Propaganda In The 1920's

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During the 1920’s through 1940’s the United States was facing an economic drought, but with the devolvement of the movie industry the United States was able to use the large amount of new prosperous wealth coming from films to start an economic boom that would help the US recover from the Great Depression. Thanks to unions and other anti-labor groups, workers across the country were getting paid more and allowed more time off. This was the start of a new era in America, the era of leisure. Headlining this era was the movie industry who capitalized on all the money being spent by workers and low class individuals. Nobody realized the prospect of wealth and fame in the movie industry as much as Edward Carroll. Mr. Carroll believed that the …show more content…
Bernays in his book called Propaganda when he said ‘The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized.”(“Propaganda” 12) Propaganda has been used since the start of time, but never before has it been able to reach almost all corners of the earth and impact so many people. During World War two movies were used by governments to convince people to follow their government into war and to believe in their actions. Film producers focused on creating a sense of fear, like President Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”(“Propaganda” 34). The most impactful Nazi propaganda film was Triumph of the Will. Leni Riefenstahl created the extremely popular Nazi propaganda film about the generosity and strength of Hitler as a great leader of Germany. It was the first ever mass produced movie to be directed by a female. Hitler used the film called, Triumph of the Will to spread his beliefs throughout Europe and by the end of the 1930’s his film was playing in every theater in Germany