Dating, Dancing, and Riding in Cars
A Scrapbook Archive of Teen Culture in the 1930s
By 1933, the docility and self-deprecation that had plagued the majority of the American people since the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929 had slowly begun to wear off. Americans started to call for more relief and aid from the federal government, which, up to that point, had done little to assist the unemployed. Herbert Hoover’s policy, which he steadfastly clung to, was that relief for the poor should be left to the state and local governments, as well as private charities (Kennedy). The President feared that federal intervention might create a welfare-dependent class. But state and local governments did not have the resources to handle the mass poverty caused by the Depression.
Case in point: Combined public and private relief expenditures of $79 million in New York City for the whole year of 1932 amounted to less than one month’s wages for the eight hundred thousand New Yorkers out of work (Kennedy 88). Imagine trying to live off of less than one month of pay for an entire year!
Not only did Hoover’s hands-off policy keep out-of-work men and women from receiving aid, but it also caused millions of Americans (most notably the young and the old) to go hungry. In 1932, New York City schools reported some twenty thousand malnourished children (Kennedy). Malnourishment led to disease and death all over the United States. In North Carolina, children commonly suffered from rickets, pellagra, and hookworm as a result of poor diet, and infant mortality was much higher than the national average (Price Davis). The American people were suffering financially, emotionally, and physically, and their government was doing little to help.
Important facts about America between 1932 and 1933:
> Over 10 million Americans were out of work in 1932, nearly 20% of the labor force. This number grew to 25% (13 million people) in 1933.
> The American banking system began to shut down in late 1932, coming to a complete halt by Roosevelt’s inauguration in March of 1933.
> The number of homeowners to lose their properties since the beginning of the Depression reached 600,000.
> Gross national product fell to nearly half its level in 1929.
> Franklin Roosevelt swept the presidential election to become the 32nd U.S. President. On November 8, 1932 Hoover won only six states.
(Kennedy)
Roosevelt’s inauguration in March of 1933 promised immediate changes in federal policy that would provide relief for the unemployed and, eventually, boost the national economy. The people placed all of their faith in Roosevelt, and, as a result, there was tremendous pressure for him to commit to one course of action or another in the first few weeks of his presidency. The new President received some 450,000 letters from the concerned Americans during his first week in office (Kennedy).
A sound bite from Roosevelt’s March 4, 1933 inaugural address:
“Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.”
The new President professed that the causes of the Depression in America lay in "structural deficiencies and institutional inadequacies," which he believed could be remedied by "a vigorous and far-reaching reform program" (Kennedy 107). Roosevelt did not disappoint in his promise to focus on domestic policy. In the famous first “Hundred Days” of his presidency Roosevelt signed off on 15 major bills aimed at combating the sources of the Depression and providing direct relief for the unemployed. Congress accepted all of his New Deal programs including the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Tennesse Valley Authority (TVA), and the Public Works Administration (PWA). Additionally, Roosevelt took the U.S. off the gold standard, something Hoover would have avoided doing at all costs, allowing the exchange value of the U.S. dollar to plummet.
One New Deal program at a glance: The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)
The CCC, proposed by Roosevelt on March 21, 1933, planned to put nearly 25,000 young men to work on forestry, flood control, and various beautification projects across the U.S. Participants were single, between the ages of 17 and 25, and primarily came from relief families. They lived and worked in camps of around 200 men, sending a large portion of their wages— typically $25 of a $30 monthly salary— home to support their families (Price Davis).
In North Carolina, CCC members dug ponds, constructed firebreaks, cleaned beaches, installed fences, erected fire towers, restored areas of designated historical significance, planted trees, and sawed trees for lumber. During the Depression more than 27,000 North Carolinian men were employed by the 61 CCC camps in the state (Price Davis 38). By the time the CCC expired in 1942, it had employed more than 3 million out-of-work young men across the US (Kennedy 144).
It remains unclear, and widely contested, how successful some of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were at combating the Depression. The National Recovery Administration (NRA), for instance, promoted monopolistic practices and led to poor worker/management relations — it was declared unconstitutional by a unanimous vote in 1935. Nonetheless, the unemployment relief and government jobs created by the New Deal programs are largely credited with pulling the American people out of the slump of the Depression. Programs like the CCC and CWA (Civil Works Administration, a relief program created under FERA that would eventually be replaced by the WPA, Works Progress/Projects Administration) dignified hard-working Americans with a paycheck instead of embarrassing them with a handout. The CWA, in its mere five-month existence, gave out paychecks totaling over $8 million to the nearly 4.2 million men and women it employed (Kennedy 175, 176). By the mid-1930s people were finally getting back to work, gradually regaining the confidence and self-worth they had lost over the past few years. With Roosevelt and his New Deal the Depression was by no means solved, however, and the American people would face a long, slow climb out of the depths of poverty, job-loss, and self-recrimination.
The texts and artifacts in this archive begin in the year 1933, the year that Jane Logan graduated high school and enrolled in Appalachain State Teachers College. 1933 was also a pivotal year for the rest of America, as the Great Depression was in full swing and a critical presidential election would determine the fate of the American people.
America During the Great Depression