Depression? <I>This</I> was a depression.
For those who lived through it, it wasn't 'great' at all
When rumors spread through Charleston that the banks were closing, the men on Broad Street ran to get their money out before it was too late.
Most didn't make it.
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The Great Depression
The Post and Courier talked with three local residents who grew up during the 1920s and '30s. They came from different parts of the country and different walks of life, but they all recalled how the Great Depression affected their lives.
Helen Tovey remembers like it was yesterday. She was 10 years old and, although she didn't realize it at the time, the Great Depression had just begun.
Today, she can recall people taking any job they could get just to have enough to eat. Families moved in together to save money, and the lucky kids scraped together 5 cents to get an occasional treat from Stender's Bakery.
She cannot forget the Summerville grocery store with a poster in its window that listed the names of everyone who owed money.
"We were all poor, so we didn't realize we were poor," she said. "There wasn't any bailout then."
The Post and Courier on Tuesday talked with three local residents who grew up during the 1930s. They are from different parts of the country, different walks of life, but they all recall how the Depression affected their hometowns: layoffs at the local mill, bankers and stockbrokers jumping from Philadelphia high-rises, people selling apples on the street corners so they wouldn't have to beg.
People were tough then, and did whatever it took to survive — working 80 hours a week at reduced wages, taking on extra jobs, putting their kids to work to help out. There was no thought of luxuries, no frivolous spending. They were focused on their next meal.
File/AP
In this 1932 file photo, jobless and homeless men wait outside to get free dinner at New York's municipal lodging house during the Great Depression.
Think the current financial meltdown is bad? Well, they will tell you that you ain't seen nothing. When "Brother, Can You Spare a Sub-Prime Mortgage Payment" hits the charts, then they'll talk.
George Lodge, 93, had just started high school when the stock market crashed. His father, an electrical engineer, lost his job and ended up taking whatever work he could. He started businesses, many of which failed because businesses need money to thrive.
Lodge says his dad sold potatoes out of the back of a pickup near their home in Camden, N.J., and once hired a guy with a Ph.D. to drive a truck for him in some business venture. When he couldn't pay the guy, he gave him the truck and wished him well.
Lodge himself took a paper route and delivered meat for a local butcher.
"People were just trying to get enough money to live," Lodge recalls.
One day, he got lucky. Every Saturday, Lodge took the butcher's deposits to the bank and once found he'd been given $10 too much in change. An honest guy, he returned to the bank, but the teller assured him the bank didn't make mistakes. When he returned to the butcher's shop, Lodge's boss said he was right. And since Lodge had found the discrepancy, it was his money.
"Man, I was a millionaire," Lodge said.
The Post and Courier
Wilson Pierpont (front) talks with George Lodge and Helen Tovey on Tuesday about working his way through the Great Depression.
Such bounty was hard to come by for most.
Wilson Pierpont, who just turned 95, grew up in Ware, Mass., a mill town where he had worked from the age of 10 to help his family pay the bills. When the Depression set in, his mother lost her job and his father had his pay cut. Pierpont worked as an office boy, working 80 hours a week for 28 cents an hour.
Later, when the state of Massachusetts bought three small towns to build a reservoir, he got a job as a blacksmith. It didn't matter if he had worked in the field before, you took what you could get.
Pierpont married Charlestonian Suzanne Prioleau Wilbur, who told him her own sad stories of the Depression. Her father, McIver Wilber, was a dentist and managed to keep his business during the 1930s. But sometimes his patients couldn't pay, and he would accept produce in trade, to the chagrin of his wife.
Tovey, Lodge and Pierpont insist they didn't feel the effects of the Depression as much as most families. Pierpont points out that his father kept his job, and Tovey says her father made $200 a month as a certified public accountant, big money in hard times.
They were simpler times, and news didn't travel as fast as it does today, which might have muted the effects and the panic. It also helped that folks were not so materialistic. It is somewhat ironic that war pulled the country out of its economic depression, just as some say war contributed to the current mess.
They say that those days were worse because there was no government safety net. It was the Great Depression that begat Social Security and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which now insures people's life savings. In those days, there was nothing but FDR's Works Progress Administration and hope the next day would be better.
But Lodge can tell you one thing about the Depression that, to this day, remains a misnomer.
"There wasn't anything 'great' about it," he said.
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Comments
sweetsouthernpearl (anonymous) says...
And if McCain is elected you will DEFINITELY know what it is to suffer.
The only losers are those inarticulate enough to resort to name calling.
October 22, 2008 at 8:33 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
MsPiggy (anonymous) says...
I'm glad this article was written. It's about time that people today actually KNOW what a 'depression' is. Sure, the economy is in a slump. But when you only have a job to EAT rather than make the payment on your 60 inch plasma TV, that's a depression. People need to stop whining. If you are out of work and can't collect unemployment, then do something. Do like Mr. Lodge did and sell produce out of the back or your car. Or if you find that too embarassing, *GASP!* Here's a concept: I'm sure any fast food chain in the tri-county area is hiring. We ain't seen a depression yet. And I'm happy that the generation who grew up in the 30's are coming out of the woodwork and telling their stories.
October 22, 2008 at 9:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iceman1978 (anonymous) says...
