The Little Girl Who Fought the Great Depression

March 31, 2014
As historian Kasson eloquently points out in this often repetitive but useful survey of Temple’s role in Depression America, the young star entertained America at one of its lowest points, winning the hearts of a nation and giving hope to a hopeless society. “In all her 1930s movies beginning with Stand Up and Cheer!, Shirley Temple helped viewers summon the emotional resources to persevere in the world.” Kasson confines his deft critical writing to the 1930s, the height of Temple’s popularity, chronicling her rise to fame, her lasting impact on the movies and society, and her view of herself as a professional actor and not a child laborer. At the height of her popularity, he observes, “Shirley Temple’s films, products, and endorsements stimulated the American consumer economy at a crucial time, so much so that to some she appeared to be a relief program all by herself.” Kasson’s insightful book looks back to a moment in American society when, he argues, the movies mattered and when one magnetic star could help change people’s minds and hearts.

April 1, 2014

Readers who are expecting a juicy biography of recently deceased child star Shirley Temple (1928-2014) will be disappointed in this analysis of the cultural effects of her movies on a despairing America during the Great Depression. Kasson (history & American studies, Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), though he gives the basics of both Temple's and her parents' lives, is more focused on the actress's film persona and how it served to raise the spirits of a somber nation. Almost a third of the book focuses on Temple's smile and happy face as a metaphor for the optimism that occurred when Franklin D. Roosevelt (also a smiler) took office after President Herbert Hoover, who was perceived as aloof and insular. Kasson also touches on the movie studios' exploitation of child actors (Temple worked practically every day of her young life) and the racial boundaries that were broken when she performed with the African American tap dancer and actor Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. VERDICT With Temple's passing in February of this year at age 86, this book is a timely and well-researched addition to the genre, and one that film students will welcome. However, those seeking more personal information about the performer's life should look for Temple's 1988 autobiography, Child Star.--Rosellen Brewer, Sno-Isle Libs., Marysville, WA

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