[1][2] The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 as well as bank holidays enacted by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 made it impossible for Wall Street investors to supply the major Hollywood film studios with the cash flow they needed.
Noticing that there was not a union to solely represent animators, Bill Nolan unsuccessfully tried to form such a union in 1925 named "Associated Animators" and a group formed by Grim Natwick, Shamus Culhane, and Al Eugster in 1932 was disbanded after executives began to threaten its employees and many members lost their jobs.
Bailey had been influenced by the socialist ideas of cartoonist Otto Soglow, with whom he had collaborated to produce two pilot episodes of an animated series adapting his comic strips for the screen, entitled “A Dizzy Day” and “AM to PM”.
[10] In 1935, Van Beuren Studios fired Sadie Bodin, an inker and scene planner, for pro-union sentiment, though she argued the Wagner Act prevented them from doing so.
The studio gave poor wages but generous bonuses and threw extravagant parties, though Max Fleischer's controlling behavior offended immigrant workers who had escaped dictatorships.
When artist Dan Glass died due to poor working conditions, the CADU blamed his death on Fleischer and began protesting outside the studio.
The strike lasted several months before Fleischer's partner Paramount Pictures intervened and demanded they sign a contract with the CADU.
This led to better working conditions and a paid week of vacation, as well as holidays and screen credits, and previously fired employees were re-hired.
Terrytoons hired students from New Rochelle High School as scabs, and Paul Terry outlasted strikers with a "large backlog of unreleased films".