A sculpture garden or sculpture park is an outdoor garden or park which includes the presentation of sculpture , usually several permanently sited works in durable materials in landscaped surroundings.
109-801: The Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial is a sculpture garden located in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, United States. The garden, located along the left bank of the Schuylkill River between Boathouse Row and the Girard Avenue Bridge , was established by the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art ) and dedicated in 1961. The idea for a series of sculptures came from Ellen Phillips Samuel,
218-626: A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook; declining crop prices and a Great Plains drought crippled their economic outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance. At first, the decline in the U.S. economy was the factor that triggered economic downturns in most other countries due to a decline in trade, capital movement, and global business confidence. Then, internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. For example,
327-480: A democratic republic and the settlement of the East Coast , the central terrace would represent westward expansion , the end of slavery , and immigration , and the north terrace would represent the more esoteric values that defined the country. As part of the design, Cret designed much of the overall architecture for the memorial, including exedrae . In January 1933, the committee met and approved an overall plan for
436-418: A silver standard , almost avoided the depression entirely. The connection between leaving the gold standard as a strong predictor of that country's severity of its depression and the length of time of its recovery has been shown to be consistent for dozens of countries, including developing countries . This partly explains why the experience and length of the depression differed between regions and states around
545-407: A 1976 book, Bendiner said Cret's overall design for the memorial was "mentally sound" and something that "could have been lovely", but called the overall choice of sculpture "a most irritating collection of uninteresting examples of the work of outstanding men and women, most of whom have done much better elsewhere". In a 1992 book, Bach stated that by the time the memorial was dedicated it was "as much
654-453: A 1976 publication, the art association stated that the memorial "[represents] a wide variety of artistic expression", with an overall style typical of that "used in Federal projects in the 1930s". Among art critics, the memorial has received mostly mixed to negative reviews. Dorothy Grafly, daughter of sculptor Charles Grafly , was highly critical of the memorial, calling the relationship between
763-475: A famous image of 70 of the sculptors whose works were on display. According to sculptor Jo Davidson , who was in attendance, "Never had so many sculptors been scrubbed and assembled in one place before". This was the first of the Sculpture Internationals where pieces were for sale, and the art association purchased several other works that they would later install around the city. From this exhibition,
872-588: A former privately run bank, bearing no relation to the U.S. government (not to be confused with the Federal Reserve ). Unable to pay out to all of its creditors, the bank failed. Among the 608 American banks that closed in November and December 1930, the Bank of United States accounted for a third of the total $ 550 million deposits lost and, with its closure, bank failures reached a critical mass. In an initial response to
981-459: A greater reduction in credit. On 5 April 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates , coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to
1090-596: A modern industrial city handled shortages of money and resources. Often they updated strategies their mothers used when they were growing up in poor families. Cheap foods were used, such as soups, beans and noodles. They purchased the cheapest cuts of meat—sometimes even horse meat—and recycled the Sunday roast into sandwiches and soups. They sewed and patched clothing, traded with their neighbors for outgrown items, and made do with colder homes. New furniture and appliances were postponed until better days. Many women also worked outside
1199-402: A monetary contraction first-hand were forced to join the deflationary policy since higher interest rates in countries that performed a deflationary policy led to a gold outflow in countries with lower interest rates. Under the gold standard's price–specie flow mechanism , countries that lost gold but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard had to permit their money supply to decrease and
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#17328517599991308-412: A monument to the confusion about what constituted modern public art as a tribute to Mrs. Samuel's unprecedented generosity". Bach stated that the site's overall architectural design limited the sculptors' ability to create pieces for the memorial and called the overall choice of sculpture "unsettling". However, she also praised The Spirit of Enterprise , calling it the "most powerful and successful work" in
1417-469: A philanthropist who left a significant amount of money to the art association in her will, with the stipulation that it be used to erect public sculptures that would represent the history of the United States. Following the death of Ellen in 1913 and her husband several years later, the association organized a committee to oversee the creation of these monuments, with architect Paul Philippe Cret developing
1526-467: A plan for three connected terraces with distinct themes represented by the sculptures present in them. To select the sculptors for the memorial, the association organized three international art exhibitions held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1933, 1940, and 1949, that attracted hundreds of sculptors and saw attendances in the hundreds of thousands. The final sculpture was erected in 1960 and
