1937 History, Facts, and Trivia

Quick Facts from 1937

• World-Changing Event: The Golden Gate Bridge opened May 28, 1937, connecting San Francisco to Marin County across one of the most difficult stretches of open water in the world — a Depression-era engineering achievement that became one of the most recognized structures on Earth
• Disaster: The Hindenburg airship exploded at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937, killing 36 people and ending the era of commercial airship travel in a single broadcast
• Top Songs: They Can’t Take That Away From Me, I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, Harbor Lights, and Once in a While
• Must-See Movies: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, A Day at the Races, Captains Courageous, Lost Horizon, Stage Door, The Awful Truth, and Shall We Dance
• The Most Famous Person in America: Shirley Temple
• The Funny Guy: Jack Benny
• Notable Books: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Metropolitan Opera ticket: $2–$5; Coke: 5 cents; cherry pie: 25 cents; Monopoly game: $2.00; raccoon coat: $98.00; average house rent: $26/month
• U.S. Life Expectancy: Males 58.0 years; Females 62.4 years
• Chinese Zodiac: Year of the Ox, associated with diligence, dependability, and a quiet strength — a reasonable set of qualities to admire when the world was this complicated
• The Conversation: Did you hear the radio broadcast of the Hindenburg? And have you read Gone with the Wind yet?

Top Ten Baby Names of 1937

Girls: Mary, Barbara, Patricia, Shirley, Betty Boys: Robert, James, John, William, Richard

Shirley, fifth most popular girl’s name in 1937, was almost certainly influenced by Shirley Temple, who had been the top box office draw in America since 1934. The name had been rare before her.

The Stars

Josephine Baker, Joan Blondell, Claudette Colbert, Olivia de Havilland, Betty Grable, Hedy Lamarr, Myrna Loy, Ginger Rogers, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner

Time Magazine’s Men of the Year

Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling, the Chinese Nationalist leader and his wife, recognized for leading China’s resistance against Japan’s full-scale invasion in 1937, the opening phase of what became World War II in the Pacific

Miss America

Bette Cooper, Bertrand Island, NJ, who won the title and then, famously, had second thoughts and was escorted out of Atlantic City by her escort before the press could reach her, declining to fulfill her obligations as Miss America. She is the only Miss America in the pageant’s history to effectively abdicate.

We Lost in 1937

Jean Harlow, the actress known as the “Blonde Bombshell” and the “Platinum Blonde,” the defining sex symbol of the early 1930s and one of MGM’s biggest stars- died June 7, 1937, at age 26, of acute kidney failure at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. She had been ill for weeks, but her mother, a Christian Scientist, had refused to allow medical treatment until it was too late. Harlow had been in the middle of filming Saratoga when she collapsed. MGM completed the film using a stand-in and a body double. It was one of the highest-grossing films of 1937.

George Gershwin, the composer of Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, Porgy and Bess, and some of the most celebrated songs in the American songbook, died July 11, 1937, in Los Angeles, at age 38, of a brain tumor. He had been complaining of headaches and smelling burning rubber for months. Surgeons operated but could not save him. His death was one of the most mourned in American cultural history. He had written more enduring music in 38 years than most composers manage in a lifetime.

Bessie Smith, the “Empress of the Blues,” whose recordings in the 1920s had established the commercial market for blues music and whose voice remains one of the most powerful in American recording history, died September 26, 1937, near Clarksdale, Mississippi, at approximately age 43, after a car accident. Over 7,000 people attended her funeral.

Amelia Earhart — see below.

Born in 1937

Jack Nicholson — April 22, 1937, in Neptune City, New Jersey.
Jane Fonda — December 21, 1937, in New York City.
Morgan Freeman — June 1, 1937, in Memphis, Tennessee.
Colin Powell — April 5, 1937, in Harlem, New York.
Madeleine Albright — May 15, 1937, in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Dustin Hoffman — August 8, 1937, in Los Angeles.

America in 1937 — The Context

Franklin Roosevelt began his second term on January 20, 1937, the first inauguration held on the new January 20 date established by the 20th Amendment. The economy had been recovering since 1933, with unemployment falling from its 25% peak to approximately 14.3%, still high but demonstrably better. Then, in the second half of 1937, Roosevelt made what economists later called his most consequential error: he cut federal spending and raised taxes prematurely, convinced the recovery was secure. The economy immediately contracted in what became known as the “Roosevelt Recession” of 1937-38, and unemployment climbed back toward 19%. The miscalculation set recovery back two years.

