How Did Ordinary American Families Survive the Great Depression?

How did people survive the Great Depression? Most never stood in a breadline. A Nebraska farm wife's 1935 diary shows how families really got by. In 1933, about one American worker in four had no job, and there was no unemployment check, no Social Security and no insurance on bank deposits. So how did ordinary families keep food on the table and a roof overhead? We read the diary of Edith Morse, 20, a hired man's wife near Edison, Nebraska: fifteen dollars a month, eight chickens, dirt storms that filled the house, and the 1935 Republican River flood that woke her at one in the morning. Then come flour-sack dresses, penny auctions where neighbors bid a nickel, the government agency that refinanced about a million homes, the CCC checks young men sent home, and what we lost when those years ended. What did someone in your family save because of the Depression? Tell us what it was, and the town, in the comments. CHAPTERS 0:00 The coffee can by the stove 1:23 One Paycheck at a Time (the crash, banks, Hoovervilles) 4:14 What's for Supper (Edith Morse's 1935 diary) 7:41 Dust and High Water (dirt storms, the 1935 flood) 10:57 Keeping the Roof (mortgages, the HOLC, penny auctions) 14:49 Flour Sacks and Hand-Me-Downs 17:20 Twenty-Five Dollars Home (relief, the CCC, the WPA) #AmericanHistory #Nostalgia #TheNickelYears --------------------- PICTURES AND FILM Photos: Library of Congress (FSA/OWI, Harris & Ewing), National Archives, USGS, NOAA, NYPL and other public-domain collections. Period films are public domain: U.S. government films incl. Power and the Land (1940), The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936), The River (1938), We Work Again and Work Pays America (1937); Universal Newsreel (National Archives); Prelinger Archives (Internet Archive). Modern clips: Storyblocks. Period voices: Eleanor Roosevelt (1933) and FDR's first inaugural address (1933), Universal Newsreel, public domain. Edith Morse's diary: History Nebraska (RG5531.AM), from Kent Steinke's transcript. No photograph of Edith or Bud is known, so none is shown; the diary on screen is a drawn prop. No AI-generated images are used. Photos carry no on-screen credit; the credits are here. Image credits (CC BY): Hooverville on the Seattle tideflats, 1933; Hooverville on Seattle waterfront, 1933: Seattle Municipal Archives, CC BY 2.0 Plymouth County Courthouse, Le Mars, Iowa (2018): Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0 Edison, Nebraska photos (2010): Ammodramus, public domain (Wikimedia Commons). MUSIC Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com): "Dark Times", "Lost Time", "Clear Air", "Disquiet", "Eternal Hope", "Sad Trio", "Crossing the Divide", "Simple Duet", "Americana", "Evening", "Windswept" Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Public-domain 78s: "Hard Times, Come Again No More" (Louise Homer, 1919), "Old Dog Tray; and Hard Times Come Again No More" (Regal, 1922), "The Waltz of Long Ago" (Fry's Million Dollar Pier Orchestra, 1923) SOUND EFFECTS Work With Sounds (Wikimedia Commons), CC BY 4.0: Burroughs accounting machine, cash register at Wolkoff House Museum (Werstas); horseshoes on stone paved street (Torsten Nilsson); card catalog, projector running with the light on (La Fonderie); wall clock with weight ticking (Technical Museum of Slovenia); clatter of horseshoes on the pavement, wooden wagon (Museum of Municipal Engineering); teleprinter typing, time clock, washboard (Konrad Gutkowski). Additional sounds: Joseph SARDIN - BigSoundBank.com. 78 rpm transfers: Internet Archive Great 78 Project.