What was the depression like?

[GingerSnaps]

My Mom use to talk about her parents living through a horrible republican era where milk was scarce, sugar was rationed and jobs were few and far between. She told us that people would come to her parents door asking for food and if they could work for them for a place to sleep and something to eat.

Are we headed for a depression right now or are we in one? How would we know if we are in a depression if the media is bought and paid for by the * Crime Coup?

[NEOBuckeye]

1. It's not here yet, but will be when the economy crashes

Probably sometime within the next 6 to 8 months or so.

[Roon]

2. If we're in a depression..

everyone will know.

[bryant69]

11. Actually one of the reason the Depression was called the Depression

Is that people didn't think it was that bad, compared to previous bank panics. I guess because it started a lot slower (after the crash) so people didn't realize how bad it was. I keep wondering if some time in the future we will be talking about the "Great Downturn."

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[WyLoochka]

3. Unemployment figures

"Great Depression"

1929 3.2 %
1930 8.7 %
1931 15.9 %
1932 23.6 %
1933 24.9 %
1934 21.7 %
1935 20.1 %
1936 16.9 %
1937 14.3 %
1938 19.0 %
1939 17.2 %
1940 14.6 %
1941 9.9 %
1942 4.7 %
1943 1.9 %

[GingerSnaps]

4. I wonder what our real unemployment figures are?

:shrug:

[AliciaKeyedUp]

9. Did unemployment even count women then?

Because most of us weren't working outside the home. I think your Depression/Depressing figures leave out that key reality.

[JanMichael]

10. That's part of today's problem

Many families in the US can't survive on just one salary; and we are mortgaged to the hilt, or have credit card payments that are ridiculous.

The predatory lenders and American "Dream" have really screwed this country.

[AliciaKeyedUp]

12. A lot of that is our fault

Look around your house. Look at the DVD players, the cell phones, the computers, the CDs, the endless supply of stuff. We don't need all that stuff, we just want it. Cut back on that and the extra cars and your needs for two jobs decline a lot.

[Wright Patman]

13. If everyone cut back,

the depression would begin immediately. The U.S. is hooked on deficit spending and consuming Chinese goods. Your premise is true. The nation needs to save more than 0.4 percent of national income, but there is no way peacefully to get there from here.

You are suggesting a "cold turkey" approach to an addict. It'd be a brutal detox and would last quite a few years. Probably the societal upheaval you would then witness would make you rethink your suggestion. Perhaps this would really hit home when you started suffering break-ins.

This is not the 1930s anymore. People are not going to come to your door to "ask" if you have any work. Many will come to your door loaded for bear.

[AliciaKeyedUp]

14. No I am suggesting a personal approach

We have done some cutting back in my family mainly because we realized we didn't need all of this and others needed things. I try to save some more than I used to, but I also helped put a cousin through school. That was more rewarding to me than the latest Cold Play CD.

I am talking about getting our priorities straight.

And anyone who comes loaded for bear to a door in Virginia takes their lives in their hands.

[GingerSnaps]

54. If a bear came to the door in the south

It would be mounted right above the fireplace :D

[genieroze]

51. Many will come to your door loaded for bear.

What does that mean?

[GingerSnaps]

37. You need two jobs in order to pay rent and eat

Luxuries are out of the question.

[AliciaKeyedUp]

58. Depends on what you do for a living

I guess.

[RaleighNCDUer]

18. Good point. A lot of families survived the loss of the single job

income by the wife taking on part time work, taking in laundry and sewing, being a buffer against absolute poverty. We have the welfare state now as our buffer, but need two incomes just to get by. All we have left to send out for extra income are the kids. At least we have the safety nets of social security and employer provided health insurance...

Oh. Never mind.

[serryjw]

43. Not to mention minorities!

they also were probably not counted.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. There is an interesting study out there...

Who overlayed a long-term graph of present market activity with the same of the depression's. The oscillations on the graph are almost exactly the same. A basically sideways market, with, when you look at the other aspects of the economic picture, spells "flat, flat, flat, flat, flat"

Now, those of freepish nature would say "But, the market is over 10,000!". Well, I would counter with the ststement that the index is a relative number, one made up out of whole cloth. A marketing tool, nothing more. It has long been my feeling that there is a abyssal gap between the markets and the street economy.

Remember what one of the Mellon boys said, back when: "Depressions are when wealth returns to its natural owners". Remember and consider well that statement, in light of what is known.

This is, in truth, a managed depression. It has been so since 2001.

[GingerSnaps]

36. What about the crime rate?

Someone once said that a judgment can be made by the white collar vs the blue collar crime rate but I can't understand that theory. :shrug:

[no_hypocrisy]

6. One out of every three men lost their jobs.

Middleclass businessmen were forced to sell apples on the street for five cents apiece. Soup lines wrapped around blocks in the city. Men were forced to abandon their families and become hoboes who rode the rails and were driven out of towns by police for being "vagrants" as they searched for work anywhere.

If you want to see the "face" of the Depression, get Grapes of Wrath and watch the travails of the Joad family, who were driven from their land, and who traveled vainly to find a respectable life in a new part of the country. One scene stands out in my mind: two gas station attendants, dressed in white, comment about the Joads after they leave, "How can people want to live like that?!" This is indicative of despite how many people tried to help their neighbor or stranger, a lot of the country looked down on people during the Depression as though they caused their own misery.