What we're in now is nothing compared to the depression. In the depression you had 1/3 unemployment, and another 1/3 were under-employed. Only the remaining 1/3 were employed full-time. You also didn't have FICA to insure checking or savings accounts like you do now. You didn't have regulations in place on margin calls either. Not until FDR did they start to make regulatory changes.
What we're in is probably going to be similar to the recession we went through in the seventies. Perhaps more prolonged though. I agree though, people today need to stop complaining and be happy with what they have. People need to stop acting like the economy is in the tank if they can't have the 60' inch tv and a new car every year.
I work full time but since the cost of living in going up faster than wages I've started doing surfboard repairs on the side. Doing pretty good with it too.
October 22, 2008 at 10:01 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mkris (anonymous) says...
MsPiggy, this is not over yet.
October 22, 2008 at 10:01 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
counterpoint (anonymous) says...
It's high time for some unilateral suffering. Americans have by and large forgotten how to work and have lost an appreciation for what America has to offer.
And we all need to lose some weight.
October 22, 2008 at 10:08 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
DCartisan (anonymous) says...
Kinda hard to blame a recession on someone who isn't even in the white house yet...
NO ONE knows what will happen after our next president is elected. Republicans preached fear before Bill Clinton was elected and Democrats preached fear before GW Bush was elected. Now, both sides are preaching fear and further dividing this country.
I refuse to believe the doom and gloom that whoever gets in the white house will cause America to implode. As it looks today, GW is in the white house and we are facing the biggest recession in decades. Maybe McCain or Obama could do better. Being a true American, I will support whoever wins.
October 22, 2008 at 11:48 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iceman1978 (anonymous) says...
DCartisan, Either Obama or McCain will be an improvement over what we have now.
October 22, 2008 at 12:30 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
ballachulish (anonymous) says...
Evil, yes. Genius, not so much.
October 22, 2008 at 12:50 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
mkris (anonymous) says...
EvilGenuis.... where do you get your propaganda? FDR? please...
As to my comment, it will get worse before it gets better. 1/100th of a point is not a significant move in the LIBOR rate. Credit may be loosening, but not enough to have a significant effect on US unemployment rates. Furthermore, home prices will continue to drop until they reach 1998 prices as most economists are now saying until about 2010. BTW... that was on FOX Business.
October 22, 2008 at 1:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
blondjes (anonymous) says...
RECESSION MY BUTT!, thats exactly what i said this morning when i went to target to pick up a perscription, the parking lot of the mall was packed at 10am this morning!?!?! on a wednesday? and then last week i got off early from work to go to the doctor and figured i'd head into tjmaxx to see if they had any deals, well it wasn't even 5:00 yet and the there parking lot was full too!
October 22, 2008 at 1:31 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
MsBehavin (anonymous) says...
Good article...much more appropriate and newsworthy than yesterday's story about predicting the outcome of the election based on action-figure sales.
October 22, 2008 at 1:32 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iceman1978 (anonymous) says...
mkris, Home prices need to drop. There are too many that have been priced out of the market and the real estate boom was not sustainable since wage levels didn't keep up. Once housing becomes more afforable and more people are able to afford a home then it should stabilize.
October 22, 2008 at 2:08 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
back2u (anonymous) says...
I don't know or claim to know what started this recession/depression (pick whichever term you desire). Seems like my household's been in a recession for years -- most call it parenthood. :) Seriously though, this may end up being a good thing for America. Doesn't hard times build good character? And America could sure use a very strong dose of good character. Like the saying goes, 'what don't kill ya makes ya stronger'. Don't worry, we'll all die someday & you'll only go when it's your time. Maybe more people will grow & hunt most of their own food which is safer because at least you know what's going on the food. Maybe they'll continue to travel less which emits less harmful greenhouse gasses. Maybe if they do have to travel short distances, bikes & walking will be used more, which has health benefits. Folks staying home more with the family builds stronger bonds and those parents may actually have the time to parent the children some more which would hopefully help to deter drugs/violence and other evils among the young. Maybe people will get less materialistic and more involved with helping neighbors. Maybe, just maybe, folks will get so desperate that they'll dust off that old Bible and open it! Yeah, yeah, I know -- that's all wishful thinking. Remember, America was "discovered" by the Europeans on wishful thinking and wishful thinking has produced a lot of creative, brilliant people over the years.
October 22, 2008 at 2:42 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
PalmettoDP (anonymous) says...
iceman - I coulnd't agree more regarding home prices. They need to drop and the market is saying so - unfortunately, the government is trying to artificially prop up them up.
Politicians from both parties told us that if the market ran its course, we were facing another Great Depression. And sure, things would have been really bad for a year or two, but we would have come out of it even stronger than before. Now we are faced with a situation where the market is not being allowed to correct, which will only postpone the day of reckoning and make it much worse than it would have otherwise been. Also, these "bailouts" are funded by printing more money, which didn't happen during the Depression. There was deflation in the 1930s instead of inflation.
October 22, 2008 at 3:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
iceman1978 (anonymous) says...
PalmettoDP, Rather than have the bail out (which won't work) they should have been prepared to use the $700 billion to payout unemployment benefits to help people weather the storm. They no longer have that as an option. The unemployment funds in many states, including South Carolina, will run out within a matter of months.
October 22, 2008 at 3:38 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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