My great granny said it was overrated and not all that great.
Actually a lot of people who were decidedly poor did fairly well as long as they hadn’t fallen into the habit of borrowing and buying more than they could afford. Times were tough but a lot of people did hold on and endure.
My Uncle is 91 years old (born 1920) and is sharp as a tack. What he remembers is just amazing. I was talking with him recently about the GD and he said his family was not affected at all. His Dad (my grandfather) had emigrated with his family from Danzig, Germany to NYC in 1927 and soon thereafter moved up to Thornwood, NY. Grandpa was an engineer with an elevator company in NYC and elevators were in huge demand then with the boom in skyscraper construction due to the growth of the structural steel industry. My Uncle says that our family was hardly affected.
My Mom passed away last year at age 84. She grew up on a very small farm in Northern Idaho and they were always dirt poor. They endured.
Both families were very frugal and thrifty.
I miss my Grandpa Elmer to this day. The stories he told of The Great Depression were hard for me to grasp at the time, but then I lived through Carter and ‘got it,’ LOL! And NOW I cherish his stories like never before!
He had a wife, a newborn and an ill father in law to support during that time. He was NEVER without a job in all those years (10-12?) and usually worked three jobs to support them all. I remember he cleaned streets, delivered milk, drove taxi, collected paper and tin for cash; he did anything and everything to keep his family fed and housed and clothed.
I am amazingly GRATEFUL to have that mans blood running through my veins!
That’s why I never hesitate to tell Life and our my idiotic Government to, “Bring It!”
“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” ~ Ayn Rand