As bad as the economy has gotten in the past few months, the hardships many are encountering pale in comparison with the challenges endured by those who lived through the Great Depression. Between 1929 and the early 1940s, Americans suffered the longest, most devastating economic period in history. Self-sufficiency was the key to getting through those tough times, survivors say, and the importance of saving was the greatest lesson.
Continue reading for first-hand accounts from those who saw the country come back from the brink of economic ruin before, as well as those who are witnessing the extreme economic uncertainty for the first time.
Nobie Thomas, 93, Rome, Georgia
I remember living through the Great Depression. It was terrible, but we made it. I was in my teens. I was living in Rome, Georgia. It was considered part of the Atlanta metro area.
There was no work. And even if you did find work, it didn’t pay much of anything. Everything was dirt cheap but that didn’t help anyone because you still had to get the money to get anything. And nobody had money. A lot of people were coming here to Georgia because the standard of living was so that you could make it on less. But there was no relief.
No one had money to buy food. We did a little better than some other people because my father was a farmer, so we had food. He planted corn. We had chickens, so we always had plenty of eggs. We had a cow so we had plenty of milk and butter. If we had anything extra we helped other people.
Things started to get better in the late ’30s. At that time, men could find jobs again. Women didn’t work back then — they stayed home — so it was mostly the men who were out of work.
We had money in the bank. Any time we had anything extra, we’d put it in the bank. But we could only take it out on certain days of the month. So even if we had money, we couldn’t get to it. Banks were failing.
I think things are going to get worse than they were in the Great Depression because [costs are] so high. I think people need to prepare. I think people should save. They should have already been saving money.
The Great Depression changed me. Even after things got better, I would remember that time, and I would never waste. If I spend a dollar, I want a dollar saved.
Charlotte Ricks, 99, Landover, Maryland
During the Great Depression, I was in my 20s.
I lived in North Carolina. We didn’t have a lot of things like we have now. We had to walk many miles a day to school and back. A lot of people were out of work. We didn’t have homes. We didn’t have food. That was the [Herbert] Hoover administration. Then [Franklin D.] Roosevelt came in and he kind of brought the nation back to health again. Jobs were created. He brought welfare and people got food stamps.
Then young men went into CC camps (Civilian Conservation Corps) [set up in 1933 by Franklin Delano Roosevelt for unemployed men who could receive military-style training and education while getting food, clothing, shelter, and health services.]
We lived in the country, and my father was the type of person who grew everything. We had our own cow [which] gave us milk and butter. We had fruit trees. My mother made jelly and preserves. She made our own bread. So since we were on a farm where we grew everything to eat, we had food. That made a difference. The people who lived in town — when they got laid off, they had nothing. We were never hungry. But we didn’t have any money.
People helped each other. If they had enough to share with somebody, they’d share.
We had one pair of shoes. My sister learned how to sew, and then we had a little more to wear. We didn’t have raincoats and rain hats and umbrellas and things like that. Men had one suit. And you wore that whenever you’d need to wear a suit.
Today, we’re right back in the hole again, but I’ve already come through this and know what it’s all about. When I try to talk to people about it, people don’t believe it. They tell me, ‘I couldn’t live like that.’ But if that’s all you had, you’d have no choice.
Pauline Giles, 89, Cambridge, Maryland
I grew up in Cambridge, Maryland. During that time, I was around nine or ten. As children, as long as we were eating and playing, and had a little candy, we were satisfied, unlike how many people are today. We weren’t thinking about having things to wear and places to go.
Even if our
parents were worried, they could do things to keep us happy. I remember they would take cocoa and make candy and fudge. They took sugar and melted it with butter and put peanuts in it and it was peanut brittle. Even though things were hard, people lived more simply than they do today, so we made do.I don’t think this recession
is as bad as the Great Depression, but I think people were happier back in those times. People back then could do more with less. They hadn’t experienced having anything like today — we’ve experienced having some of the good things. And so we’re more likely to miss them. We didn’t have as far to fall back then.During that time, people learned to make do with what they had. My parents always tried to get a little bit ahead. We didn’t have money to buy clothes, but my mother would sew and she would try to make our clothes like the things that were in the store. She would look at the magazines, and they had catalogs, and she would sit down and take some newspaper and cut little patterns. That was a big savings because we weren’t able to go out and buy those things. If my parents were worried, they handled it well.
