Believe it or not! The 1930s was a technologically progressive decade

We present new indicators of technological change for the period 1909-49 for the U.S. based on information contained in the Library of Congress’ catalogue. We use these indictors to estimate the connections between technological change and economic activity, and investigate the relationship between fluctuations in innovative activity and the Great Depression. We find: (1) statistically significant links between technological change, output and productivity, (2) the slowdown in technological progress in the early 1930s does not appear to have contributed significantly to the Great Depression, and (3) the remarkable acceleration in technical change after 1934 played a role in the recovery.