[GingerSnaps]

55. I have seen the Grapes of Wrath

:cry:

[Skidmore]

7. I know it was tough. My mom used to tell me about how many of her

dresses for school were made from flour sacks, and that those who couldn't raise their own food really suffered. She told us about the rationing of major commodities, too. She also noted that her older brothers travelled around quite a bit to find any employment to supplement the family income to help their parents out.

It appears we've learned nothing. Back to the future.

[SoCalDem]

61. My mother started school wearing a dress made from

my Grandfather's overcoat.. They recyled everything back then. Thisng were not disposable,. there was NO PLASTIC anything..Items were durable.. people got toasters, watches, clocks,& irons repaired, shoes re-soled, clothes altered and re-made..
Most people had gardens for veggies..and fruit trees (where space allowed).. They bartered their excess.
There was no TV, and electricity was conserved for important events. People went to bed early/ got up early.

Baking was timed for the early morning hours and the oven door left open when finished (to help heat the house)..

People USED fireplaces to stay warm (not for decoration).

Families shared space. It was not unusual to see homes crowded with cousins, aunts & uncles, grandparents.. Children not only did not have their own rooms, they shared BEDS..

If a family had a car, its use was a special event.. People walked to neighborhood stores, or had groceries delivered.

[Eloriel]

67. You bet they recycled everything

Good synopsis, SoCalDem.

Of course, some of the things you talk about were very different then. For example, repairing appliances -- they were much better built to start with. Walking everywhere -- things were closer to start with (unless they lived in the country).

My parents grew up in the Depression and it scarred them for life, in ways I haven't fully figured out yet.

Other things they did:

* Cut buttons off and removed zippers from clothing that was being discarded (and no clothing got "discarded" until it was totally unwearable otherwise)

* Re-used the thread from clothes. If you needed to shorten a dress, you pulled the thread out and used it for sewing the hem back. But again, thread back then was MUCH better quality. It would be hard to that with today's polyester thread.

* Commercially baked bread came in waxed paper. At the end of a loaf, you carefully took the bread paper apart, smoothed it out and put it away for use for other things (keeping leftovers, etc.) Same with any "tin foil" (aluminum foil) you found. My mother saved waxed paper bread wrappings until they were no longer made, and aluminum foil was re-used in our house as I was growing up.

* String and twine. Again, my mother had a ball of string she kept while I was growing up until twine was no longer used on packages (from the grocery, etc.)

You saved EVERYTHING. Period. And no food went to waste either. My mother said they had salads once a week, on Sunday. Sunday chicken dinner was a big thing too.

My dad had been in the CCC -- Civilian Conservation Corps, a wonderful program which was part of the New Deal, I think. Put young men to work, did some beautiful conservation work around the country (my dad worked in CA doing some forestry of some sort), and the men could send most of their money home to their families.

Rationing didn't start until WW2 --- sugar, butter were the main things I remember being discussed. Probably coffee too. Fashions were shorter to save fabric! (Don't know why they didn't think of that during the Depression.) Women wore anklets a lot because silk stockings were very hard to get -- this may have been when "nylon" stockings were invented as a substitute.

[SoCalDem]

70. Silk came from the orient and what they had was needed for parachutes

.... I re-use tin foil and I still use waxed paper.. :)

[Skidmore]

86. My mom cut buttons off and took zippers out of clothes too.

In fact, that was one of my chores. I still keep a button box.

When my mother passed away several years ago, her house was an amazing place to sort out. Her closets were full of stuff she saved to recycle. I recycle a lot myself, just not the same sorts of things she saved.

[demnan]

8. You'll know when you're in one

When you can't get to your savings because the bank closed. Forget FDIC and forget your 401K, it won't exist anymore. My grandfather was a plumber, so he had business (a plumber always has business) but was often paid in things bartered rather than in money (I have a beautiful oil painting that was paid in barter for his services). My Mom's parents grew up poor so being without things didn't effect them much. They ate beans and lived without things. Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas weren't as badly effected as other parts of the country.

One thing is certain - if the stock market crashes at least the rich will be impacted so maybe the media will wake up.

[Sporadicus]

15. My Parents Lived Through the Great Depression

They were among the 'fortunate' ones who farmed for a living, thereby having a means of feeding themselves. My mother said that strangers would come to the door every day, looking for something to eat. My father found work off the farm sporadically, once operating a bulldozer for a road crew constructing a state highway. He said that the work was extremely hazardous; he had to maneuver the 'dozer to the precipice of huge mounds of earth that would mean certain death if he went over the edge. Other laborers were worked literally like dogs. A long line of workers-in-waiting stood ready to replace anyone who dropped from exhaustion or got injured.

[Lefty48197]

16. The economy is strong and getting stronger

haven't you been paying attention? Why do you hate America?

[Nightwing]

17. My family's experience with the Great Depression

Much of what I know of the depression comes from the personal experience of living through it from my grandparents and parents perspective. How they lived and what they did is nothing short of amazing.

My grandfather came to this great nation from Italy in 1922 and married my grandmother (also from Italy) in 1926. They both enjoyed the promise of the American dream and worked hard to make a new life for themselves. My grandfather worked in several different blast furnaces until the depression hit and then scrambled to do whatever it took to provide for his family.

