian historical imagery w/ overt Fascism”

• Suppress unions, communists

• Limited economic intervention, more industrialization 

• Restores national pride with sports!

  • “Bodies, music, banners” - aesthetic appeal, pageantry, emotion

Final exam question - what makes Brazilian fascism compared to Germany/Italy? 

• Diverse population, unify via sports and aesthetics (colours, pageantry, emotion.)

• Not so extreme measures, but still cracks down on communism/unions. Halfway (economic liberalism, letting private sector chill out) 

US Roaring 20s

• Prosperity, consumer society & Fordism (production, cars [individualized transport])

• Motion pictures, radios, air travel - tech

• Spectator sports, Babe Ruth

• Prohibition

• Suffrage (women, right to vote 1920) + flappers, cabaret, jazz

• Ponzi scheme

Great Depression, New Deal 1933

• Stock market crash, 1929 (global effect). Speculation

• US - overproduces, doesn’t buy enough

• RESPONSE - raise interest rates/tariffs, cut expenditures (less: demand, growth)

New Deal, 1933 

• Franklin D. Roosevelt’s plan to stimulate and regulate the economy

  • Glass-Steagall act, 1933. Separated banks (commercial/retail), regulated

• Democracies have no answer to Great Depression, but Socialism/Fascism…

Civil Rights (Crow laws), Great Migration

Jim Crow laws, 1870s+

• Segregation/oppression of African Americans (lynching - even military veterans)

• Tulsa Race Massacre, 1921 - misunderstanding between black man/white woman. Rioting, evictions, 100+ killed

• African-Americans leave south for work/education prospects to north. 500k in 1917-18

• Factory work, better wages/working conditions/schooling

• Migrations cause tension, “Red Summer”
  

Beat racial segregation via barnstorming! (musicians playing in towns)

• Chance to see big leaguers

• Lucrative (up to 5k a day) - good month, could make more than in the big seasons

• People interested in seeing races mix