1635-535: A reader straw poll , with voters selecting the works of Walker Hancock , Carl Milles , Harry Rosin, Alexander Stirling Calder , William Zorach , and Albert Laessle as the best. However, the committee instead selected John Bernard Flannagan , Wallace Kelly, Hélène Sardeau (the only woman selected by the committee), and Heinz Warneke to create limestone sculptures, while Robert Laurent and Gaston Lachaise (later replaced by Maurice Sterne ) would design bronze sculptures. These sculptures would be installed in
1744-544: A result, after her death, her widower J. Bunford Samuel commissioned Icelandic sculptor Einar Jónsson to create a sculpture of Thorfinn Karlsefni , an early European explorer of North America. The sculpture was erected near the Sedgeley Club along the Schuylkill River in Fairmount Park , in line with Samuel's will, which stipulated the location of the monuments to be in the park along East River Drive. Bunford hoped for
1853-563: A serious issue in the 1930s. Support for increasing welfare programs during the depression included a focus on women in the family. The Conseil Supérieur de la Natalité campaigned for provisions enacted in the Code de la Famille (1939) that increased state assistance to families with children and required employers to protect the jobs of fathers, even if they were immigrants. In rural and small-town areas, women expanded their operation of vegetable gardens to include as much food production as possible. In
1962-474: A small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard , and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as prime minister for a largely Conservative coalition. In most countries of
2071-699: A standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures were more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. The crisis continued to get worse in Germany, bringing political upheaval that finally led to
2180-525: A statue by John J. Boyle , was relocated from the Sweetbriar mansion to a location just south of the memorial where, according to the Association for Public Art (aPA), "it expands on the Memorial's sculptural evocation of American history". The next year, Jacques Lipchitz's bronze work, The Spirit of Enterprise , was relocated from the memorial's north terrace to the central terrace to increase its visibility to
2289-409: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty; drastic reductions in liquidity , industrial production, and trade; and widespread bank and business failures around the world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in
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#17328517599992398-642: Is a consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse, by expanding the money supply and acting as lender of last resort . If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been far less severe and much shorter. Modern mainstream economists see the reasons in Insufficient spending, the money supply reduction, and debt on margin led to falling prices and further bankruptcies ( Irving Fisher 's debt deflation). The monetarist explanation
2507-493: Is supported by the contrast in how the crisis progressed in, e.g., Britain, Argentina and Brazil, all of which devalued their currencies early and returned to normal patterns of growth relatively rapidly and countries which stuck to the gold standard , such as France or Belgium. Frantic attempts by individual countries to shore up their economies through protectionist policies – such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries – exacerbated
2616-605: Is the first contemporary art exhibition held at the memorial and, according to the aPA, is part of the association's "commitment to reanimate, reimagine and reinterpret the historic site within a contemporary context". Concerning the overall style of the memorial, Penny Balkin Bach, the executive director of the Fairmount Park Art Association, stated in a 1992 book that "[t]he Samuel Memorial is emblematic of that period of turmoil and transition when artists and patrons were in search of new forms and meanings in an increasingly volatile world". In
2725-523: The 1932 election , Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt , who from 1933 pursued a series of " New Deal " policies and programs to provide relief and create jobs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps , Federal Emergency Relief Administration , Tennessee Valley Authority , and Works Progress Administration . Historians disagree on the effects of the New Deal, with some claiming that
2834-550: The Federal Art Project of the Work Projects Administration (WPA). The exhibition opened on May 18 with 431 works on display and 90 WPA tour guides conducting visitors around the exhibition. In contrast to the 1933 exhibition, the art featured in this Sculpture International displayed a great deal of diversity in material, composition, and style. Due to both material shortages and financial difficulties from
2943-565: The New York Bank of United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. Friedman and Schwartz argued that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of
3052-823: The United States , the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. The Depression was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the " Roaring Twenties ". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation , such as on the stock market , which resulted in growing wealth inequality . Banks were subject to minimal regulation under laissez-faire economic policies, resulting in loose lending and widespread debt. By 1929, declining spending had led to reductions in manufacturing output and rising unemployment . Share values continued to rise until
3161-525: The coming to power of Hitler's Nazi regime in January 1933. The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse,
3270-419: The entry of the United States into World War II in 1941, work on the memorial largely ceased for the next several years. However, following the conclusion of World War II in 1945, another Sculpture International was held in 1949. The exhibition featured 252 displays and was attended by over a quarter of a million people. Life magazine called the exhibition "the world's biggest sculpture show" and published
