“ Waste Not Want Not Stew”
The 1920’s in America was a turbulent decade full of change, prosperity, and optimism. The industries were booming and the stocks were at an all-time high. The 1920’s was the decade of the first movie, the first flight over the Atlantic, rip-roaring jazz, and unfortunately, it was also a decade of spending. People of this decade were buying new vehicles, new inventions, and stocks. People thought of stocks as a way to get richer quicker. The only problem was that they were buying everything on margin. Everybody was looking forward to the future expecting better and greater progresses to be made. Nobody expected the dire circumstance they would experience on October 29, 1929, also known as Black Tuesday (Doak 8, 28-29).
Black Tuesday marked the beginning of a disastrous era in our economy called the Great Depression. This disaster was ultimately the result of the careless spending of the 1920’s. Stocks plummeted and the people who had bought on margin lost everything and could not pay for their earlier investment. People lost confidence in America’s economy and began to be more cautious with their money which in turn hurt the big industries which affected the lives of workers in a way that nobody could have been ready for (Doak10-11,74). The workers were then faced with unemployment. By 1932 thirteen million workers would be unemployed. This reality soon led to the question asked by many: “How will my family survive?” (“Life During the Great Depression”).
Many in this era let grim visions of hunger and financial subversion seep into their minds and thought they could not bear to survive, so they choose not to. Others fought to survive as they watched their stability decay and crumble. However, those who fought to keep going managed to not only survive, but thrive.
Keeping food on the table was a challenge in the 1930’s. So how did they do it?
Many suggest that family farms contributed to a main source of food in rural areas. Farms in the 1930’s grew a variety of crops from vegetables in the garden to fruits in the orchard. They also raised their own livestock such as chickens, pigs, and cattle which they ate. However, in these times of difficulty, people were inclines to not only thinking about themselves. They shared food with neighbors through church potlucks, family get-togethers, and one dish meals. (“Foodways in Rural America…”). By this method of survival, people were not only repressing the fear of starvation, but they were also exhibiting social sufficiency which assisted their simple form of happiness.
My dear friend and grandmother figure, Mildred Claxon, described this era in her life in one lucid word – happy. She was born on November 19, 1926, and she remembers the 1930’s very vividly. She stated,
I remember little ration stamps and ration books. We had to have stamps for coffee, sugar, and gasoline. I remember when they came out with an imitation coffee called Essence of Coffee. It had chicory in it and it tasted just as good as real coffee.
Mildred then went on to explain to me that they never went hungry; they always had enough to survive and enough to share:
We always raised big gardens and canned everything we could can in jars. We had
to pickle everything because we didn’t have a freezer or anything to keep our
food. We dug holes in the ground and put potatoes and apples in them then we
covered them with hay. On school days, if mama had already milked the cow she
would fill each of us a jar of milk to take to school with us. And at school the
boys would go to the watering hole and get some water and bring it back for
everyone to drink. We never went without. Even when our table wasn’t as full as
always our neighbors was always welcome to it. (Claxon)
People on farms preserved and stored all the vegetables and fruits they had harvested. Canning foods were an important asset to this way of life in the 1930’s. In her article “The Great Depression: A Reminiscence,” Alice B. Yeager stated this:
Canning and preserving plenty of fruits and vegetables were emphasized…Frugal
Folks often bragged about how many jars of beans, peas, corn, tomatoes,
pickles, fruit, etc. they had put away. In addition, they often scoured the
local countryside for blackberries, wild plums, muscadines, native pecans,
hickory nuts, and anything else considered edible. (Yeager)
In women’s magazines and on the radio, home economist how to make the most of their meals. Stews and soups made up most of American’s meals because they would stretch for at least a couple of days. People made soup from coffee, pretzels, milk and noodles, or even ketchup and water (Zeldes). Women were learning how to make a dish one day like turkey, and then the next day use the leftovers to make another dish such as a turkey casserole. Some other popular meals were chili, macaroni and cheese, and creamed chicken on biscuits (“Foodways in Rural America…”). People of rural communities ate well. They learned to get by on what they had. On the other hand, those people of an urban setting experienced more difficulty in supplying food for themselves and their family.
Those people of an urban setting have more doleful stories of how they had to acquire food or do without. The means of food in the big cities were mainly breadlines and soup kitchens. Breadlines usually formed around four o’clock a.m. with six men across and up to three hours long. In January of 1931 alone eighty-two breadlines served 85,000 meals per day in New York City. Men were ashamed to be standing in line for a free meal because they could not provide for themselves or their families. Those men who were too ashamed left their families to wander around to find work. Most of these men did not find work and became vagabonds leaving their families to find food on their own. However, to accommodate these types of men charities and missions established programs such as soup kitchens to feed them (“City Life …”).
In soup kitchens, the men would first sit down and listen to a sermon before being allowed to have food. Then the men would get back in line and would be served soup or stew. They then sat down at community tables where bread had been placed. After several minuets an authority figure would ask them to leave to make room for others. Breadlines and soup kitchens were a common experience in the lives of all urban people during the 1930’s (“City Life…”).
Those who survived the Great Depression lived through the hardest economical times imaginable and learned life lessons which they passed down to the next generation. These people are our parents, grandparents, and our great-grandparents. If a time was to ever come that our generation would be walking the paths which they have already tread, would we be able to survive as they did? By looking back at how people lived then, we can learn to survive in hard times yet to come (“What the Depression Can Teach Us…”).
Works Cited
Doak, Robin S. Snapshots in History, Black Tuesday Prelude to the Great Depression (Snapshots in History). New York: Compass Point, 2007. Print.
"Foodways in Rural America during the Great Depression." The Wessels Living History Farm, the Story of Agricultural Innovation. Web. 15 Feb. 2010. <http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_07.html>.
"What the Great Depression Can Teach Us About Food and Frugality." Cheap Healthy Good. Web. 16 Feb. 2010. <http://cheaphealthygood.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-great-depression-can-teach-us_04.html>.
Zeldes, Leah A. "Waste Not Want Not." Chicago Sun-Times 21 Jan. 2009. Print.
By Ashley Lybrook
Return to Week Three in the Course Calendar