Today, if it gets worse, so many people are not going to know what to do. It’s at the point now where people are not really able to save. I guess there are little things we could do without, but it’s going to be hard for many people to do without the things they’re used to.
Rosa Lee Johnston, 83, Richmond, Va.
I remember [Herbert] Hoover was president. I think it was in 1929 going into 1930. At that particular time, I lived in Southampton County, Virginia, with my aunt. My mother lived in Richmond.
We didn’t have too hard of a time with food because we didn’t get the best of foods then anyway. We got cheese and stuff like that for ten cents a pound. They had salt pork — we got that for six cents a pound. My mother came and got me and brought me to Richmond and the Depression was still going on.
I was 6 or 7 when I lived in Southampton County, but when I got to Richmond, I was 10 or 11.
One of the main things I remember is different things being rationed. I remember shoes were rationed. Each family could get only a certain number of pairs of shoes, and that was it. But it didn’t matter whether shoes were rationed as far as we were concerned because we could only afford one pair anyway and we wore that pair until we couldn’t use them anymore. Sugar was rationed. We saved money on clothes because all of our clothes were hand-made.
Because we remembered how hard things were during the Depression, we always believed in saving. My mother would save money at home. When I started school, I started saving money in the bank. At first we would start saving for Christmas — we’d save so much each week and then Christmas time we would have $50. If we didn’t have to use that $50 we wouldn’t spend it. We’d put it in a savings account. I worked in factories and I’d spend some of my money and put some in a savings account. Saving is something people should be doing more of today.
Raymond C. Jenkins, 53, Columbia, Maryland
If I were to compare the Great Depression — from what I’ve heard about it — with where we are today, I think the word ‘depression’ could be used to describe what’s going on. We already use this strong word — recession — and it’s getting worse. But President Barack Obama is in this to win this. So there’s hope. And with hope, you can move on to belief and you can move on to achievement. I tend to believe that this is a correction that needs to happen in the world. It is a world, global crisis. But I am very hopeful even though we are in this.
I have a good job. I work in sales. Like everyone else, I’m watching my 401(k) tank. I’m on pins and needles. I don’t know whether [I should] go in there and make changes and stop my losses and put all of my savings in bonds.
When it comes to spending, we’ve never been a family that goes out to dinner every weekend. But my wife and I are being even more conservative with our spending now. If you just watch CNN — watch the news — you’re going to spend less because the news is all bad.
I’m hopeful, but the economic situation causes me a lot of concern for my children. My
oldest daughter is 24 [and moved back home 18 months ago]. I read somewhere that this is the first generation that is not living better than the generation before them. And she is an example of that. She’s starting off with a teacher’s salary. But can she afford to live in the Washington metropolitan area? Not really. Her car’s a 1994 Honda. If she had a car note and an apartment, plus had to pay for laundry and eating, how could she do it? I am very concerned for what will be there for them.Mark Anthony Benson, 39, Los Angeles California
I’ve been out of work since October. I’m a filmmaker, but I was employed in the food industry in the corporate office, in charge of wholesale.
My rent is not as bad as a lot of other people’s. My car note is not as bad as a lot of other people’s. Unemployment has been able to cover that. It’s just the extras I’m used to having. Each year, I go home to Philadelphia in March. This year, I didn’t want to put that on my credit card. So it has affected my spring and summer plans so far. I’m used to seeing my family by now.
I’m a little more cautious now when I spend. Before, if I was going out to dinner, there wouldn’t be a second thought. Now I’m thinking, ‘I’m not going to go to this restaurant now. Maybe I’ll go to the one that’s a little less expensive.’ I’m going to Costco and more wholesale places to get stuff that’s going to last me a lot longer.
You would always hear that this could happen, but I didn’t believe it with so many people investing and all my friends who were in the real estate industry making money hand over fist. They would go on vacation for a month, and now those same people are like, ‘I wish I had that money back.’ I always knew there would be recessions, but I didn’t know they would affect this many people.
In California, the unemployment rate is [high]. I feel like this is a wake-up call for a lot of people on how they live their lives. I’ve never been a big saver, but when I get back on my feet, I’m going to make sure that I have that six months of expenses that people talk about having saved.