Internationally, Japan launched a full-scale invasion of China in July 1937, the Spanish Civil War was producing international alarm, and Hitler was clearly moving toward something. The United States was officially neutral and mostly focused inward. The Depression had made it so.

The Hindenburg Disaster

The LZ 129 Hindenburg, the largest aircraft ever built, 804 feet long, capable of carrying 72 passengers in first-class comfort across the Atlantic in three days, approached its mooring mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, at approximately 7:25 p.m. on May 6, 1937. At 7:25 p.m., while hundreds of spectators and journalists watched, the tail of the airship caught fire. Within 37 seconds, the entire ship was engulfed. The Hindenburg fell to the ground, burning.

Thirty-six of the 97 people on board were killed — 13 passengers, 22 crew members, and one ground worker. Sixty-two people survived, some by jumping from the burning gondola. The airship had been filled with hydrogen rather than the safer helium because the United States had placed an embargo on helium exports. The exact cause of the initial ignition has never been definitively established.

Herbert Morrison, a radio reporter for WLS Chicago, was narrating the landing for a recorded broadcast when the fire began. His voice breaking — “Oh, the humanity! And all the passengers screaming around here!” — became one of the most replayed audio recordings in history, though it was recorded rather than broadcast live. The Hindenburg disaster effectively ended commercial passenger airship service. Within two years, all major airship programs had been canceled.

Amelia Earhart’s Disappearance

Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, departed Lae, New Guinea, on July 2, 1937, on the most difficult leg of her attempt to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air — a 2,556-mile overwater flight to tiny Howland Island in the central Pacific. Their last radio contact was received at 8:43 a.m. local time. They were never seen again.

The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard conducted the largest search in naval history to that point, covering approximately 250,000 square miles of ocean, and found nothing. Earhart and Noonan were declared dead in absentia on January 5, 1939.

What happened has never been conclusively determined. The most widely accepted explanation is that they ran out of fuel and ditched in the ocean near Howland Island. Alternative theories, including that they landed on Gardner Island (now Nikumaroro) and survived briefly as castaways, or that they were captured by the Japanese, have been investigated extensively without definitive proof. The mystery has generated more books, documentaries, expeditions, and arguments than any other disappearance in aviation history.

Earhart had been the most famous aviator in the world after Lindbergh. She had been the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic (1932) and the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California (1935). She was 39 years old.

Pop Culture Facts and History

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles on December 21, 1937. It was the first feature-length animated film with synchronized sound and full color, produced by Walt Disney over four years at a cost of $1.5 million — a figure so alarming that the Hollywood industry called the project “Disney’s Folly.” The film earned over $8 million at the box office and became the highest-grossing film in history at that point, a record it held until Gone with the Wind two years later.

Adriana Caselotti was paid $970 to voice Snow White, a sum she was contractually prohibited from mentioning publicly for decades. She and Harry Stockwell, the voice of Prince Charming, were not invited to the premiere. They snuck in and watched from the back. Walt Disney received an honorary Academy Award, one full-size Oscar and seven miniature ones representing the dwarfs.

Snow White premiered two months after The Hobbit was published. The timing created an inadvertent cultural moment — the two most beloved dwarf stories of the 20th century appearing within weeks of each other. Tolkien’s dwarves numbered 13; Disney’s numbered 7. The two groups have since been successfully distinguished in most audiences’ minds.

The Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrians on May 27, 1937, and to vehicles on May 28. The bridge spans 4,200 feet between its towers, the longest suspension bridge span in the world at the time, and took four years and four months to build at a cost of $35 million. Its distinctive International Orange color was selected because it complemented the natural setting and enhanced visibility in fog. Eleven workers died during construction; 19 others were saved by the safety net strung beneath the bridge, the “Halfway to Hell Club.” Chief engineer Joseph Strauss had designed the net specifically to protect workers, an unusual practice for the era.

Detective Comics published its first issue in March 1937, launching what became the longest-continuously published comic book in American history. The character Batman did not appear until issue #27 in May 1939, 27 issues after the debut. Detective Comics is still published as of 2024.

Daffy Duck made his debut on April 17, 1937, in Tex Avery’s Porky’s Duck Hunt for Looney Tunes. His first appearance was more manic than his subsequent characterizations — a screwball bird who bounced across the water shouting “Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!” He was voiced by Mel Blanc, who created the voice by speaking with a lisp. Daffy was an immediate sensation with preview audiences and became a regular character within months.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell was the bestselling fiction book of 1937 and remained so through 1938. Mitchell had worked on the novel for ten years and initially resisted submitting it. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938 and was adapted into a film released in 1939. It sold over 30 million copies in its first decade. Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom and was subsequently struck by a car in Atlanta in 1949, and died five days later.