He spoke of working twelve hour days on a local farm, spading the ground all day for the pay of a quart of milk for his children. Since it was the days of Prohibition, he and my grandmother made and sold their own beer and booze while ducking the "G-Men" when they came to town. My grandmother would also make root beer to sell, cleaned homes and cooked in a local high profile restaurant that to this day still cooks its steaks the way she taught them.

My father remembers Christmases where he and my aunts would wake up to the present of an orange. The rubber rings for canning jars were used as shoe strings when the real string would break. Baths were taken once a week at my great grandmothers home across the street where one towel was used to dry off with by nearly fifteen people, my father being the last since he was the youngest.

Their living room was a dirt floor with a coal burner in the middle of the room. In the winter, the house would get so cold my father and his sisters could skate across the ice on the ground in the house. In my great grandmothers backyard, there were large stone ovens where the women of the family would bake bread to sell and to feed their children. Large gardens were everywhere throughout the neighborhood to grow and can every vegetable imaginable.

At that time, you could have farm animals in the city and my grandparents grew chickens, some to eat and others for eggs. They spoke of nothing from the chickens they grew ever went to waste. The feathers were used in pillows, the feet and bill were used in soups for flavoring, the eyes would be frozen till enough were there to mix in while making scrambled eggs. To this day I cannot comprehend sitting down to a meal such as that.

Finally when FDR began the WPA, my grandfather helped build several projects that stand to this day in our town. The dam, the YMCA and our city's high school football stadium. I know that many Repubs have a great disdain for FDR and his programs, but as far as my family is concerned, he was as close to being an angel as they had ever seen.

And that folks is why I am and have always been a proud Democrat that will never back down.

[NicoleM]

22. Good post.

Thanks for sharing that.

[jbm]

50. your post reminded me..

that my mom used to talk about how for christmas they would get an orange, or occasionally an orange plus some homemade toy made by my grandfather. She never said it like she had felt deprived though. For years I didn't understand why people would complain about how commercialized christmas had become. Now the whole thing makes me angry cause I feel like we just (quite willingly) wandered into a trap where we felt obligated to spend tons of money on plastic nonsense.

[girl gone mad]

53. I was surprised to hear my parents a few years ago..

say they thought FDR had been the best president. Too bad they didn't stay lifelong dems, too.

[GingerSnaps]

56. My Mom and her twin sister

She said that they would get fruit in their Christmas stockings and one toy each. The boys would get a truck or a car and my Mom and her twin would get a doll. But they all got fruit for Christmas. She could never celebrate Christmas without a bowl of oranges and apples on the table.

Her family also had a garden and farm animals.

[OneTwentyoNine]

19. My dad went through it.....

He lived on a farm in Fairview Oklahoma and was six years old in 1929. Lucky in a way,they always had plenty to eat but nothing else,many people living in the cites were literally starving to death as the unemployment rates hit 25%.

It affected his parents(my grandparents)tremendously. It was years and years before they trusted a bank enough to deposit money with them. Light switches were always turned off,reused matches,straighten out bent nails for reuse etc.etc.

They moved off the farm and came to Wichita in 1935,my grandfather worked WPA and my grandmother swore my dad and his two brothers to secrecy about his working WPA--it was that demeaning back then.

It was a horrible,horrible time and like FDR said when the crash came there was no floor for the working class.One thing it did forever,it turned both my grandparents and my dad into lifetime Democrats.

[scarletlib]

20. My grandmother was a single mom and she had a

terribe time. To this day my mom will not talk about her experiences growing up in the 30's. I do know they went hungry and at one point my grandmother had to send her kids to live with different relatives because she could not make enough money to feed them.

[liberalitch]

21. great for the blues age.... bad for people

but wait about two years and you'll know EXACTLY what it was like.
I'm a history teacher and the image I use to get my kids interested is a film of people rioting over garbage that they hoped to eat in NYC

[LastDemocratInSC]

23. I remember what my parents told me about it ...

My Mom's father was a family doctor and they were quite comfortable until the Depression began. During the Depression he moved the focus of his practice to the rural areas because the farmers could always pay him in food when he made housecalls. He would drive out of town on a call and return with potatoes, corn, milk, and all the rest.

They also partitioned their large house into separate apartments for the families of their brothers (my Mom's uncles) who had been forced to find work out of town. Two of her uncles moved for 2 years to New York City - from South Carolina. It was the only place they could find employment in their fields.

Eventually, my Mom's family kept their own cow behind their house on Washington Street in downtown Greenville.

[elehhhhna]

24. Grandpa would go to the railroad tracks to find coal that had fallen...

off train cars, in order to heat the house.

He used to laugh and tell us that everyone else came to Ameica to find their fortune while we left ours in Holland, where Great-Grandpa's company is still very successful (and going strong after 105 years!)

[Skittles]

25. GingerSnaps, those of us who were raised by Depression parents

really saw the effects of what it did to them. No matter how much money my dad had he always worried about it because of the poverty he grew up in during the depression. Sometimes his mom had to send him out to shoot squirrels for dinner

[Cleita]

44. I know.

We at school talked about our parents depression mentality. We couldn't throw anything out in our lunch, including the wrappings because they could be reused. My mother wouldn't give me kleenex for my constant snots. I had a big rag I had to use and then wash out myself. Very embarassing.

