America’s Most Beloved Ideals: ‘Manifest Destiny’ and ‘Rugged Individualism’:

‘For I stand tonight facing west on what was once the last frontier. From the lands that stretch three thousand miles behind me, the pioneers of old gave up their safety, their comfort and sometimes their lives to build a new world here in the West. They were not the captives of their own doubts, the prisoners of their own price tags. Their motto was not "every man for himself"--but "all for the common cause." They were determined to make that new world strong and free, to overcome its hazards and its hardships, to conquer the enemies that threatened from without and within.’ John F. Kennedy – 1960 Democratic National Convention.

At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy highlights the key components of the American national character. These components include the American dream of moving westward and the notion of ‘rugged individualism’. These two components developed during the 19^th century when moving west (which was considered Americas ‘manifest destiny’) was considered important in terms of developing the economy and building a new, ‘strong and free world’. These themes have continued to be prominent in American history in terms of continuing a ‘strong and free’ American society, but also in influencing a ‘strong and free’, democratic world, shown through many foreign policy acts such as the post-WW2 ‘Marshal Plan’. In contemporary America these components continue to be important within popular culture. They can be particularly seen through film, especially within the Western genre. The Western encapsulates the components of ‘Manifest Destiny’ and ‘Rugged Individualism’ and as a result will be discussed as being ‘America’s most beloved ideal’.

As aforementioned, Kennedy’s words echo the United States history of Westward Expansion in the 1800s. Although, they also call back to another period in American History, to an era in which there were new ‘hazards and hardships’, but yet the continuing rhetoric of ‘moving west’ for economic profit and being ‘ruggedly individualistic’ in doing so remained prominent, but yet was also under attack. Furthermore it was a period that, through photographs, played upon Western iconography. This period is known as ‘The Great Depression’.

The Great Depression: Historical Context

The Great Depression (1929-1939) is remembered for being the longest economic downturn in American and Western history. The Depression was prompted by the Wall Street stock market Crash of 1929, which resulted in the lack of consumer confidence in goods and banks and then the subsequent loss of jobs. By 1933 the number of unemployed people reached 13 to 15 million and half of the banks had failed. By 1933 it was clear that America was at a standstill, both economically and socially. Franklin Delano Roosevelt would take over Herbert Hoover as President and introduce a number of measures through his ‘New Deal’ which would encourage economic growth. Both Presidents were very different in their approach to the Depression. As a Republican, Hebert Hoover believed the Government should not introduce fiscal policies and believed the ‘rugged individualistic’ American people could themselves recover the economy. Roosevelt on the other hand believed that this economic downturn required government intervention. Historiography on this period shows the debate between whether Roosevelt’s policies helped America recover from the Depression, or if the outbreak of WW2 helped revive the economy. To conclude, this period highlights one of the only times in American History in which American optimism was replaced with a sense of hopelessness and despair.

The Depression and ‘Americas Most Beloved Ideal’: The FSA Photographs

The Depression, which started in America’s most famous city, New York, and subsequently hit many other cities hard, is remembered through photographs of farmers and migrants in the West. At first, this may startle one, as one would think that it would be remembered foremost by photos of unemployed workers in cities, but with some thought, the reason to why it was remembered this way is obvious. By capturing the depressions effects in the west, it would have shown, and more importantly today shows, how ‘Americas most beloved ideal’, the West, was under attack and needed help, so that its core values could be reaffirmed. The example below further articulates this notion of America’s heartland being under attack.

Hopeless Horizon:

This image, appropriately titled “man in rocking chair and woman washing clothes in a tub” (1936), captures the American spirit in the Depression. The photograph shows the pessimism that clouded the hearts and minds of many American citizens, a nation of people looking into the distance with hope for recovery and prosperity. Furthermore, the photograph could be a still image taken from a western. This helps articulate the point that, today people resonate with images of the Depression from the west as it shows how ‘Americas heartland’, the place where many put their hopes and dreams of the future, was under attack. In essence, the American Dream was under attack.