By Eric Davis
1930s

The 1930s is a decade most remembered for just one thing; the Great Depression. After the stock market crash of 1929, life in America became very bleak. While Washington knew that the situation was bad, it wasn’t until a photojournalist named Dorothea Lange started traveling the country documenting the harsh reality of life in rural America that the leaders of this country were forced to face the situation and come up with a resolution. There were, however, some great accomplishments during that decade. Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Native Oklahoman Will Rogers, who was a famous comedian, Vaudeville performer, social commentator and actor was at the top of his game and one of the highest paid movie stars in Hollywood at the time. However, in 1935, Rogers, along with aviator and fellow Oklahoman Wiley Post, while on an around-the-world trip were both killed when their small plane crashed in Alaska. The 30s also saw the construction and completion of several well-known landmarks like the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center. Famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright completed his masterpiece “Falling Water” in 1937. Other notables that define the 1930s include actors Shirley Temple, Bob Hope, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Musicians and singers like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and the Gershwin brothers. A movie titled “Gone With the Wind” was released in 1939 and Walt Disney produced the first full-length animated movie called “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Albert Einstein immigrated to the U.S. in 1933, and in 1939 at the New York’s World Fair, people got the first look at a new invention that was the wave of the future called a television.

Here in Tahlequah, though, there were also some changes going on. John Vaughn was elected president of Northeastern Teachers College on August 19, 1936. In 1939, the school’s name was changed from Northeastern Teachers College to Northeastern State College. “The Buffalo Hunt”, the mural on the first floor of Seminary Hall and “Kiowa War Dance”, the mural on the second floor of Seminary Hall were both painted in 1934. Two landmarks on the NSU campus were also erected in the 30s. Wilson Hall, named after Ann Florence Wilson who was a matron of the Cherokee Female Seminary and Haskell Hall, which was named after Charles N. Haskell, first governor of Oklahoma Territory were completed in 1937 as a men and women’s dormitory respectively. The ceramics building was also built in 1936.

Though the 30s were a trying time in this country, the simplicity of life is something that can only be imagined. Will Rogers may have summed up the optimistic attitude of that decade when he said that “We are all here for a spell; get all the good laughs you can”.