3379-447: The 1937 recession that interrupted it). The common view among most economists is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies either caused or accelerated the recovery, although his policies were never aggressive enough to bring the economy completely out of recession. Some economists have also called attention to the positive effects from expectations of reflation and rising nominal interest rates that Roosevelt's words and actions portended. It
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3488-795: The British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending, and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition " National Government ". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with
3597-464: The Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts. During World War I many countries suspended their gold standard in varying ways. There was high inflation from WWI, and in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic , Austria , and throughout Europe. In the late 1920s there
3706-514: The Dow returning to 294 (pre-depression levels) in April 1930, before steadily declining for years, to a low of 41 in 1932. At the beginning, governments and businesses spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in
3815-480: The Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was the gold standard . At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act , which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit
3924-442: The Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today there is also significant academic support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that – building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz – add non-monetary explanations. There
4033-639: The Great Depression. According to the U.S. Senate website, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act is among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history. Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists blame the Act for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade
4142-473: The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, as they argue that National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricted competition and established price fixing. John Maynard Keynes did not think that the New Deal under Roosevelt single-handedly ended the Great Depression: "It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on
4251-540: The U.K. economy, which experienced an economic downturn throughout most of the late 1920s, was less severely impacted by the shock of the depression than the U.S. By contrast, the German economy saw a similar decline in industrial output as that observed in the U.S. Some economic historians attribute the differences in the rates of recovery and relative severity of the economic decline to whether particular countries had been able to effectively devaluate their currencies or not. This
4360-485: The U.S. unemployment rate down below 10%. World War II had a dramatic effect on many parts of the American economy. Government-financed capital spending accounted for only 5% of the annual U.S. investment in industrial capital in 1940; by 1943, the government accounted for 67% of U.S. capital investment. The massive war spending doubled economic growth rates, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending
4469-508: The United States, England, France, Germany , Romania , Russia, and Spain . It was covered by newspapers nationwide, with many calling it one of the largest sculpture exhibitions in the country's history, and the museum saw its attendance double. According to committee member Robert Sturgis Ingersoll , museum curator Henri Gabriel Marceau was the "sparkplug of the endeavor" who led the organizing efforts for this and all future Sculpture Internationals. The Public Ledger of Philadelphia held
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4578-622: The United States, agricultural organizations sponsored programs to teach housewives how to optimize their gardens and to raise poultry for meat and eggs. Rural women made feed sack dresses and other items for themselves and their families and homes from feed sacks. In American cities, African American women quiltmakers enlarged their activities, promoted collaboration, and trained neophytes. Quilts were created for practical use from various inexpensive materials and increased social interaction for women and promoted camaraderie and personal fulfillment. Oral history provides evidence for how housewives in
4687-543: The United States, remained on the gold standard into 1932 or 1933, while a few countries in the so-called "gold bloc", led by France and including Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, stayed on the standard until 1935–36. According to later analysis, the earliness with which a country left the gold standard reliably predicted its economic recovery. For example, The UK and Scandinavia, which left the gold standard in 1931, recovered much earlier than France and Belgium, which remained on gold much longer. Countries such as China, which had
4796-530: The United States, the oldest public sculpture garden is a part of the joint park and wildlife preserve Brookgreen Gardens , located in South Carolina. The property was opened in 1932, and has since been included on the National Register of Historic Places . This article related to an art display, art museum or gallery is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This garden-related article
4905-632: The Wall Street crash, after which the slide continued for three years, which was accompanied by a loss of confidence in the financial system. By 1933, the U.S. unemployment rate had risen to 25 percent, about one-third of farmers had lost their land, and about half of the country's 25,000 banks had gone out of business. Many people, unable to pay mortgages or rent, became homeless and relied on begging or charities to feed themselves. The U.S. federal government initially did little to help. President Herbert Hoover , like many of his fellow Republicans , believed in
5014-506: The architecture and sculpture flawed and saying, "[the memorial] may claim the doubtful honor of having perpetrated one of America's leading contemporary art atrocities". In a 1974 book, Ingersoll gave a mixed review of the memorial, saying, "[c]ertain of the pieces are true masterpieces, and there are few mediocrities", though he criticized the memorial's selection of artists for the south terrace, calling their works "markedly static and serious, perhaps too serious, lacking any romantic touch". In
