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Never-before-seen pictures capture everyday life of destitute Americans during the Great Depression
Mail Online ^ | 6/8/12 | SNEJANA FARBEROV

Posted on 06/09/2012 9:30:09 AM PDT by djone

"And you thought it was bad now... Since the onset of the recession in 2007, pundits have compared the crisis to the Great Depression of the 1930s - but this week's release of 1,000 photographs from that bygone era serves as a reminder of how truly harsh that period was. "

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography; History
KEYWORDS: 2012; bhoeconomy; depression; economy; greatdepression; thegreatdepression
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To: Georgia Girl 2
Most families had a father and a mother. Plus as my Mom has told me many times they never felt that bad about themselves because everybody was in the same boat. Families doubled up and the men went out looking for work and the women did the housework and cooked and washed clothes while minding the children. My mom has said that many nights all they had was cornbread with milk over it and my Dad said they never starved but a lot of nights it was just potatoes and nothing else. There was no food stamps or welfare and people were too proud to take it anyway.

Great post :^) Brings back lots of memories. The great gardens we used to have, canning (you eat what you can, and what you can't, you can). Doing your best with what you had. Getting a stern look from Dad if you lost one of your school pencils

It's a different world here today in Atlanta. They had a "School supply giveaway" for the needy a couple years ago and it was hilarious. Well meaning folks went to their local Targets and bought a bunch of stuff and dropped it off at the local park in the morning to be distributed to the needy in the afternoon. Lots of good intentions. When the afternoon rolled around it was akin to a land rush. Big fat baby mommas grabbing for everything they could carry without regard to real need. I think the organizers expected that the "needy" would have their school lists and go throught the line filling their bags with just what they needed. Instead they went for the higher dollar items first. One "lady" carried off a stack of 10 backpacks still in the plastic.

The scene at the park was hilarious - akin to the Bumpus's dogs going after the turkey on A Christmas Story.
41 posted on 06/09/2012 11:22:25 AM PDT by DJlaysitup
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To: PGR88
Look at the children--faces full, no sunken cheeks, not skin and bones with distended bellies. Look at the clothes--they all had shoes while half of Europe had none. Nobody was getting fat, but work was there even if it didn't pay what it should, or you had to pull up stakes to get to it.

Hard times for sure, but there WAS something called 'relief,' and when nobody had any money, you didn't feel poor by comparison.

Do any liberals ever wonder why "The People" didn't rise up in rebellion and insurrection against the fat cats and "malefactors of great wealth?"

They should.

42 posted on 06/09/2012 11:29:30 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: Georgia Girl 2; WestwardHo

Your post is about your own created, speculative future, Westward was describing current reality.


43 posted on 06/09/2012 11:31:39 AM PDT by ansel12 (Massachusetts Governors, where the GOP now goes for it's Presidential candidates.)
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To: djone; All
One addendum to my previous post on this thread:

We must remember that those brave men and women now known as "the greatest generation" came through the exact period depicted in these pictures, making their sacrifices for the "land of the free."

Those who survived went on to build the later period of growth and prosperity which so-called "progressives" now are destroying in their attempts to impose the ideas their ancestors fought against decades ago.

44 posted on 06/09/2012 11:32:47 AM PDT by loveliberty2
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To: Mr Rogers
I recall the late forties, when my father was still in Germany as part of the Occupation Forces, we lived in what was euphemistically called "tourist cabins." More like one room shacks, with plumbing, electricity, and an icebox. That was it.
45 posted on 06/09/2012 11:36:42 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: Georgia Girl 2
There was a basic welfare, called "relief" and yes most people were too proud to take it.
46 posted on 06/09/2012 11:38:52 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: Old Sarge

My mother told me stories of what it was like—and it was bad. Once they killed and cooked the family dog! Ate Chicken feet stew, Dinner one baked potato each—thats all. If people had it that rough today—lots would kill themselves.


47 posted on 06/09/2012 11:39:08 AM PDT by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll)
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To: Gaffer

Since I know you don’t know what you’re talking about, it is pointless to try and make you see the obvious parallels.

Well, that certainly takes the load off my mind! LOL!!!


48 posted on 06/09/2012 11:42:32 AM PDT by WestwardHo
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To: Mr Rogers
In fact, her Mom kept a second table so she could share their food with the bums who were poor and in need of help. The bums were polite, and usually offered to help with the chores

Working with the elderly today I hear of this scenario time and time again. Putting a plate out--but you know what, the old folks I talk to today who reminisce about this don't disparage the men they fed when they came to the door--they understood intuitively the epigram, "But for the Grace of God..."