[Eloriel]

68. Squirrels, rabbits, and my family also ate

possum!

You have to cook possum a long, long time -- and pour off the fat a number of times. Or so I'm told.

[Cleopatra2a]

26. My parents grew up in deep South Texas

They said they always had enough food to eat. They were poor Mexican farmers, always lived simply, grew their own food, raised cattle, had chickens etc. They said they never went hungry.

[oneighty]

27. Dad was a welder.

In 38 or so we ate A LOT of tuna fish. Dad told me one day "Eddie eat your tuna fish or I will give you a tin ear."

So the tuna was consumed cause I sure did not want one-a them tin ears Dad was going to weld up for me.

Sigh.

180

[area51]

28. jobs

I would imagine that it was just as hard to get a job in the 1st Great Depression as it is now. Those who have lost their job know that we're in the 2nd Great Depression.

[AliciaKeyedUp]

29. Not yet anyway

Nor are we even close. Maybe the writing's on the wall, but there are unemployed people even in the best economies.

[brook]

32. Jobs were "scarce as hen's teeth"...

My Mom and Dad were newlyweds when the banks failed.They lost what little they had. Mom's Dad was a golf professional and financially secure compared to most. He came to the apartment, put a 100 dollar bill under the sugar bowl and told them to let him know when it ran out. My Dad was a very proud young man - so he sold stockings door to door, spent a year in the CCC, sold insurance, worked at Sears for 50cents a day - and finally got a steady job with Ford.They never asked for the second 100 dollar bill. They did give up their apartment and moved into a two family house with his parents. I was in 7th grade by the time they had their first own (rented) home.

My grandfather also decreed that my Mom's next two sisters(she was the oldest of 8 kids) who had secretarial school diplomas would not go to work. He said he was able to house and feed them and they should leave what jobs were out there for those in real need.

[LanternWaste]

30. Try "Hard Tines" by Studs Terkel

Studs Terkel has a fantastic oral-history of the Great Depression called, "Hard Times". It contains interviews with dozens of American survivors of the crisis from the richest to the poorest who give their own unique perspective on the event.

ed for spelling

[Royal Observer]

35. Excellent

Also the fictional writings of James T Farrell and John Steinbeck give an insight.

[amazona]

31. my dad's story

My dad used to be expected to pick up a squirrel or two on the way back from school. Years later, I realized that this story implied that Depression Era kids were bringing their shotguns to school and no one thought anything of it!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. My grandmother told of food riots in Minneapolis

One year, the public schools were short of money and so didn't open till October. My grandfather was a teacher and didn't get paid unless school was actually in session, so in order to save money, the family camped in a state park for the whole month of September. They got the utilities in their house temporarily shut off, and they caught fish to supplement their diet and bought produce cheaply from local farmers, who were glad to get any money at all.

My father graduated from high school just as the Depression started, and in order to get a job, he had to go around to employers promising to work a free month. It was still hard to find anything.

A friend of my grandmother had two illegal abortions because both she and her husband had to work part-time to support their existing children.

My great-uncle was a Lutheran pastor in a small town in South Dakota. The local people were farmers and could feed themselves but were very cash poor. He'd get part of his salary in eggs and vegetables, but he and his wife still had to skip meals to keep their three children fed. They were about to send their children to live with relatives in 1937 when my great-uncle heard that the Army wanted chaplains. He checked the requirements and found that he was underweight by a couple of pounds. He went to Minneapolis a few days before the interview, stayed with his parents, and stuffed himself with the two cheapest foods in the supermarket, bread and bananas. This put him just over the weight limit, and his financial worries were over. (He did end up slogging through the jungles of New Guinea, so there was a downside, but at least he knew that his family could eat.)

One of my grad school friends said that his mother's sister died of pneumonia because the family couldn't afford medical care. That family ate squirrels to survive.

The one ironic positive effect of the Depression was that more young people stayed in school, because if they followed the long-standing tradition of looking for a job after eighth grade, there were no jobs to be had, so they figured they might as well get a high school diploma.

[THUNDER HANDS]

34. my grandfather and his father

sold flowers on the street corners of NYC from 6 a.m. until dusk. Then at dusk my grandfather would give all the money he made to his father. His father would then in turn give my grandfather all the roses he had left over and tell him 'now stay here and sell these, whatever you make from here on is yours.'

I have no idea how they survived living like that.

[AuntPatsy]

38. You'll see alot more homeless people obviously...

My grandmother told me that even through the depression that my great grandfather managed to get all thirteen of his brood new clothes and new shoes on Christmas, that was their only present, as far as food, she said they never starved, that my grandmother had a way of being able to prepare just about anything since they also grew their own vegetables and my great grandfather would hunt in the hills of PA and actually give meat away to others in need...

I don't believe that in this day and age that we would surivive such hardships since in all honesty, we as a whole are a bit more spoiled than they were so long ago...

I believe we would have a horrific carnage of mass murders as people begin turning on each other, stealing, doing anything they could to survive, it would not be pretty...