5123-501: The art association erected a fountain in John F. Kennedy Plaza in her honor. According to architect Alfred Bendiner , Samuel had been inspired by a statue-lined canal she had visited in Padua and hoped to emulate that with a row of statues along the Schuylkill River , on a 2,000-foot (610 m) stretch of land from Boathouse Row to the Girard Avenue Bridge , near Laurel Hill Cemetery . As
5232-427: The art association, specifying that the revenue raised from it be used to erect public sculptures that were "emblematic of the history of America —ranging in time from the earliest settlers of America to the present era". At the time, the bequeathment was reportedly one of the largest of its kind, amounting to over $ 500,000 (equivalent to $ 15.41 million in 2023). In 1969, separate from her will -stipulated memorial,
5341-401: The association created a committee to oversee the erection of these new monuments, with the members chosen by association president Eli Kirk Price II . This committee, consisting predominately of young men, rejected Bunford's plans for a row of life-like statues and instead opted for more abstract sculptures that highlighted the "expression of the ideas, the motivations, the spiritual forces, and
5450-455: The banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did. With significantly less money to go around, businesses could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch . One reason why
5559-465: The behavior of housewives. The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II . Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment. The rearmament policies leading up to World War II helped stimulate
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#17328517599995668-595: The cave, broken stalagmites were arranged in a series of stacked or ring-like structures approximately 175,000 years ago. Garden statues , often of very high quality, were a feature of ancient Roman gardens , revived at the Renaissance , and then especially a feature of the Baroque garden . Palace gardens, such as the Gardens of Versailles , featured a concentration of sculpture equalling that of larger modern sculpture parks. In
5777-492: The central terrace. Other notable sculptors who participated in the 1933 Sculpture International include Alexander Archipenko , Jacques Lipchitz , Aristide Maillol , Henri Matisse , and Isamu Noguchi . In mid-1940, the committee held another Sculpture International, though the recent outbreak of the Second World War prevented many foreign artists from attending. Instead, many of the works by foreign artists on display at
5886-518: The classification of several of the works as art , and there was a debate amongst the artists present on the value of abstract art over more realistic depictions. In the end, the committee selected Erwin Frey , Henry Kreis , Rosin, and Wheeler Williams to create works for the south terrace. These six were awarded commissions of $ 10,000 each, and in total, the sculptors selected from these two Sculpture Internationals were awarded $ 94,000 in commissions. With
5995-458: The collapse in global trade, contributing to the depression. By 1933, the economic decline pushed world trade to one third of its level compared to four years earlier. While the precise causes for the occurrence of the Great depression are disputed and can be traced to both global and national phenomena, its immediate origins are most conveniently examined in the context of the U.S. economy, from which
6104-451: The collected works of multiple artists, or the artwork of a single individual. These installations are related to several similar concepts, most notably land art , where landscapes become the basis of a site-specific sculpture , and topiary gardens, which consists of clipping or training live plants into living sculptures. A sculpture trail layout may be adopted, either in a park or through open countryside. The Irwell Sculpture Trail ,
6213-443: The committee selected Ahron Ben-Shmuel , Jose de Creeft , Koren der Harootian, and Waldemar Raemisch to design stone works for the north terrace, while Lipchitz and Jacob Epstein were selected to craft bronze sculptures. Almost all of the selected artists were either born or living outside of the United States, prompting committee member Ingersoll to call the group "an artistic League of Nations ". In 1960, Lipchitz's bronze work
6322-568: The committee sent requests to sculptors around the world to submit designs for the memorial and offered to pay for transporting select works. The art association partnered with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Art Alliance to hold an international art exhibition at the museum called the Sculpture International, which ran from May through September 1933. The exhibition featured 364 works by 105 artists from
6431-475: The crash was a mere symptom of more general economic trends of the time, which had already been underway in the late 1920s. A contrasting set of views, which rose to prominence in the later part of the 20th century, ascribes a more prominent role to failures of monetary policy . According to those authors, while general economic trends can explain the emergence of the downturn, they fail to account for its severity and longevity; they argue that these were caused by
6540-620: The crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act on 17 June 1930. The Act was ostensibly aimed at protecting the American economy from foreign competition by imposing high tariffs on foreign imports. The consensus view among economists and economic historians (including Keynesians , Monetarists and Austrian economists ) is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff had, in fact, achieved an opposite effect to what
6649-633: The decade. The Depression had devastating economic effects on both wealthy and poor countries: all experienced drops in personal income , prices ( deflation ), tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, and unemployment in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world , especially those dependent on heavy industry , were heavily affected. Construction virtually halted in many countries, and farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by up to 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered
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#17328517599996758-408: The depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced "trade and exchange restrictions only marginally": The gold standard was the primary transmission mechanism of the Great Depression. Even countries that did not face bank failures and
6867-469: The development of the memorial that would allow for the sculptors to have a large degree of freedom in their interpretation of the themes. The committee also decided on a series of quotes that would be inscribed on the architecture of the memorial. In selecting the sculptors who would create art for the memorial, Samuel had asked the art association to put requests in newspapers around the world, offering to cover any shipping costs. Seeking to honor her wishes,
6976-435: The domestic price level to decline ( deflation ). There is also consensus that protectionist policies, and primarily the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , helped to exacerbate, or even cause the Great Depression. Some economic studies have indicated that the rigidities of the gold standard not only spread the downturn worldwide, but also suspended gold convertibility (devaluing the currency in gold terms) that did
7085-402: The drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression. Economists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of
7194-427: The economies of Europe in 1937–1939. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 ended unemployment. The American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941 moved approximately ten million people out of the civilian labor force and into the war. This finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought
7303-483: The emblematic history of America, it’s complicated. It’s from one perspective usually. That can lead to some representation issues". A 2023 article from cultural critic Rosa Cartagena in The Philadelphia Inquirer stated that the memorial did not accurately reflect the role of " Black Americans , people of color , and women" in American history, while cultural critic Peter Crimmins of WHYY.org referred to
7412-576: The end of the month. A large sell-off of stocks began in mid-October. Finally, on 24 October, Black Thursday , the American stock market crashed 11% at the opening bell. Actions to stabilize the market failed, and on 28 October, Black Monday, the market crashed another 12%. The panic peaked the next day on Black Tuesday, when the market saw another 11% drop. Thousands of investors were ruined, and billions of dollars had been lost; many stocks could not be sold at any price. The market recovered 12% on Wednesday but by then significant damage had been done. Though
7521-573: The exhibition were on loan from other American museums and private collectors, while many American sculptures were on loan from either the Whitney Museum of American Art or the federal government of the United States . At the time, the government had several New Deal agencies that directly employed artists, including the United States Department of the Treasury 's Section of Fine Arts and
7630-494: The explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. The consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating
7739-503: The few women in the labor force, layoffs were less common in the white-collar jobs and they were typically found in light manufacturing work. However, there was a widespread demand to limit families to one paid job, so that wives might lose employment if their husband was employed. Across Britain, there was a tendency for married women to join the labor force, competing for part-time jobs especially. In France, very slow population growth, especially in comparison to Germany continued to be
7848-501: The first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, 19–20 June. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on payment of war reparations . This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An International conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on 19 August
7957-599: The government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The Nazi women's organizations, other propaganda agencies and the authorities all attempted to shape such consumption as economic self-sufficiency was needed to prepare for and to sustain the coming war. The organizations, propaganda agencies and authorities employed slogans that called up traditional values of thrift and healthy living. However, these efforts were only partly successful in changing
8066-519: The home, or took boarders, did laundry for trade or cash, and did sewing for neighbors in exchange for something they could offer. Extended families used mutual aid—extra food, spare rooms, repair-work, cash loans—to help cousins and in-laws. In Japan, official government policy was deflationary and the opposite of Keynesian spending. Consequently, the government launched a campaign across the country to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives. In Germany,
8175-514: The initial crisis spread to the rest of the world. In the aftermath of World War I , the Roaring Twenties brought considerable wealth to the United States and Western Europe. Initially, the year 1929 dawned with good economic prospects: despite a minor crash on 25 March 1929, the market seemed to gradually improve through September. Stock prices began to slump in September, and were volatile at
8284-543: The lack of an adequate response to the crises of liquidity that followed the initial economic shock of 1929 and the subsequent bank failures accompanied by a general collapse of the financial markets. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 381 to 198 over the course of two months, optimism persisted for some time. The stock market rose in early 1930, with
8393-618: The largest public art scheme in England, includes 28 art pieces along a 30-mile (48 km) footpath stretching from Salford Quays through Bury into Rossendale and up to the Pennines above Bacup . Sculpture gardens have a long history around the world – the oldest known collection of human constructions is a Neanderthal "sculpture garden" unearthed in Bruniquel Cave in France in 1990. Within
