3 Life during the Depression
A line forms outside a Chicago “soup kitchen” as jobless people wait for free coffee and doughnuts. . About the photograph
As many as a quarter of Americans were out of work during the Depression, and those who had work were often employed only part time or for lower wages than before. People survived the worst of the 1930s in a variety of ways — by helping one another, by making do with less, by moving in search of work, and by accepting charity. And, of course, life in the 1930s wasn’t always dismal. As always, people relied on entertainment and popular culture to distract them or to remind them of better times. You’ll explore some of their stories in this chapter.
- 3.1Self-Sufficiency on the farm: Gardening, picking, canning, cracklings, and sewing
- 3.2A textile mill worker's family
- 3.3"The mill don't need him tonight"
- 3.4"Begging reduced to a system"
- 3.5A waitress
- 3.6A Sampson County farm family
- 3.7"He never wanted land till now"
- 3.8Health and beauty in the 1930s
- 3.9Paul Green
- 3.10Paul Green's The Lost Colony
- 3.11Krispy Kreme
- 3.12The lasting impact of the Great Depression
