1932 Trivia, Fun Facts, and Pop Culture History
Quick Facts from 1932
- Crime of the Century: The kidnapping of 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh Jr. from his crib in Hopewell, New Jersey, on the night of March 1, 1932, gripped the entire nation and led to the passage of the federal kidnapping law still known as the Lindbergh Law
- Top Songs: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? by Bing Crosby and Night and Day by Cole Porter
- Must-See Movies: Grand Hotel, Freaks, Scarface, The Mummy, White Zombie, Tarzan the Ape Man, and The Invisible Man
- The Most Infamous Person in America: Al Capone — convicted of tax evasion in 1931 and sent to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary; transferred to the newly opened Alcatraz in 1934
- Notable Books: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
- Perrier water (12 oz.): 25 cents; men’s tuxedo: $25.00; two tons of coal for home heating: $9.50; round-trip cruise to Europe: $108.00; Yale tuition per year: $1,056
- The Funny Duo: Laurel and Hardy; The Funny Guy: W.C. Fields
- Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Monkey, associated with wit, resourcefulness, and an ability to find creative solutions — qualities millions of Americans were desperately applying to the problem of staying alive
- The Conversation: Did you hear about the Lindbergh baby? And did you vote for Roosevelt?
Top Ten Baby Names of 1932
Girls: Mary, Betty, Barbara, Dorothy, Joan Boys: Robert, James, John, William, Richard
U.S. Life Expectancy in 1932
Males: 61.0 years; Females: 63.5 years
Unemployment reached 24.1% in 1932. Nearly 2,300 banks collapsed during the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its Depression-era bottom of 41.22 on July 8 — down 89% from its September 1929 peak. These were the worst numbers of the worst economic crisis in American history.
The Stars
Josephine Baker, Joan Blondell, Claudette Colbert, Greta Garbo, Louise Brooks, Joan Crawford, Marion Davies, Dolores Del Rio, Marlene Dietrich, Kay Francis, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Myrna Loy, Barbara Stanwyck, Thelma Todd, Mae West
The Quote
“I want to be alone.” — Greta Garbo as Grusinskaya in Grand Hotel
Time Magazine’s Man of the Year
Franklin D. Roosevelt — elected president in November 1932 by 472 electoral votes to Herbert Hoover’s 59, carrying 42 of 48 states in the most lopsided presidential election since 1820
Miss America
No Miss America was crowned in 1932. The pageant remained suspended due to financial difficulties and controversy.
We Lost in 1932
George Eastman — the founder of Eastman Kodak and the man who made photography accessible to ordinary people through the introduction of the Kodak camera in 1888- died March 14, 1932, in Rochester, New York, at age 77. He had donated over $100 million to universities, medical schools, and arts organizations during his lifetime. His suicide note read: “To my friends: My work is done. Why wait?”
John Philip Sousa — the composer known as “The March King,” whose Stars and Stripes Forever became the official march of the United States- died March 6, 1932, at age 77, in Reading, Pennsylvania, following a rehearsal of his band.
Peg Entwistle — the Welsh-born actress who had moved to Hollywood hoping for a film career, climbed the H of the Hollywoodland sign on September 16, 1932, and jumped to her death at age 24. She had recently been dropped from her film contract. A letter from a theater company offering her a role arrived at her home the day after she died.
Born in 1932
Johnny Cash — February 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas. The Man in Black.
Elizabeth Taylor — February 27, 1932, in London. She became one of the most celebrated film actresses and one of the most recognized faces of the 20th century.
Little Richard — December 5, 1932, in Macon, Georgia. Richard Wayne Penniman, whose “Tutti Frutti,” “Long Tall Sally,” and “Good Golly, Miss Molly” were foundational to rock and roll.
Debbie Reynolds — April 1, 1932, in El Paso, Texas.
Ted Kennedy — February 22, 1932, in Brookline, Massachusetts.
America in 1932 — The Context
Herbert Hoover entered 1932 with unemployment at 24% and no effective response. His administration had provided loans to banks and railroads through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation but resisted direct federal relief to unemployed individuals, believing it would undermine character and create dependency. The country emphatically disagreed with this assessment.
The election of November 8, 1932, was less a choice than a verdict. Roosevelt carried 42 states. Hoover carried 6. Hoover’s name had already been attached to the cardboard shantytowns outside every major American city. “Hoovervilles” were where people lived when everything else was gone. The president whose name meant failure lost to a man who promised to try something — anything — different, and the country gave him the largest mandate in a generation.