[Baja Margie]

39. My parents lived through the Great Depression

and the Dust Bowl Years. Luckily, Lucy lived on a farm. Grandpa Muff and other farmers from the area provided produce, meat, milk and eggs to the surrounding towns. The Oakies and Gypsies and Hobos would pass through, and my grandparents would help them out. People helped each other, totally different from what it is like today. Grandma Muff used to say that if you help a stranger in need, it was like helping Jesus.


I don't think that we will see another Depression like the one in the 30's, there are too many safeguards. What we will see, and already it's happening are major food shortages throughout the world because of overpopulation. We will see the decimation of entire Countries due to the Aids virus. We will also most probably witness many of the things Rachel Carson described in "Silent Spring." Already, they are happening.

[shraby]

41. The 1980s would have been a depression

as well as today. What the difference is between the 1930s and today is Social Security, Welfare and Unemployment Benefits. These three programs provide a safety net for everyone, and it took a great depression to put these programs in place.

[sandnsea]

47. Exactly

Those are the things that have kept the economy from bottoming out. Republicans get really mad when you mention that those programs are as much price supports for business as they are for the people who use them.

[OneTwentyoNine]

64. You got it,plain and simple....all thanks to FDR and Democrats..

[TexasLady]

40. I love these stories

My grandparents went through bad things during the Depression. Grandpa was mustard gassed in WWI, I dont know what all it did to him, but Grandma got stuck pretty much raising everyone on her own. Nine kids, seven survived. Her first son died of what she called bloody flux,(diahreah) and the last from Leukemia. On top of all that, she had one daughter in a tent by herself, using a butcher knife and a shoestring for the cord.

They ate cornmeal gravy for a time, and she was a good shot for squirrels as well. beans and potatoes were a feast. The main way to make money for the family was picking cotton here in Texas. That has got to be the hardest crop to pick, I swear. She used to drag the baby, whatever baby was small at the time, on the end of her cotton sack.

She voted for FDR, happily and proudly. I asked her if she had to do it again would she? She said NO. But, she said she always told me these and hundreds of other stories because she wouldnt be surprised if I might need to know how to survive in something like this myself.

Indeed we may!

[GingerSnaps]

57. Have you ever heard the Hank Williams Jr song about a Country Boy?

The lyrics are about a being able to survive by living off of the land. I believe that we can survive off of the land whether we are vegetarians or not.

We have to have a plot of land in order to do it. It might be an investment for the future because you never know what is going to happen after *'s reign in office.

[Eloriel]

69. Picking cotton

HAS to be the hardest crop. All you have to do is see cotton growing and ready to pick to get it. No wonder people wanted slaves to do that: you can't get the cotton without hurting yourself on the barbs of the casing it pops out of. Horrible stuff. My heart goes out to anyone who's ever had to pick cotton.

[mmonk]

42. The depression was created largely

by rapid deflation. This will be different. This will be like all your creditors calling your mortgage notes in or through forced liquidation.

[rman]

60. either way, the essence is that there isn't enough money to go around

which is something that can be fixed by government and banks - but they don't fix it.

in fact much of what they do seems only to worsten the situation.
ie make it cheaper to repay running loans and make it more expensive to get new loans.

of course once the economy has crashed it is to late to resurrect it simply by injecting money, because much of production is in chambles.

then still, even at the hight (or should i say depth) of the depression, food was being produced while people were starving. it's just that there was no money to pay for transportiation of food from the farms to the cities, let alone to pay for buying the food.

[kittykitty]

45. My parents lived through it. I have only remnants of their stories

My Dad was in dental school. He was from an immigrant family of 10 children. He had to sell his blood to pay for dental school. He didn't have money for carfare often, and had to walk from the East side of Cleveland to the West side.

His brothers between them must have had some money, and they bought up passbooks from people for 10 cents on the dollar. The people thought the banks had failed, and were glad to get some money. Later, my uncles were able to redeem the passbooks for face value, and had enough money to buy up half of the vacant land in Cleveland.

Those who went through the depression never forgot it. They practiced thrift, and even when they could afford it, did not spend money needlessly. My generation, at least some of us, is the last to practice
thrift. Thrift is a word you don't even hear any more.

[indigobusiness]

46. Sort of like now

But not as sparkly.

[roguevalley]

48. hunger, homelessness, poverty on a scale that you can't imagine.

my grandpa worked as a laborer because that was all the work there was. $360 a year was all he made. Without the farm, they would have starved. The big guy at Shearson-Lehman says we're going into an
economic 'armaggedon' and we have one in ten chance of avoiding it. It will be pitchforks in the streets time, my sweetie.

[RedTail Wolf]

49. Hang on for about 2 years and you'll see it first hand. NT

[surfermaw]

52. Lived long enough to tell you a little

The south was living off the land, three republicans , just as productivity was growing with leaps and bound in our industries, Harding gave tax cuts to industry and very little pay raises were given to the workers, therefore they workers couldn't buy what they were making, the rich already had every thing they needed,

When Roosevelt came into office he created jobs like construction, he sat up sewing rooms and gave the women work, the clothes they made went to the people who were without clothes, they placed the people on what was called relief...sent surplus food to them , I remember my dad worked in the county seat, he was one of a few that had transportation..he would bring back to the people who were on releif, a box of food every week or month, can't remember which, I do know these people had very little money and would usually try to pay him with something in the box, usually it was navy beans, the south called the Yankee beans, I do remember that.

