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== Conditions and Attitudes of the U.S. in the Early 1930s ==
[[File:caponesoupkitchen.jpg|thumbnail|350px|left|Soup Kitchen in Chicago funded by Al Capone, circa 1933]]
In 1933, American society was enduring what was arguably the worst year of the Depression. With the unemployment rate a staggering 24.9 percent, and honest jobs scarce, “dishonest ones sometimes seemed more attractive than standing in soup lines.”<ref>U.S. Department of Labor, ''Compensation and Working Conditions''(Fall, 2001) by Albert E Schwenk and Robert VanGiezen. Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cm20030124ar03p1.htm (accessed April 9, 2012).</ref><ref>U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, ''The F.B.I. and the American Gangster.'' FBI.gov, http://www.fbi.gov/about_us/history/a-centennial-history/fbi_and_the_american_gangster_1924-1938 (accessed March 2, 2012).</ref>The real-life outlaws and gangsters of the day——— John Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, and Al Capone——— were portrayed to the public as having anti-establishment attitudes and being free of the daily burdens with which average citizens were encumbered.
At the theaters, moviegoers vicariously lived out the feelings they shared with gangsters. Those fortunate enough to have a few coins in their pockets to spend at the movies were not immune to the dire suffering of those in their community. People were angry and shared a common enemy with Dillinger and the like: banks and the government. Lorena Hickcock, who traveled throughout the country as chief investigator for the head of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), Harry Hopkins, reported via letters on the horrific living conditions many Americans were forced to endure. In a letter dated August 6, 1933 from Pennsylvania she wrote that those with whom she had spoken did not “see any let-up” of the Depression. The following day she witnessed a man “re-soling shoes for his family with pieces of automobile tire.”<ref>Lorena Hickock, ''One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickock Reports on the Great Depression,'' edited by Richard Lowitt and Maureen Beasly (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), 7-11.</ref>October found Hickock in New York City where she reported that 1.25 million people were on relief. More importantly, she noted that another one million needed but were not receiving relief. She witnessed some of those one million who were “barely existing, undernourished, in rags, constantly threatened with eviction from their homes, utterly wretched and hopeless, their nerves taut, their morale breaking down.” The impoverished of New York City were a diverse group represented by “business and professional men, immigrants, uneducated, and intelligent and educated.”<ref>Hickock, 44-45</ref>With poverty on every street in every neighborhood, no one remained ignorant to the plight of his neighbor. People wanted an escape, and they found it in the theaters.