49 posted on 06/09/2012 11:43:54 AM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: WestwardHo
This is a must see movie of a sharecropping family of the era.

The three Oscars nominated movie was made in 1945.

It is on youtube for Free.

Jean Renoir's, The Southerner

50 posted on 06/09/2012 11:44:40 AM PDT by ansel12 (Massachusetts Governors, where the GOP now goes for it's Presidential candidates.)
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To: djone

Ha ha. Family of eight living in a four bedroom house. I grew up in the fifties in a two bedroom house in which my dad converted the garage into a third bedroom. There were eight of us. My sister got one room, mom and dad one and us five boys got the third. We knew we weren’t rich but we also knew we were not poor.


51 posted on 06/09/2012 11:45:34 AM PDT by Starstruck
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To: Gaffer

Shouldn’t you wait to see if your predictions for your imagined future come true, before attacking people for discussing the Great Depression in realistic and accurate, and historical terms?


52 posted on 06/09/2012 11:52:35 AM PDT by ansel12 (Massachusetts Governors, where the GOP now goes for it's Presidential candidates.)
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To: WestwardHo

****the situation is far less bleak that the one President Franklin D. Roosevelt faced when he was elected in 1932.”****

I can’t help but think FDR got elected only because he promised to end prohibition.


53 posted on 06/09/2012 11:53:16 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: Mercat

My father’s maternal grandfather came over from Ireland in 1850 at the age of 8 with his brother’s and parents to escape the potato famine. Now that was really hard times.

In 1972 I lived in Nepal for a few months. Traveling through that part of the world, I saw a lot of poverty...wearing rags, bathing in the river, sleeping on dirt floors, burning cow dung to stay warm, etc., etc.
A few years ago, we drove around Ireland and visited some cultural museums. I staggered at the poverty and unending misery endured in that cold, wet country. My ancesters came to Canada during the potatoe famine. Nothing in Asia appoached the misery of Ireland. Tough, tough survivors!
All I could say was, “Thank God! They immigrated!”
If I am ever that poor, I’m moving to the Bahama’s! I don’t want to die cold, and wet.


54 posted on 06/09/2012 11:57:58 AM PDT by WestwardHo
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To: ProudFossil

That isn’t a troll. That’s someone with whom you disagree. Trolls are those who disrupt a thread with their behavior, who attack and provoke without sense, and who make an annoyance of themselves.

You claim he jumped to conclusions because of his use of the word propaganda, but what did you do?

You called him a troll, implied he was from DU, and used no arguments to assert your position.

Your behavior was much more troll-like than his were.

If you disagreed with him, you could have posted what you did to me.


55 posted on 06/09/2012 11:59:21 AM PDT by Anitius Severinus Boethius (http://www.amazon.com/Wilson-Harp/e/B0087FYGRI/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1)
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To: Lurker

14.8%.... Damn.


56 posted on 06/09/2012 12:02:37 PM PDT by Squantos (Be polite. Be professional. But have a plan to kill everyone you meet)
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To: ex-snook
They seemed more blank to me. Considering that they knew the pics were being taken it was probably the best they could muster.

Taking photos was different then. film speed was not fast and people posed in positions they could hold for awhile.
57 posted on 06/09/2012 12:03:10 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple ( (Lord, save me from some conservatives, they don't understand history any better than liberals.))
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To: ansel12
Oh, thank you! Slow day here, I shall watch it!
I do think the movies goers should be gifted with cotton bouquets! I had no idea what a dry, prickley, nasty plant cotton is until I moved to cotton country! Can't imagine a work day in that awful stuff!
58 posted on 06/09/2012 12:06:27 PM PDT by WestwardHo
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To: BigBobber
Here are some COLOR photos from the same era. What a difference!


59 posted on 06/09/2012 12:10:13 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: BigBobber

***Many of them are posed for deception or don’t really represent what they are purported to show.****

what’s this from the article?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/the-case-of-the-inappropriate-alarm-clock-part-1/

***The federal government stepped forward with $5 million to buy a million head of cattle — with the meat to go to the needy. ***

Bunkum! I know of too many old farmers who recall that the government confiscated their cattle (with payment) then shot them and buried them on the spot. They would NOT give the needy even one piece of meat from them.

Same for milk, hogs, and anything else they had. The government wanted to create a cattle shortage and get the prices back up. My mother-in-law remembered that time when you ate steak for breakfast, lunch and dinner as it was so cheap.


60 posted on 06/09/2012 12:22:41 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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