People of the south worshiped Roosevelt, in my school when the election between Roosevelt and Dewey came, I remember only one large family with several farmers in it, was the only family that voted for Dewey.. If you were farmers and could hold on to you land then you could raise enough food, and cut enough wood, to survive

Remember when Saddam spoke on the night before the invasion and told the people of Iraq, that they should stand tall , that they were an old country educated, when America was living like animals, I thought of the poor people in Georgia during the depression. And I only lived the last days of it after Roosevelt was elected.

[Breeze54]

59. what was the depression like?

IT SUCKED!!!

NO JOBS..to speak of..
No money...
Homelessness everywhere..
You saved everything you had and found ways to re-use everything...
Your elementary school age kids worked and gave the money to you....to buy bread
You starved
you cried
Some died
you lost your homes, your land, your family....

LIFE SUCKED!!

thanks to the red states...we are headed down that road...the morons!

[SmokingJacket]

62. Thanks for all the great stories!

I think one of the reasons conservatism is on the rise these days is because a lot of the people who lived through the Depression are no longer around, and these stories are being forgotten.

Social programs are there for a reason, freepers!!

[scarletlib]

63. yes, pathetic as it is people in this country do not know their

own history.

It is amusing to me how people take all the things we have today for granted. None or very few think about how it all came to be. The Depression Era ushered in Roosevelt who although a patrician knew enough about poverty and social struggle (thanks to Eleanor) to realize that something had to be done.

How do people in the south and rural areas of America think they got electricity at affordable rates? Inside toilets? Heck in the late 1950's in Nashville Tn I had an aunt who still had to use an outhouse and had only cold water in a kitchen sink.

The common people and thats got to be at least 95% of us got the best of the new deal as far as improving our lives. Now today people just take it all for granted.

[democratreformed]

84. It really is sad, isn't it?

For the past few years, I keep thinking about my grandparents and the stories they used to tell. My paternal grandparents didn't have an inside bathroom until the 80s! Even then, my grandpa would still use the outhouse b/c that's what he was familiar and comfortable with. He did that until his cancer made him so sick that he finally used the inside restroom.

And, my husband's grandpa got one later than that. Every time someone used it, he was griping and saying "Don't flush it unless you 'have' to".

I remember my grandma washing paper plates and cups (actually styrofoam). I was young and thought it was the funniest thing.

I don't WANT to live through the second great depression. But, if I have to, I'll make it.

[bikebloke]

65. Grandmother advice

My grandmother was widowed with four kids at the beginning of the Depression. My grandfather had been gassed in the Great War and died young. My grandmother found work in the government. Plus, in those days extended family were nearby to lend support. Today, everyone is scattered all over. Grandparents from both sides always said get a government job, no matter how lowly. At least you'll survive. This was the DC area.

Another thing. My grandmother inherited land out in Fairfax County. It was pretty much worthless. Since she couldn't do anything with it, she gave it away. Probably worth millions today. And might turn worthless again soon.

I've always been frugal, so perhaps some of those tales have rubbed off. Now I'm trying to suss out how to preserve my savings as the dollar and economy collapses. I don't have family as a possible safety net. So I'm available for any European, Aussie or Kiwi women who'd like to sweep me into exile. ;-)

[catmandu57]

66. My grandparents lived through it

and my father saw a little bit of it. They were country people and could live without money easier than those in the city, but it was still very hard.
One of my grandfathers rode the rails for a time trying to find work while my grandmother lived with her parents on their farm. Eventually, they lost that, and several of their children either went into orphanages, or were taken by other people.
My grandmother found her youngest siblings just months before she died this year, sixty years of knowing she had sisters, but not who or where they were.
My father remembered they lived in the country and didn't even have an outhouse, they just went into the weeds, lumber was used for other things, if they could get it at all. That and being hungry much of the time, world war 2 brought them out of the depression. My grandfather worked at a bomber factory in Kansas City, he was blind in one eye so he was 4f.

We did go through another depression in the eighties, there were so many people here without jobs, there were social programs to keep it from being too deep, but, those programs didn't benefit all of us.
An unemployed male could get food stamps, but nothing else.
The unemployment rate was at 11-13% here, (officially), the hidden rate where I was a member was more like 25% and up depending on the time of year.
I traveled by thumb much of those years, having absolutely nothing to stay here for, no job, no home, no prospects. One can starve anywhere, at least in the winter I could starve someplace warmer, and maybe pick up day labor jobs.

As for the new deal programs, they aren't going to be here much longer, so the next one will be just as deep and painful as the the thirties.

[lacaqueteuse]

71. Two Grandfathers...

My maternal grandfather, who in the 1920's worked as a kind of
contract interior designer, lost his business in 1929 and
never worked again.
His five children went hungry for years, and to this day they
can hardly bear to speak of that time.

On the other hand, my paternal grandfather was mechanically
talented and kept his job as an appliance repairman throughout
the Depression.
His sons also worked at repairing appliances, and nobody in
that  family, also of five children, ever suffered.  To the
end of his life, my dad made a delightful game out of
maintaining cars, washing machines, air conditioners, etc. to
the last bit of usefulness.

