what was life like for whites in 1930?

Question

1930's families

Answer 1

For some tough after the stock market crash a year earlier.

Answer 2

My great grandparents and grandparents lived on farms, so life wasn't as hard for them as it was on other folks. The 1930s were rough on everyone, not just whites. The Great Depression had hit in 1929, and the country was in the deepest financial trouble it had seen for quite some time. It was even worse than after the Revolutionary War, in that it affected all of the states, not just some of them.

Answer 3

The markets crashed in 1929, the world as everyone knew it, was over.

My father and his four brothers hoped freight cars to the Northern areas of Minnesota to work for the CCC camps set up for the poor for work, they made $18.00 a month, he sent this home, that's why he jumped freights to save the money.

There were "hobo camps" all along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, until the late forties, men of all ages lived in these camps. They wandered the neighborhoods looking for hand-outs. My grandmother always had an extra sandwich for the ones that stopped in.
When my friend and I fish the river we listened to the hundreds of personal stories of these people. Very few were women, usually the wife of a hobo or, a sister.

My Grandmother made her own lye soap in the backyard, selling it to neighbors. I can't go into the still she was using to make booze. She did sell to the 'Bo's that stopped in for 25 cents a fruit jar.

We would go to the local dump and find zink jar lids and break the pocelyn out and seel the tops to the junk man (sheeny) with his horse and buggy. Along with rags and wire we'd find. We walked to Soo line railroad tracks with a wheel barrow and pick the coal the trains dropped, for our Grandmothers cook stove and the kitchen range.

There was always a hugh pot on the stove with two or three chickens in it, it seemed like this was our mainstay. And, nothing went to waste, you could always find a chicken head or, the chickens feet in the pot.

These were stories from my father and, my family. I learned from them, I didn't just listen.

Answer 4

Where ? This is a large World. In fact even in a small country such as the United States of America there can be great differences between state to state even city to city. And when in the 30s? IN America following the 1929 crash things were bad untill '32, showed some gains through '34, threatened to crash in '35, and there was a definite upswing by '36 and many argue that the depression ended in 1938 and not in 1941 with the start of WW2 for America.

Odd patches of America rumbled along quite well weathering the storm with minimal upset but a lot of that was people who were use to minimal comforts and took set backs in stride. Cartoonist Chuck Jones is an excellent example. Born in 1912 to a modestly affluent family he was 20 in 1932 and though not rich by any standard he had a comfortable life, see link and snippet below. Ditto for Mel Blanc who voice many of Jone's cartoons. In Mel's case born in Portland Oregon his fanily never rich yet never without a roof over head or food in the belly. Mel started out equally 'poor,' able to afford an ancient car, finding ways to make a pittance pay for life's needs, he entered the 1930s 'poor' and was happy by the end of the decade to be making a steady substantial though not humongous wage.

http://www.chuckjones.com/bio.php
"""Born on September 21, 1912 in Spokane, Washington, Jones grew up in Hollywood where he observed the talents of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and worked occasionally as a child extra in Mac Sennett comedies. After graduating from Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (now California Institute of the Arts) Jones drew pencil portraits for a dollar a piece on Olvera Street. Then, in 1932, he got his first job in the fledgling animation industry as a cel washer for former Disney animator, Ubbe Iwerks. It was at Iwerks Productions that he met Dorothy Webster, to whom he was married in 1932.
In 1936 Jones was hired by Friz Freleng as an animator for the Leon Schlesinger Studio (later sold to Warner Bros.). Jones admired and revered Freleng for the rest of his life, saying, "No one except Tex Avery had as perfect a sense of timing as did Friz Freleng."
In 1937 his daughter, Linda, was born, and in 1938 he directed his first film, The Night Watchman.
He worked with and for directors Tex Avery and Bob Clampett until the early forties when they left the studio, and for the remainder of his years at Warner Bros. he worked in parallel with Directors Freleng and Robert McKimson. He remained at Warner Bros. until the studio was closed in 1962.
During those years, sometimes referred to later as the Golden Years of Warner Bros. animation, arguably some of the most enduring cartoons ever made were produced; most of them still enjoying worldwide recognition daily.
When Warner Bros. closed, and after a very short stay at the Disney Studios, Jones moved to MGM Studios, where he created new episodes from the Tom and Jerry cartoon series. While there, in addition to The Phantom Tollbooth and Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Jones directed the Academy Award winning film, The Dot and the Line."""


So if you are thinking doom & gloom for everyone it is not that simple. For a rich white family the 1930s were a good time. One could pick uop real estate for ridiculous prices.

Peace..............................................................z z z tttttt