The Depression’s worst numbers arrived in 1932. The Dow hit 41.22. Nearly 2,300 banks failed. Unemployment neared 25%. GDP had contracted 30% from its 1929 peak. Industrial production was at half its former level. Prices were falling. The money supply was contracting. And still the outgoing administration argued that direct relief was inadvisable.
The Lindbergh Kidnapping
Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., 20 months old, was taken from his second-floor nursery at the Lindbergh estate near Hopewell, New Jersey, on the night of March 1, 1932. A ransom note demanding $50,000 was found on the windowsill. A homemade wooden ladder used to reach the window was found nearby. Despite payment of the ransom — negotiated through a go-between and paid on April 2 — the baby was not returned. His body was found in the woods approximately five miles from the family home on May 12, 1932, with a fractured skull. He had been dead since the night of the kidnapping.
The case consumed the American public’s attention for more than two years. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, a German-born carpenter, was arrested in September 1934 after a gold certificate from the ransom was traced to him. He was convicted in February 1935 and executed in April 1936, maintaining his innocence to the end. The case was never fully resolved to everyone’s satisfaction; Hauptmann’s wife maintained his innocence until her death in 1994.
The direct legislative consequence was the Federal Kidnapping Act of 1932 — the Lindbergh Law — making interstate kidnapping a federal crime. It passed in less than two weeks after the kidnapping became known.
The Bonus Army
In June 1932, approximately 17,000 World War I veterans and their families descended on Washington, D.C., to demand early payment of bonus certificates they had been promised for their wartime service — certificates not scheduled to pay out until 1945. They camped along the Anacostia River in makeshift shelters and marched on the Capitol. They called themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force; the press called them the Bonus Army.
Congress voted down the bonus bill. Most of the marchers stayed. On July 28, President Hoover ordered General Douglas MacArthur to evict them. MacArthur used infantry, cavalry with drawn sabers, tanks, and tear gas to disperse the veterans and burn their camps. Major Dwight Eisenhower, MacArthur’s aide, later wrote that he had advised against MacArthur personally leading the charge and had been overruled. Major George Patton also participated.
The images of the U.S. Army driving veterans off with bayonets and burning their camps destroyed what remained of Hoover’s public standing. Roosevelt, watching from Albany, reportedly said it was the end of Hoover’s presidency. He was correct.
FDR’s Election
Franklin Roosevelt was elected the 32nd President of the United States on November 8, 1932, defeating Hoover by 472 electoral votes to 59. He carried 42 of 48 states and 57.4% of the popular vote. It was the most complete presidential repudiation since the era of non-competitive elections in the early 19th century.
Roosevelt had run on a platform of relief, recovery, and reform, promising a “New Deal” for the American people without specifying what it would entail. The country voted for it anyway. What it meant became clear in the famous first 100 days of 1933. In November 1932, it was simply the opposite of what had come before.
Amelia Earhart’s Solo Atlantic Flight
On May 20-21, 1932, five years to the day after Lindbergh’s crossing, Amelia Earhart took off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in a Lockheed Vega 5B and landed approximately 14 hours and 56 minutes later in a pasture near Londonderry, Northern Ireland. She was the first woman and only the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic. She had intended to land in Paris but was diverted by mechanical problems and severe icing. A farmer who witnessed her landing asked if she had come far. She said “From America.” He did not believe her.
Pop Culture Facts and History
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley was published on February 1, 1932. Set in a future society where humans are genetically engineered, socially conditioned, and kept docile through pleasure and a happiness drug called Soma, it depicted a totalitarianism of comfort rather than terror — a dystopia that readers in 1932 found more plausible than Orwell’s later vision because it required no gulags, only convenience and distraction. Its relevance has never diminished.
Grand Hotel was released on April 12, 1932, directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, and Lionel Barrymore — five of the biggest stars in Hollywood in a single film. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture and remains the only film to win Best Picture without receiving any other nominations. Garbo’s line “I want to be alone” became one of the most parodied in film history. Garbo’s genuine preference for privacy was so strong that the line seemed biographical.
Freaks, directed by Tod Browning and released February 12, 1932, cast actual circus performers with physical differences in a horror film about betrayal and revenge. It was so disturbing to preview audiences that MGM cut approximately 30 minutes from the final release, and the film was banned outright in the United Kingdom for 30 years. It was a box office failure in 1932 and is now considered one of the most original American films of the decade.
