The March of Spare Time

The problem of leisure was not new in the Great Depression. Idle hands had long been the devil's workshop, but social scientists and recreation professionals faced an increasing burden as leisure time expanded due to economic dislocation and unemployment. Susan Currell's The March of Spare Time ably captures the dual nature of “rational” recreation in the 1930s. Academics, artists, and New Dealers all considered the enforced leisure of the depression an opportunity to remake the recreational landscape while they recognized the perils of consumerism and unsupervised leisure activities. Recreation held the key to economic recovery, but it could likewise exacerbate personal and social problems if left unchecked. Currell convincingly argues that “the ‘problem of leisure’ was a central cultural issue of Depression America” (p. 3) by analyzing sources including research reports from social scientists and New Deal agencies, movies, popular fiction, and exhibits at the 1939 World's Fair. The book successfully describes the leisure problem and makes meaningful connections to larger social and economic concerns such as industrial productivity and technological change. Currell is particularly adept at showing how leisure-time changes reinforced the existing gender hierarchy by characterizing women as consumers rather than producers

Business · Consumerism · Depression (economics · Economic growth · Economics · Leisure studies · Leisure time · Loneliness · Operations management · Physical activity · Political science · Productivity · Recreation · Sociology · Spare time · Unemployment · Law · Marketing · Medicine · Psychology · Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management · Social Psychology · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society

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  Yuliya Dudaronak•Libra•2014

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