8502-512: The market entered a period of recovery from 14 November until 17 April 1930, the general situation had been a prolonged slump. From 17 April 1930 until 8 July 1932, the market continued to lose 89% of its value. Despite the crash, the worst of the crisis did not reverberate around the world until after 1929. The crisis hit panic levels again in December 1930, with a bank run on the Bank of United States ,
8611-483: The memorial as "problematic", calling particular attention to how The Slave is the only statue in the garden that depicts an African person and how Settling the Seaboard "suggests a false complicity from Indigenous people regarding the westward expansion of the new American nation". A 2023 article on PhillyVoice.com also highlighted the lack of diversity among both the sculpture subjects and sculptors, noting that Hassinger
8720-415: The memorial was dedicated the following year. The memorial has received generally mixed to negative reviews from art critics, with many criticizing the relationship between the sculptures and the surrounding architecture. For example, in a review of the memorial, architect Alfred Bendiner praised the architecture, but called the choice of sculptures "a most irritating collection of uninteresting examples of
8829-472: The memorial. According to the aPA, the memorial presents "a narrow view of the history of America as it lacks an authentic Indigenous perspective; presents an enslaved Black person in shackles, and highlights primarily white European immigrants ". Susan Myers, a member of the aPA and project manager of the Steel Bodies exhibit, stated regarding the memorial, "As any kind of memorial that’s talking about
8938-414: The mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U.S. Interest rates dropped to low levels by mid-1930, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment remained low. By May 1930, automobile sales declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices, in general, began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. Then
9047-423: The monetary base and by not injecting liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling, the Federal Reserve passively watched the transformation of a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would merely have been an ordinary recession if the Federal Reserve had taken aggressive action. This view
9156-496: The most to make recovery possible. Every major currency left the gold standard during the Great Depression. The UK was the first to do so. Facing speculative attacks on the pound and depleting gold reserves , in September 1931 the Bank of England ceased exchanging pound notes for gold and the pound was floated on foreign exchange markets. Japan and the Scandinavian countries followed in 1931. Other countries, such as Italy and
9265-427: The most. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 ended the Depression, as it stimulated factory production, providing jobs for women as militaries absorbed large numbers of young, unemployed men. The precise causes for the Great Depression are disputed. One set of historians, for example, focuses on non-monetary economic causes. Among these, some regard the Wall Street crash itself as the main cause; others consider that
9374-568: The need to balance the national budget and was unwilling to implement expensive welfare spending . In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , which taxed imports with the intention of encouraging buyers to purchase American products, which worsened the Depression because foreign governments retaliated with tariffs on American exports. In 1932, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation , which offered loans to businesses and support to local governments. In
9483-486: The park. After the statue's erection, Bunford abandoned any plans to commission more art, though he remained hopeful that the overall idea for a row of statues would eventually be executed. However, this plan would not come to fruition. In 1929, following Bunford's death, the funds became fully available to the art association, though plans for the memorial were not acted upon until the Great Depression . Following this,
9592-483: The physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about 1 ⁄ 3 as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods such as: "imposing tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls". These restrictions triggered much tension among countries that had large amounts of bilateral trade, causing major export-import reductions during
9701-477: The policies prolonged the Depression instead of shortening it. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%; in the U.S., the Depression resulted in a 30% contraction in GDP. Recovery varied greatly around the world. Some economies, such as the U.S., Germany and Japan started to recover by the mid-1930s; others, like France, did not return to pre-shock growth rates until later in
9810-455: The political situation in Europe. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States , Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System . Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006–2014) Ben Bernanke agreed that monetary factors played important roles both in
9919-629: The public. In 2018, the statue of Thorfinn Karlsefni was removed from its pedestal by vandals who pushed the monument into the Schuylkill River. This came during a period of time when the Keystone State Skinheads had been using the statue as a meeting place. The statue was later recovered by the aPA, and as of 2023, it is in storage. In 2023, the aPA announced the installation of a temporary, exhibition, Steel Bodies , by sculptor Maren Hassinger , that would be on display from June 12 to November 12. The exhibition, consisting of ten steel sculptures,
10028-434: The scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions." According to Christina Romer , the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of
10137-413: The statue to be the first part of the memorial, which would consist of a series of 20 statues of individuals from American history organized along the left bank of the river in 200-foot (61 m) increments. Some in the local art community criticized Bunford for his selection of a non-American sculptor for the project, and according to Bendiner, there were efforts to prevent the statue from being erected in