Scarface, directed by Howard Hawks and starring Paul Muni, was released on April 9, 1932. It was the most explicit and violent gangster film made to that point, loosely based on Al Capone, and was heavily censored in several states. Its influence on the genre extended through the 1983 remake by Brian De Palma.
The Mummy, released on December 22, 1932, starring Boris Karloff, introduced a new monster to the Universal horror franchise and exploited the public fascination with Tutankhamun’s tomb, which had persisted since 1922. Karloff’s mummy appeared fully wrapped for approximately five minutes of the film’s running time — the rest of his performance was in makeup, suggesting ancient age.
Radio City Music Hall opened on December 27, 1932, at 1260 Sixth Avenue in New York City. The opening night featured Ray Bolger — later the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz — and dancer Martha Graham. The theater seated 5,960 people and was the largest indoor theater in the world. Built as part of Rockefeller Center during the Depression, its Art Deco interior was deliberately designed as a “palace for the people” — a place of theatrical grandeur accessible at ordinary ticket prices.
White Zombie, released August 4, 1932, directed by Victor Halperin and starring Bela Lugosi, was the first feature-length zombie film. Its zombies were not the flesh-eating variety that later dominated the genre but rather Haitian-tradition undead — people stripped of will and controlled by a sorcerer. The word “zombie” had entered Western vocabulary only three years earlier.
The Betty Boop short Minnie the Moocher, released February 26, 1932, featured the earliest known film of Cab Calloway performing — both his signature song and what appears to be a moonwalk, decades before Michael Jackson made the move famous. Calloway’s version was a full-body shimmy-glide that the animators traced for their rotoscoped ghost walrus character.
The 1932 Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles from July 30 to August 14, the first Olympics held in the Western United States. Attendance was low due to Depression-era travel costs — only 37 countries participated, compared to 46 in 1928. The Games introduced the victory podium and the photo-finish camera for track events. The standout athlete was Mildred “Babe” Didrikson, who won gold medals in the 80-meter hurdles and the javelin, and a silver medal in the high jump. She had entered the Amateur Athletic Union national championships as a one-woman team representing her employer and won the team championship by herself, scoring 30 points to the second-place team’s 22. She later became one of the greatest golfers of either gender.
The 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, were the first Olympics to feature the three-tier medal podium. Eddie Eagan of the United States won a gold medal in the four-man bobsled, having already won gold in boxing at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics — making him the only athlete in history to win gold medals at both the Summer and Winter Games in different sports.
Babe Ruth’s “called shot” — his most debated achievement — allegedly occurred in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series at Wrigley Field on October 1. Ruth, facing Cubs pitcher Charlie Root after being loudly heckled, supposedly pointed toward the center field bleachers before hitting the next pitch there. Whether he was gesturing at the bleachers, the Cubs’ dugout, or simply waving at Root is unclear. The home run was real. The “call” has been contested by everyone involved ever since. Ruth hit another home run in the same at-bat later in the game. The Yankees swept the Series in four games.
Hattie Caraway of Arkansas became the first woman elected to the United States Senate on January 12, 1932, having been appointed to fill her late husband’s seat the previous year. She served until 1945 — two full terms — and became the first woman to chair a Senate committee.
James Chadwick discovered the neutron in February 1932. Carl David Anderson discovered the positron, the antimatter equivalent of the electron, in August 1932. Both discoveries in the same year represented an extraordinary advance in understanding matter and provided foundational elements for nuclear and particle physics. The atom, as Rutherford had modeled it, was definitively incomplete.
The discovery of the neutron was particularly consequential: without the neutron, there would be no nuclear fission, no chain reaction, no atomic bomb, and no nuclear power. Chadwick received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1935.
Goofy first appeared in the 1932 Mickey Mouse short Mickey’s Revue under the name “Dippy Dawg.” He was redesigned and renamed over the following years. The name “Goofy” was in use by 1934. His defining characteristic — cheerful incompetence delivered with complete self-confidence — was established immediately.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its Depression-era low of 41.22 on July 8, 1932 — down 89.2% from its peak of 381.17 on September 3, 1929. The fall represented the destruction of nearly 9/10 of the American stock market’s value in under three years. Recovery to the 1929 peak did not occur until 1954, 25 years later.