The Hobbit, published September 21, 1937, by George Allen and Unwin in London, was the first book in what became Tolkien’s Middle-earth mythology. Tolkien had been telling the story to his children for years. His publisher’s 10-year-old son read the manuscript and reportedly declared it should be published. It sold out its first print run before Christmas and has been in continuous print since. It was the appetizer for The Lord of the Rings, which followed 17 years later.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston was published in 1937, depicting the life of a Black woman in rural Florida with a lyrical specificity and emotional depth that no American novel had brought to that subject. It was initially dismissed by some Black literary figures as insufficiently political. It was rediscovered in the 1970s and is now considered one of the most important American novels of the 20th century. Hurston wrote it in seven weeks.

Spam was introduced by the Hormel Company on July 5, 1937, as a canned product made from pork shoulder and ham, seasoned and processed into a loaf. The name was coined by Kenneth Daigneau, the brother of a Hormel executive, who won a $100 prize for suggesting it. Spam became an essential part of World War II military rations and was shipped to Allied forces worldwide. Nikita Khrushchev later credited Spam with helping feed the Soviet army. The internet later borrowed its name from unsolicited email.

Chef Boyardee was created in 1937 when Hector Boiardi, an Italian immigrant who had catered Woodrow Wilson’s wedding reception, began canning his pasta sauce and selling it nationally. He spelled the name phonetically — “Boyardee” — so American customers would pronounce it correctly. Boiardi later directed the production of C-rations for Allied forces during World War II.

The shopping cart was invented in 1937 by Sylvan Goldman, owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma City, who noticed that customers stopped shopping when their handheld baskets became too heavy. His first design was a folding chair with a basket on it. The initial customer reaction was negative: men considered it unmanly, and women thought it looked like a baby carriage. Goldman hired models to push the carts around his stores to demonstrate their use. By 1940, they had spread nationwide.

Ray-Ban sunglasses, originally developed in 1936 for U.S. Army Air Corps pilots to reduce glare during flight, went on sale to the general public in 1937. The aviator-style, teardrop-shaped lenses in a thin metal frame became one of the most imitated eyewear designs in history.

Hewlett-Packard was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California, in 1937 by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard with $538 in startup capital. Their first product was an audio oscillator; their first major customer was Walt Disney, who bought eight units for use in making Fantasia. The garage is preserved and recognized as the birthplace of Silicon Valley.

The first hospital-based blood bank in the United States opened at Cook County Hospital in Chicago in March 1937, established by Dr. Bernard Fantus, who coined the term “blood bank.” Previously, blood transfusions required a donor to be physically present. The blood bank allowed stored blood to be used as needed, doubling the number of transfusions within a year. The concept transformed surgery and emergency medicine.

The New London School explosion occurred on March 18, 1937, when a natural gas leak ignited beneath the London, Texas, school building, causing an explosion that killed an estimated 295 students and teachers — the deadliest school disaster in American history. The school had disconnected from the utility company’s gas line and tapped directly into a residue gas line from a nearby oil field, which they believed was waste gas and therefore free. It was not monitored. The explosion was felt miles away. The disaster directly led to the requirement that mercaptan — the distinctive sulfur smell — be added to otherwise odorless natural gas so leaks could be detected.

The photocopier was invented by Chester F. Carlson in 1937. His process — electrophotography, later called xerography — used static electricity and a light-sensitive surface to transfer images from an original to a copy surface. He was repeatedly rejected by major corporations, including IBM, RCA, and General Electric, before the Haloid Company (later renamed Xerox) commercialized the technology in 1959. Twenty-two years passed between the invention and the first practical copier’s market entry.

The Guiding Light debuted on NBC radio on January 25, 1937, as a daytime serial drama. It moved to CBS television in 1952 and ran until September 18, 2009 — a combined radio and television run of 72 years, the longest in broadcasting history.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery has been continuously guarded without interruption since July 2, 1937. The sentinel program operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in all weather conditions. The guards change every 30 minutes in summer and every hour in winter.

Ronald Reagan made his film debut in October 1937 in Love Is on the Air for Warner Bros., playing a radio announcer named Andy McCaine. He appeared in over 50 films before entering politics. He was elected Governor of California in 1967 and President of the United States in 1980.

The 1937 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for In Old Chicago was awarded to Alice Brady, but she was unable to attend the ceremony. A man walked up, accepted the statuette on her behalf, and disappeared. He was never identified. The Oscar was never returned. Brady received a replacement Oscar, but the original theft remains one of the more unusual incidents in Academy Award history.