10246-491: The war, as well as new approaches to sculpture such as direct carving , materials featured in the exhibition's sculptures included aluminum , cast iron , cement , fieldstone , stainless steel , and wood, among others. The exhibition also featured a number of pieces of kinetic art , including two large mobiles by Calder and a rotating sculpture by Constantin Brâncuși displayed near the museum entrance. Art critics questioned
10355-442: The work of outstanding men and women, most of whom have done much better elsewhere". Penny Balkin Bach, an executive director of the art association, has stated that the memorial is "as much a monument to the confusion about what constituted modern public art" as it is a memorial honoring Samuel. Additional criticism has centered on the memorial's Eurocentric depiction of American history. Born on March 4, 1849, Ellen Phillips Samuel
10464-471: The world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933. There is no consensus among economists regarding the motive force for the U.S. economic expansion that continued through most of the Roosevelt years (and
10573-659: The world. The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil. With the rise in violence of National Socialist ('Nazi') and Communist movements, as well as investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in
10682-778: The worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke also saw a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and pointed out that the Depression should be examined in an international perspective. Women's primary role was as housewives; without a steady flow of family income, their work became much harder in dealing with food and clothing and medical care. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12% from 19.3 births per thousand population in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935. In Canada, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births. Among
10791-533: The yearnings that have created America". The committee hired Paul Philippe Cret , a professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania , who created an overall design for the memorial, which would consist of three connected terraces along the Schuylkill River just south of the Girard Avenue Bridge that would house various sculptures. The south terrace would represent the founding of the United States as
10900-556: Was a member of a prominent Philadelphia family, with her father being a distinguished member of the local bar association and her uncle, Henry Myer Phillips , being a member of the United States House of Representatives . As an adult, she was an active member of the Fairmount Park Art Association , a private nonprofit public art organization in the city. Upon her death in 1913, she bequeathed much of her estate to
11009-639: Was a scramble to deflate prices to get the gold standard's conversation rates back on track to pre-WWI levels, by causing deflation and high unemployment through monetary policy. In 1933 FDR signed Executive Order 6102 and in 1934 signed the Gold Reserve Act . The two classic competing economic theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the Monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject
11118-478: Was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average ad valorem (value based) rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–1935. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four years from about $ 5.2 billion in 1929 to $ 1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did
11227-474: Was endorsed in 2002 by Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz with this statement: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again. The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of
11336-426: Was given by American economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz . They argued that the Great Depression was caused by the banking crisis that caused one-third of all banks to vanish, a reduction of bank shareholder wealth and more importantly monetary contraction of 35%, which they called "The Great Contraction ". This caused a price drop of 33% ( deflation ). By not lowering interest rates, by not increasing
11445-491: Was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics, a portion of those demand notes was redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by
11554-446: Was intended. It exacerbated the Great Depression by preventing economic recovery after domestic production recovered, hampering the volume of trade; still there is disagreement as to the precise extent of the Act's influence. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was one of the leading causes of the depression. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened
11663-493: Was placed at the north terrace, marking the final piece installed at the memorial. The following year, the memorial was formally dedicated. A commemorative plaque affixed to the structure reads: Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial 1957 Sculptors, architects, and trustees of the Fairmount Park Art Association, under whose direction joined in the creation of 'The Emblematic History of the United States'. In 1985, Stone Age in America ,
11772-504: Was the only black artist to have their work exhibited at the site. Sculpture garden A sculpture garden may be private, owned by a museum and accessible freely or for a fee, or public and accessible to all. Some cities own large numbers of public sculptures , some of which they may present together in city parks . Exhibits range from individual, traditional sculptures to large site-specific installations . Sculpture gardens may also vary greatly in size and scope, either featuring
11881-464: Was the rollback of those same reflationary policies that led to the interruption of a recession beginning in late 1937. One contributing policy that reversed reflation was the Banking Act of 1935 , which effectively raised reserve requirements, causing a monetary contraction that helped to thwart the recovery. GDP returned to its upward trend in 1938. A revisionist view among some economists holds that
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