The demand for cash was so low during the Depression that the U.S. Mint halted nickel production in 1932 and 1933 — an event with no precedent in American monetary history and a precise measure of how thoroughly the economy had contracted.
The first federal gasoline tax — one cent per gallon — was created by the Revenue Act of 1932, signed June 6. Every subsequent increase in the federal gas tax traces to this origin.
The “This is a work of fiction” disclaimer that appears at the end of films became standard practice because of a 1932 lawsuit. Princess Irina Yusupova of Russia sued MGM over the film Rasputin and the Empress, claiming it implied she had been seduced by Rasputin. She won. MGM settled for an undisclosed sum. The industry-wide adoption of the disclaimer was the direct result.
The Great Emu War of 1932 was an Australian government operation to cull the emu population in the Campion district of Western Australia, where approximately 20,000 emus were damaging wheat crops. The Royal Australian Artillery was deployed with two Lewis guns. The emus were uncooperative. They split into small groups, making concentrated fire impossible, and absorbed multiple shots without falling. The operation was called off after 12 days as a failure. A second attempt in November also proved inconclusive. The Australian parliament declined further military operations against the emus. Major G.P.W. Meredith, who commanded the operation, described the emus as having “a military division” with “the bullet-carrying capacity of tanks.”
Before 1932, the giant character balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade were released into the air at the end of the event rather than deflated and stored. Rudy the Reindeer balloon wrapped itself around a plane’s wing in 1932, sending the aircraft into a tailspin before the pilot managed to recover. The balloon release tradition was immediately discontinued.
Nielsen market research was founded in 1932 by Arthur C. Nielsen, who invented the concept of “market share” — measuring what percentage of a given market a product captured relative to its competitors. The methodology became standard across American business and eventually formed the basis for the Nielsen television ratings system.
Nobel Prize Winners
Physics — Werner Karl Heisenberg for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which led to, among other things, the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen; his uncertainty principle remains one of the foundational statements about the nature of physical reality
Chemistry — Irving Langmuir for his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry, foundational to understanding catalysis and the behavior of materials at interfaces
Medicine — Sir Charles Scott Sherrington and Edgar Douglas Adrian for their discoveries regarding the functions of neurons; Sherrington’s work on reflex actions and Adrian’s on nerve impulse coding are foundational to modern neuroscience
Literature — John Galsworthy, British novelist and playwright, author of The Forsyte Saga, for his distinguished art of narration, which takes its highest form in The Forsyte Saga
Peace — not awarded in 1932
Broadway in 1932
Of Thee I Sing by George and Ira Gershwin, book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, was the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, awarded in 1932. It satirized American presidential politics with a love story as its central plotline. It had opened in December 1931 and ran through 1932.
Face the Music opened February 17, 1932, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. It satirized Depression-era New York and corrupt city politics with a lightness that audiences found relief in.
The 5th Academy Awards
Grand Hotel won Best Picture at the ceremony on November 18, 1932, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, hosted by Conrad Nagel. The film remains the only Best Picture winner in Oscar history with no other nominations. Walt Disney’s Flowers and Trees, the first animated cartoon made in full three-strip Technicolor, won the first Academy Award for Animated Short Film. Fredric March and Wallace Beery tied for Best Actor, the only tie in that category in Oscar history, because Beery lost by a single vote, and Academy rules at the time specified that a margin of less than three votes constituted a tie.
Top Movies of 1932
- Grand Hotel
- She Done Him Wrong
- Tarzan the Ape Man
- Scarface
- The Mummy
- Freaks
- White Zombie
- Blonde Venus
- Island of Lost Souls
- The Invisible Man
Popular and Best-Selling Books of 1932
Brave New World — Aldous Huxley
The Fountain — Charles Morgan
The Good Earth — Pearl S. Buck
Inheritance — Phyllis Bentley
Magnificent Obsession — Lloyd C. Douglas
The Sheltered Life — Ellen Glasgow
Sons — Pearl S. Buck
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932 and was the best-selling novel in the United States for two consecutive years. Buck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938, partly on the strength of this novel and its companion works.
Biggest Pop Artists of 1932
Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, The Mills Brothers, Guy Lombardo, Paul Whiteman, Rudy Vallee, Kate Smith, Ruth Etting, Ted Lewis, Wayne King, Leo Reisman
Bing Crosby’s Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? captured the Depression’s mood so accurately that some radio stations refused to play it, arguing it was too depressing for a public that needed encouragement rather than acknowledgment of despair. Crosby’s version reached #1 anyway.