[PassingFair]

88. Welcome to DU, lacaqueteuse!

Yes, I worry about the artists and creative people. My husband is a graphic designer and artist and we have seen his (our home-based business) dry up to next to nothing.
Now he works on what ever he can pick up and takes care of our two school-age kids on the day-to-day, and I got a full time job to give us health benefits. After working together out of the house for 12 years, I hate it, the kids hate it, and I think my husband hates it more than the rest of us.

[bobbieinok]

72. parents lived through it........they saved everything

my mom would save bread bags, plastic bags veggies came in, etc. wash them out and reuse them

all this used to drive me crazy

when the mother of one of my SILS (from China) was living here with her daughter's family, it was the same ...... everything is saved.....tin cans are washed and used--to grow plants or whatever

NOTHING IS THROWN AWAY.....REUSE

darn socks, turn collars and cuffs of shirts so don't 'need to buy new', even darn nylons (never figured out how that works)

[DiverDave]

73. My step- Grandmother

told me that, as farmers in Kansas, that in 1928 they bought a new combine.
Paid of half of it in 28.
Took them SIXTEEN YEARS to pay the other half off.
She had 6 kids and not enough food, what a nightmare to hear your kids cry at night from hunger.

Pretty hard fucking times.

[Astrochimp]

74. Woody Guthrie bio has some info,

my Mom and Dad lived threw it.

Moms Father worked for WPA, and died on a job (heart attack) he mother worked in sewing rooms, and took in laundry, sewing. Grandma always kept a large garden till she died. They lived with others before he worked for the WPA.

Dads family had a farm- but moved to AZ "because grandma had TB" they lived there till '32-33 then moved back home. AFAIK Grandpa may have done odd jobs there, and they got the rent for free, because the owner had to have someone living on the land full time as part of there grant(?). M&D now own part of that land and spend winters there.

When back home, Grandpa and the 3 boys worked for others(boys after school) Dad shot rabbits & was paid one cent each- he would drop them at the train depot, where they threw them in a big pile till the next train. They used old barb wire fence on the truck when the tires wore out. Grandpa sold some of his indian artifacts to the state. Got $40- Dad said that was a months wage.


EDIT--- Dad tells about shovleing manuer into a hores draws spreader all day- next to a full grown man, but he was a 17 year old so he only made 25 cents that day while the man got 50. later in live he did work the the farmer and padded his bill to make up for it!

Relitives of Dads were moomshiners- had the biggest barn in the county, with a big dance every sat night. No animal, no crops, almost no land, just a big barn.

It has always been said some in my home town had arms/legs cut off my one local DR for insurance $. Same Dr. that said my GM had TB- she lived till her late 90's with no sign of it after.

[0007]

75. Sugar wasn't rationed and milk was available if you had the money.

True, there were no jobs. MANY soup lines, flops houses and lots and lots of people called bums.

We're not in a depression yet! The big difference between the depression times and now, famlies were very close and folks seem to get along compared to today.

[lumpy]

76. I was a child of the depression.

Fortunatly my folks fled the states in 1928 and returned to Alaska with my Grandparents who were Alaskan pioneers. We subsisted on the homestead; farming, hunting and the like. It was certainly a rustic existence, but one childhood I wouldn't trade for any other. We wanted for nothing; it was 'make do'. One advantage was the fact that my family knew how to live off the land and the advantage of hard work. Another was that family and friends helped one another. If a depression were to occur the likes of the 20s/30s it will be quite a different story for most people. The average family in the states during those times had to work hard to exist at any rate and emphasis wasn't so much on material possessions. I am afraid it will be pandemonium for those who don't prepare for hard times. Everyone should have a plan if possible and gather together to help one another. Somehow. I don't even like to think about it.

[GingerSnaps]

77. You had to have a stamp book to buy sugar

Did you live through the depression? Can you tell us more about it please?

[0007]

81. In world war II things were rationed for sure but not in the depression

Yes I lived through the depression.

When there was no money for toilet paper or kotex I think you can get the visual from that fact.

[GingerSnaps]

89. Oops

My Dad grew up during the depression and my mom grew up during WW2. It's been so long since I had my mom around that I mixed it up a bit. :hug: :hurts:

[0007]

83. Not a fat person could be found in those days.

[KayLaw]

78. My mother's story

She was the eldest of seven children. My grandfather did farm work and didn't bring home much money. They went to the local grocery store once a week and my grandfather always hit the roof at how much my poor grandmother spent, though she did her best.

The girls made biscuits every morning and sometimes that's all they had supplemented with beans and fruit from the mango and avocado trees and sometimes kept the small alligators they found as pets.

When my grandfather died, my grandmother took in sewing then became a cook for the Lion's Club.

Until the day she died, my mother hoarded food. It's not so unusual to see people with hundreds of rolls of paper towels and toilet paper in their garages now we have Costco and the like, but she always shopped that way. Once at a supermarket, another shopper rudely asked her if she was expecting a bad case of diarrhea.

I'm beginning to shop that way, too. I recently joined Costco and have spent about $600 on the basics. I've learned which foods can keep the longest and am aiming to store provisions that can last for one or two years. As long as I don't waste anything, I don't see a downside to my savings plan.

[shesemsmom]

79. My Grandmother lived through the Depression

and she too was a hoarder. He she died we had to clean out the biggest pile of stuff from her house you've ever seen. She never parted with anything because you might need it.