The 1937 Fox vault fire on July 9 destroyed the silent film archives of Fox Film Corporation, including thousands of reels from the Company and its predecessors, representing an estimated 75% of all Fox silent films. The fire was one of the most significant cultural losses in film history. Many of the destroyed films are gone permanently.

Nylon received its patent in 1937, awarded to DuPont chemist Wallace Carothers. The first commercial nylon products — toothbrush bristles — appeared in 1938. Nylon stockings went on sale in 1940, producing one of the largest retail events in American history. Carothers did not live to see it: he died by suicide in 1937, two weeks after receiving the patent.

The March of Dimes was founded on January 3, 1937, by President Roosevelt to combat polio, which he himself had contracted in 1921. The name came from comedian Eddie Cantor, who coined it as a fundraising slogan — asking Americans to send dimes to the White House. Thirteen million dimes were received. The organization funded Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine research, which led to the development of the vaccine in 1955.

Nobel Prize Winners

Physics — Clinton Davisson and George Paget Thomson for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals, confirming the wave nature of electrons, and foundational to quantum mechanics and electron microscopy
Chemistry — Walter Haworth and Paul Karrer; Haworth for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C; Karrer for his investigations on carotenoids, flavins, and vitamins A and B2
Medicine — Albert von Szent-Györgyi for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes, with special reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid; his discovery of vitamin C was largely responsible for the eradication of scurvy
Literature — Roger Martin du Gard, French novelist, for the artistic power and truth with which he has depicted human conflict as well as some fundamental aspects of contemporary life in his novel cycle The Thibaults
Peace — Robert Cecil, British statesman and one of the principal architects of the League of Nations

Broadway in 1937

Pins and Needles, produced by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union and performed by union members, opened November 27, 1937, at the Labor Stage Theatre. A musical revue satirizing labor issues, fascism, and current events, it ran for 1,108 performances, more than any other musical on Broadway to that point. It was the first Broadway show produced by a labor union and performed by non-professional workers.

I’d Rather Be Right, a political satire with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, opened November 2, 1937, with George M. Cohan playing Franklin Roosevelt. The sitting president was satirized on Broadway to his face, more or less.

The 9th Academy Awards

The Great Ziegfeld won Best Picture. Luise Rainer won Best Actress for the second consecutive year — the first actor of either gender to win back-to-back Oscars. This ceremony introduced Oscar statuettes for supporting categories, replacing the plaques previously given. The Best Original Song award was introduced; its first winner was “The Way You Look Tonight” from Swing Time, music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy Fields.

Top Movies of 1937

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
2. Captains Courageous
3. A Day at the Races
4. Lost Horizon
5. Stage Door
6. The Awful Truth
7. Shall We Dance
8. A Star Is Born
9. Nothing Sacred
10. Angel

A Star Is Born was released on April 27, 1937, its original version not centered on musicians but on an actress and an actor whose career was declining as hers rose. It has been remade in 1954, 1976, and 2018, with each version shifting to a musical framework. The arc, the star in ascent, the star in decline, the sacrifice,  has proven durable across every era.

Popular and Best-Selling Books of 1937

The Citadel — A.J. Cronin
Death on the Nile — Agatha Christie
Drums Along the Mohawk — Walter D. Edmonds
Gone with the Wind — Margaret Mitchell
The Hobbit — J.R.R. Tolkien
Northwest Passage — Kenneth Roberts
Of Mice and Men — John Steinbeck
Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale Hurston
Think and Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill
To Have and Have Not — Ernest Hemingway

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, published in 1937, drew on interviews Hill had conducted with Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and other industrialists over 20 years. It outlined what Hill called the “philosophy of achievement” principles for acquiring wealth through mindset, persistence, and desire. It sold over 100 million copies and became one of the best-selling self-help books in history, read by everyone from businesspeople to motivational speakers to prisoners. Its core thesis, that thoughts become things,  has been either celebrated as transformative wisdom or criticized as unfalsifiable positive thinking, depending on the reader.

Biggest Pop Artists of 1937

Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Billie Holiday, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Connee Boswell, Mildred Bailey, Guy Lombardo, Jimmie Lunceford, Bob Crosby, Teddy Wilson, Rudy Vallee

Benny Goodman’s January 16, 1938, Carnegie Hall concert, recorded the night after the year’s end but the culmination of 1937’s swing explosion, is considered the moment jazz entered the American cultural mainstream. The 1937 season at the Savoy Ballroom and Goodman’s radio broadcasts had made swing the defining popular music of the moment. The Carnegie Hall concert sold out immediately, an unheard-of event for a jazz performance at a classical music venue.