The Habits
Going to the movies (35 cents was still manageable and provided two hours of escape); listening to the radio (it was free after the initial purchase); standing in breadlines; sleeping in Hoovervilles; riding freight trains in search of work; and waiting for November 8.
Sports Champions of 1932
World Series: New York Yankees swept the Chicago Cubs 4-0; Babe Ruth’s “called shot” in Game 3 remains the most debated single moment in World Series history
Stanley Cup: Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the New York Rangers 3-0
U.S. Open Golf: Gene Sarazen won by three strokes at Fresh Meadow Country Club, one of six major championships in his career
U.S. Open Tennis: Men/Women: H. Ellsworth Vines / Helen H. Jacobs
Wimbledon: Men/Women: Ellsworth Vines / Helen Moody
NCAA Football Champions: Michigan and USC (co-champions)
Kentucky Derby: Burgoo King Boston
Marathon: Paul de Bruyn, 2:33:36
Sports Highlight: Babe Didrikson’s performance at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics was one of the greatest individual showings in Olympic track and field history, gold in the 80-meter hurdles, gold in the javelin, and silver in the high jump, where she was penalized for her unorthodox diving style. She would have won three golds under modern rules. The U.S. field hockey team won bronze at the same Olympics despite losing both of their games, because only three teams participated.
FAQs — 1932 Trivia, Fun Facts, and Pop Culture History
Q: What was the Lindbergh kidnapping?
A: On March 1, 1932, 20-month-old Charles Lindbergh Jr. was taken from the Lindbergh family home in New Jersey. Despite payment of a $50,000 ransom, the baby’s body was found in May, within five miles of the house. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted and executed in 1936. The case produced the federal Lindbergh Law, making interstate kidnapping a federal crime.
Q: What was the Bonus Army?
A: Approximately 17,000 World War I veterans marched on Washington in June 1932 to demand early payment of bonus certificates not due until 1945. When Congress voted down the bonus, President Hoover ordered General Douglas MacArthur to evict them by force. The Army used tanks, cavalry, and tear gas to burn the veterans’ camps. The images destroyed what remained of Hoover’s public support.
Q: What did Amelia Earhart accomplish in 1932?
A: On May 20-21, 1932, she became the first woman and second person to fly solo across the Atlantic, taking off from Newfoundland and landing in Northern Ireland in just under 15 hours, five years to the day after Lindbergh’s crossing.
Q: What was Babe Ruth’s “called shot”?
A: In Game 3 of the 1932 World Series at Wrigley Field, Ruth allegedly pointed toward center field before hitting a home run there in the fifth inning. Whether he was calling his shot, gesturing at hecklers, or simply pointing at the pitcher has been disputed by every witness ever since. The home run was real. The call remains the most debated moment in World Series history.
Q: What scientific discoveries were made in 1932?
A: James Chadwick discovered the neutron in February 1932, providing the final missing piece of atomic structure. Carl Anderson discovered the positron — the antimatter equivalent of the electron — in August. Both discoveries in the same year represented a transformation in the understanding of matter. The discovery of the neutron, in particular, made nuclear fission and the atomic bomb theoretically possible.
Q: Why did the Dow Jones bottom out in 1932?
A: July 8, 1932, the Dow hit 41.22, down 89.2% from its September 1929 peak of 381.17. Bank failures, business closures, unemployment, and the contraction of the money supply created a deflationary spiral that the Hoover administration’s policies could not reverse. Recovery to the 1929 peak did not occur until 1954.
Q: What was the first zombie film?
A: White Zombie, released August 4, 1932, directed by Victor Halperin and starring Bela Lugosi. Its zombies were Haitian-tradition undead; people stripped of will and controlled by a sorcerer, rather than the flesh-eating variety that later defined the genre.
More 1932 Facts & History Resources:
Most Popular Baby Names (BabyCenter.com)
Popular and Notable Books (popculture.us)
Broadway Shows that Opened in 1932
1932 Calendar, courtesy of Time and Date.com
Fact Monster
The Great Depression Investopedia
1930s, Infoplease.com World History
1932 in Movies (according to IMDB)
Retrowaste Vintage Culture
1930s Slang
Wikipedia 1932
WW II Timeline