[cap]

80. depression in RI and MA

my mother's family came from Poland and worked in the textile mills in Pawtucket RI. The mills went south to avoid unionization. There were massive strikes because the workers were working ever longer hours at an ever faster pace for below subsistence wages. This led to the great Textile Strike in the early 30's. A foreman would throw a spindle into the crowd of workers and they would fight over it. Whoever had the spindle got the job.

My grandfather lost an eye due to an accident in a factory. No workman's comp. so no money. He went to Boston to get the eye operated on. The surgeon operated on the wrong eye and left him totally blind. No malpractice so no compensation. No ADA so no retraining and no jobs for the handicapped.

Grandmother kept trying to work in the mills but eventually collapsed due to hunger and lost her job. Lost the house. Uncle can remember seeing people coming to the foreclosure auction. Grandmother had a nervous breakdown so the state stepped in and put her in an institution. It was pretty grim. Rumour had it that she was electroshocked and raped.

The kids ended up in foster care. They were farmed out to a family who used them as servants and free labor in their family businesses. They waited on the family hand and foot. The kids were emotionally abused. My uncle could barely remember playing any games with my mother. They had very long days -- got up and walked over a mile to school. Went to school. Came home. Did homework. Did chores until they went to bed. The family to this day never talks about this part of their lives.

In MA, my grandparents worked in the mills and then started a boardinghouse and then bought a foreclosed farm. My grandfather died when my dad was about 13 years old. My grandmother ran an 80 acre farm by herself with five kids. Dad decided he didn't want to be on a farm the rest of his life so he "rode the rails" and did any little job to get food in his belly. Slept in all kinds of flop houses. Grateful to be thrown in jail for a night so he could get a roof over his head and food in his belly. (No record. The cops just did that to get people off the streets and fed. ) Got drafted and decided getting an education (PhD) was better than digging than ditches in the frozen earth.

The story of my family is the story of the social legislation pushed by the Democratic party.

[democratreformed]

82. I'm sorry, but why do we need the media to "tell us" we are in a

depression? That's been one of my biggest gripes these past few years. Reality generally has not matched what the media has been saying. Economy is improving? Then, why are factories in my state still closing? Etc. Etc.

I can assure you that I will NOT wait for the media to let me know before I decide we are in a depression. I think we will definitely know. And, I feel that we are getting pretty close....

[kentuck]

85. From stories I heard from Appalachia....

My Grandma and Grandpa would work in the cornfields all day just for a little food or maybe a dollar. Later, Grandpa and uncles found jobs in scab coal mines for a dollar a day. And that was when times were good.

When times were bad, the kids would take a biscuit to school for lunch. Sometimes they would put a little gravy betweent the crusts. Shoes and clothes were very scarce. Girls would wear dresses made from flour sacks. Most of the boys would have pants with patches on the knees and seats of their pants.

They would can goods in the summer so they could survive in the winter. Apples, blackberries, green beans, etc. And they would raise chickens and a pig to butcher in the fall. They would also hunt walnuts and hickory nuts in the hills. They would kill squirrels and possums and just about any type of animal to eat. They would catch rabbits in a box when the snow was on the ground.

Life was not a plan. It was a struggle from day to day. Tomorrow, we need to go to the hills and get some wood and coal to stay warm. What do we eat tomorrow? That was the general picture as I recall from my Mom and Mamma...

[GingerSnaps]

90. They were from Appalachia

My Mom's family lived in a small town and they were in the lower part of the valley so they had berry bushes (god I hate the word bush) :scared: They also owned a small store that sold dry goods. My Dad family were from up in the mountains and they had peach and apple trees.

Both families grew their own vegetables and hunted. It's a way of life in the south and that is why I know that southerners can survive off of the land and I don't mean that in a bad way either.

They also made their own syrup :9 and they grew sassafras but i can't remember if that was for root beer or ice tea. Jesus, I'm starting to get hungry for some buttermilk biscuits and home made apple butter. :9 Some pinto beans and cornbread would be nice.

[heidler1]

87. I was born in 1925 and my father was a harness maker.

He also fixed shoes and sold shoes in his store in a small 850 people town in western South Dakota. The Harness business was good because farmers couldn't afford to run their tractors and went back to using work horses. We had both cows or goats milk. My Mother did the milking. We had lots of chickens and my Dad raised hogs, which we butchered and then smoked the meat to preserve it.

Schools were about the same in that people thought that they taught the wrong stuff. Girls tended to learn how to be a house wife. Boys might learn how to get a job. I paid very little attention in school because even though they preached how important it was I didn't believe them. My Father who only went to the third grade in Germany was way better at feeding his family than almost everyone, he was my only mentor. Consequently I flunked two grades, most of my friends thought as I did and also flunked. Out of five I was the only one that finished high school. Both of my brothers and I ended up being self employed and quite successful. I tried being an aircraft mechanic for ten years quit and went to work for IBM as a non college grad field engineer for 17 years and after designing and building a weekend escape house out of Los Angeles I quit IBM to build houses, which was more fun and I too, was now self employed.

For some strange reason most of my early friends also left the home town and had some competitive edge, the rest of their lives, that is hard to explain. My guess is that it is genetic.