How did people survive the great depression?

The great depression was a time when the whole world was hit by a huge economic downturn that caused mass poverty across many nations, particularly the United States. It began in September 1929 when stock prices began to drastically lose value, which led up to the day that has become known as black Tuesday. On October 29, 1929, the United States suffered a complete crash of its stock market, an event that had repercussions all around the world.

Most of the world’s countries were heavily affected, with manufacturing nations being hit the hardest as their main exports were now close to worthless. Food prices plummeted which put many farmers out of business, which in turn created a shortage of food, and this is only a single example of the many things that went wrong. Unemployment shot up to 23% in the US, and international trade almost immediately halved from its normal level. For some comparison of how severe the economic impact on the world was, during the recession of 2008, global GDP (gross domestic product) fell by a total of 1%, but during the great depression, global GDP lost just over 15%.

So how did people survive the great depression?

The short answer – get “really” frugal

As with any people suffering in poverty, the only option is to make things last as long as possible and be very careful with what you spend your money on. The reason America is usually the focus of attention when it comes to the great depression (apart from the fact it started there) is that this previously rich country hadn’t seen its people suffer like this for a very long time, and the only thing it could do was watch for years as the population struggled for food and shelter.

(missions were set up to provide people with free food, but they didnt last long before running out of funding)

Here are a few of the things people had to do in order to survive the great depression:

Be prepared to move
Rural areas suffered the most as food prices dropped by 60%, forcing farmers and rural trades like logging to pack up and move to wherever the jobs were.

Create money from what you already have
People were often forced to re-finance their homes or try to cancel and collect on any policies they had like life or property insurance. Sometimes people were forced to sell their homes, and it wasn’t unusual to find people living out of their vehicles.

Collect paper
Free catalogs, leaflets, and newspapers became rarer and rarer as the depression went on because people used to claim them for other purposes. They would be used for everything from toilet paper to writing letters on, and there are even stories about people using the pages from newspapers or catalogs as wallpaper.

Learn how to forage
Gathering summer berries and plants like nettles could add a huge amount of calories to your diet, and provide things like jam throughout the year, or perhaps as something to sell for a little extra cash.

Be kind
Those who had a little more than others would sometimes employ people to do odd jobs for them or give a little to their neighbors. There were even local neighborhood giveaways where everyone would donate a little food or cash, and it would all go to a different household each time.

(People had to get creative with their food just so they had enough to survive on, with “depression soup” being one of the most common dishes)

Change your diet
Not that people had a choice, but most of the foods they were used to were now either too expensive or simply not available. People would eat mostly local produce and would be forced to eat according to the seasons, with allotments and vegetable gardens popping up all over the country. One of the best-known dishes of the day was called “depression soup” which contained anything edible and didn’t have a defined set of ingredients, if it’s safe to eat and can be cooked by boiling, then it goes in the soup.

Get creative with food
sugar sandwiches, lard on toast, and a whole range of other foods that today would seem quite odd. People weren’t able to get the things they usually could, so they had to come up with versions of their own, such as replacing orange juice with watered-down mashed carrots and wrapping a blob of mashed vegetables in bacon to simulate a joint of meat.

Take any work you can
unemployment went up dramatically during the depression and all the farmers and factory workers who were now unemployed flocked to the cities to compete for the same work as everyone else. Jobs would often be on a very short-term basis and were very unstable, so it wouldn’t be uncommon to see adults cutting people’s grass for a few cents or walking around the street all day looking for anything from dishwashing to house building.

Expect your style to go downhill
Clothes were expensive and when people didn’t even have enough to feed their children, buying a nice new suit or dress was out of the question. Clothing had to last for as long as possible and people started to get very creative with how they made clothes, with a common choice for material being the feed sack. Animal feed would often come in thick fabric sacks that could be cut up and softened enough to sow into clothing, which was embarrassing for some people to wear, but most were just grateful they didn’t have to walk around naked.

(One of the saddest photos from the great depression showing what some people thought they had to do just to survive)

Find new sources of meat
Hunting and fishing became very popular during the Depression because anything you caught didn’t have to be paid for, and a good catch of fish or a small deer could easily feed a large family. This wasn’t always an option for people in the city, and they had to come up with new ways to produce meat, like having a local pig club or keeping some backyard chickens. Several households, and sometimes an entire street would chip in and buy a piglet or two that would be fed entirely on the scraps from the household’s meals, with the pigs being butchered and shared out equally to all those who contributed.

Learn to preserve and remain well-stocked
There were very few processed goods in the grocery stores, so meals would always be made from scratch with ingredients that came according to the seasons. In an age when no one had fridges or freezers, the best way to preserve things would be either salting or pickling. When the wild berries were ready at the end of summer, people would head out into the countryside and strip the plants clean, leaving everyone with a huge amount of fruit that would quickly go off if they didn’t do something with it. Having a well-stocked pantry full of jars was the pride of many housewives during the Depression, and learning how to stop things from going off wasn’t just a way to show off, but could genuinely save your life.

Never be too proud to accept help
The government did try to help people, but since it lost such a huge amount of wealth and had no control over global prices, there was little it could do to make a difference. A few charities and missions were set up to offer food aid to people, but it didn’t take long before they ran out of money. If someone offers you help during the depression, then you take it. No complaining about having to wear a shirt made from an animal feed sack or being worried about looking weak or needy to the neighbors for accepting a couple of eggs, because the smallest bit of kindness can make the biggest difference to someone’s life, and because everyone was in the same boat, people saw those who weren’t prepared to live frugally as entitled and stuck up.

The great depression lasted well into the late 1930s, and it took over 25 years for the United States to recover back to normal levels. It is the worst level of global poverty that occurred in the 20th century, and everyone except the super elite was heavily affected.