As I recall my history, most folks did not live on farms during the 1930s. By this time the majority of people had moved into towns/cities. Maybe small towns of just two to three thousand, but town nonetheless. I can see folks during the Depression bartering, but the idea of everybody hunting, fishing, and gardening is questionable.
I believe by the 60s 80% of the people had moved to the cities. The big difference today is there are a lot more people and a lot less land for them to farm and hunt.
I live in the middle of "The Big Nothing". Town population is about 600. We still own farms and the means of maintaining the equipment. There are a lot of wild hogs, turkey and deer. It could still be done here.
We normally have a fair number of cattle, but the drought is so bad now that most everyone are selling out their cattle. It will be a long time before the herds are rebuilt.
Most places are not like this. Lets all pray that self sufficiency is not needed soon.
***and gardening is questionable.***
Most small city lots had enough room for a garden and a few chickens or rabbits. A few years later these were called Victory gardens due to WWII.
Now days, city lots are made much smaller and zoning ordanances have forced small livestock out of the cities.
Less people, more resources then. Having been born in rural Oklahoma in 1938, I know a little about hard times. However as many medications as I take to stay alive, I would last no more the 90 days. Even if you have resources, people will not politely starve like they did before, I can practically guarantee that.
No matter how fortified you are there will be little way to keep the hordes at bay, even well armed castles eventually fall. The good part is they will leave the well defense till last simply because there is lower hanging fruit, but eventual they will come for you.
The world I was born into doesn’t exist any longer.
Before I started school (more than 55 yrs ago), I stayed with them all summer and fall. They lived in a house in “town” and drove out to the farm morning and evening to milk the cows, feed the chickens and hogs.
The house in town had no running water, but they did have a cistern close to the back porch for laundry and baths. We hauled drinking water from the neighbors well in metal buckets, and used a dipper to fill our glasses.
The houses almost all had outhouses, and the main street was gravel. Most of the houses had chickens and gardens in the back yard. In fact, a certain amount of such produce was guaranteed by city ordinance. This was all in the 1950’s. In the 1960’s my aunt got running water and an indoor bathroom, which we used on Saturday nights to get ready for church on Sunday.
The laundry continued to be done on a wringer washer. In fact, the local laundromat was a building containing a whole bunch of wringer washers and tubs. The yard was full of clothes lines. Granny and I spent every Monday morning washing clothes and hanging them on the line.
Then we sat under the shade with some Iced Tea and talked with the owners until the clothes were dry. So I expect a lot of small town people did have gardens, and did raise their own produce during the Great Depression, because they were still doing it in the 1950's.
As to the current period, Hubby and I have forgotten exactly how to do a lot of the old-time things we grew up seeing, but a couple of years ago, we starting buying some books about how to do these things. In our backyard(we live in a subdivision), we started to use our garden patch again, and added 2 more garden areas, and some raised beds. Last year my first ever canning project on my own (without Granny )was to can pickles and relishes.
We have paid off our 20 acres out side of town, so we have a place to keep cows, hogs, and chickens should we need to. If all goes well, and we don't need it, we can always sell it. It should be a good inflation hedge. It is already more than doubled in value, even in this down market.
I think we will survive. The huge metropolitan areas with high rise apartments will have the biggest challenges, but a 4 x 8 foot bed will provide produce for one person with some left over to put up for the winter. With 750 sq feet, you could produce a balanced diet for the year, for one person, using intensive methods(at least that is what I have read).
So we are spending our time testing our skills and relearning things we used to know, becoming more self-sufficient along the way, and eating healthier food to boot.