Billie Holiday recorded Strange Fruit, originally a poem about lynching written by Abel Meeropol,  in 1939, but her emergence as a major artist was fully established in 1937 through her recordings with Teddy Wilson’s orchestra and her residency at the Famous Door on 52nd Street.

Sports Champions of 1937

World Series: New York Yankees defeated the New York Giants 4-1; Joe DiMaggio was in his second season; the dynasty was continuing
NFL Champions: Washington Redskins defeated the Chicago Bears 28-21
Stanley Cup: Detroit Red Wings defeated the New York Rangers 3-2
U.S. Open Golf: Ralph Guldahl
U.S. Open Tennis: Men/Women: Don Budge / Anita Lizana
Wimbledon: Men/Women: Don Budge / Dorothy Round
NCAA Football Champions: Pittsburgh
Kentucky Derby: War Admiral, who went on to win the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes for the Triple Crown; his match race against Seabiscuit in November 1938 became one of the most celebrated events in horse racing history
Boston Marathon: Walter Young, 2:33:20

Sports Highlight: War Admiral won the Triple Crown in 1937,  the fourth Triple Crown winner in six years, following Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), and Whirlaway (1941). War Admiral was a son of Man o’ War and was considered the dominant racehorse of his era until November 1, 1938, when Seabiscuit beat him in a match race at Pimlico — one of the most listened-to sporting events in American radio history, attracting an estimated 40 million listeners.

FAQs: 1937 History, Facts, and Trivia

Q: What was the Hindenburg, and why did it explode?
A: The LZ 129 Hindenburg was the largest aircraft ever built, a German commercial airship 804 feet long, capable of carrying 72 passengers across the Atlantic in three days. On May 6, 1937, while mooring at Lakehurst, New Jersey, it caught fire and burned in 37 seconds, killing 36 of the 97 on board. It was filled with highly flammable hydrogen rather than safer helium because the U.S. had placed a helium export embargo on Germany. The exact cause of ignition has never been definitively established.

Q: What happened to Amelia Earhart?
A: She and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared July 2, 1937, during an overwater flight from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island in the Pacific, as part of her attempt to circumnavigate the globe. The most widely accepted explanation is that they ran out of fuel and ditched in the ocean. Alternative theories involving survival on a remote island or capture by Japan have been investigated but have yielded no conclusive evidence. The mystery has never been solved.

Q: Why was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs significant?
A: It was the first feature-length animated film with full color and synchronized sound. Hollywood called it “Disney’s Folly” before it opened. It earned over $8 million at the box office, became the highest-grossing film in history until Gone with the Wind, and proved that animated features could be a serious commercial and artistic medium. Walt Disney received an honorary Oscar, one full-size and seven miniature ones.

Q: What was the New London School explosion? A: On March 18, 1937, a natural gas leak ignited beneath the London, Texas, school building, killing approximately 295 students and teachers, the deadliest school disaster in American history. The school had tapped directly into an unmonitored gas line, believing the gas was a waste product. The explosion directly led to the requirement that mercaptan be added to odorless natural gas so leaks could be detected by smell.

Q: When was the shopping cart invented?
A: In 1937, by Sylvan Goldman of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma City. The initial customer reaction was negative — men considered it unmanly, and women thought it resembled a baby carriage. Goldman hired models to demonstrate how to use the carts. By 1940, they were standard in supermarkets nationwide.

Q: What Triple Crown horse ran in 1937?
A: War Admiral, a son of Man o’ War, won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes in 1937. He was considered the dominant American racehorse until November 1938, when Seabiscuit defeated him in a match race at Pimlico before an estimated 40 million radio listeners.

Q: When did Detective Comics first publish, and when did Batman appear?
A: Detective Comics published its first issue in March 1937. Batman did not appear until issue #27 in May 1939 — two years and 27 issues after the comic’s debut. Detective Comics is still published today, making it the longest continuously published comic book in American history.

More 1937 Facts & History Resources:

Most Popular Baby Names (BabyCenter.com)
Popular and Notable Books (popculture.us)
Broadway Shows that Opened in 1937
1937 Calendar, courtesy of Time and Date.com
Fact Monster
The Recession of 1937-38
1930s, Infoplease.com World History
1937 in Movies (according to IMDB)
Retrowaste Vintage Culture
1930s Slang
Wikipedia 1937
WW II Foundation