1933: Sarah's Family Copes During The Great Depression

In 1933, Sarah Eva Howe Salyers and her family were living in Lexington. They had moved there from Carrollton a few years before, when their older children enrolled at Eastern Kentucky State College and the University of Kentucky. Their youngest, David, was still in high school and on June 1, 1933 would graduate from Henry Clay High – one day before his brother Jim would graduate from UK. The eldest, Bob, already had his college degree and was working for the Kentucky Education Association. Sarah's only daughter, Mary Alice, had earned a bachelor's degree at Eastern and in 1933 enrolled in a UK summer course toward earning a master's degree. Sarah's husband, William Levi Salyers, still worked for The Moore Corporation, a stove and furnace distributor based in Joliet, Illinois.

By that description, life seemed almost idyllic for the Salyers family. However, 1933 was the low point of the Great Depression. Letters and clippings in Sarah's scrapbooks indicate that, like most American families, this family found life economically challenging.This paragraph from the History Channel website describes the times:

"The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1939, and was the worst economic downturn in the history of the industrialized world. It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and employment as failing companies laid off workers. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its lowest point, some 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half the country’s banks had failed."

In the scrapbooks are letters sent to and from the six family members and their relatives, referring to money and the lack of it:

• Will, who travels regionally representing the Moore Corporation, writes home to request money or sends a little money to Sarah – sometimes as little as $2 – to "tide her over" or to "cover some basics." He writes checks knowing that money may not be in the bank to cover them. In letters to Sarah, he refers a time or two to "this depression" and expresses frustration at not earning more.
• Sarah, either on her own or at Will's suggestion, delays purchases. She pays some bills and not others. Like other homemakers in 1933, she "makes do" and gets creative to meet basic needs.
• The three adult children work full-time or part-time to support themselves and contribute to the household. Letters refer to finding deals on second-hand clothing, being unable to pay for car repairs, borrowing money and clothing from each other and from friends, and looking for work without success.
• David, probably at the suggestion of one of his parents or brothers, approaches a relative in Carrollton for money to help with college fees for his freshman year at UK. The relative promises to provide some money, and there are notes and letters indicating that David made at least one trip to Carrollton to collect the cash. The relative postponed the gift (or loan?) a time or two and in late September sends regrets that he cannot honor the promise. His letter also mentions troubles at the Carrollton National Bank.

Through it all, the family continues to put education first. (This isn't surprising, if you recall the importance Sarah's parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles placed on learning.) The scrapbooks contain no hints that any of the children ever considered dropping out of school. Somehow tuitions and fees are paid, and by the end of the Depression, all four earned at least a bachelor's degree.

Of course, the college fees in 1933 seem ridiculously inexpensive today, but the $22.75 Mary Alice paid for a summer course at UK was more than two-thirds of the $30 her family was paying in rent every month. The college fee she paid that summer would equal about $420 today.

In April 1933, a letter from Will informs Sarah's sister Leonora that the family is moving to a less-expensive house on Rand Avenue in Lexington. He mentions quibbling with his current landlord over $10 and asks her about checks he apparently expects to receive from her or her mother to settle with the landlord. Apparently, Leonora, who is single, and her mother, a widow, do not live in a home of their own but stay with various relatives and friends for weeks or months at a time before moving on to the next stop. The reference to Wheatley refers to a community in Owen County, about 16 miles southeast of Carrollton. No doubt they stayed with relatives or close friends there, although I have not yet discovered the names of those hosts. During The Great Depression, combining households was a common approach to getting by financially. The scrapbooks have references to Leonora and her mother contributing to household costs wherever they stayed.

Will's letter informing Leonora about the family's move to house that was cheaper to rent yet larger to provide accommodations for her and her mother

The larger but less-expensive rental house at 233 Rand Avenue, Lexington

According to the web page U.S. History in Context – Everyday Life 1929-1941,  a family living on an annual wage of $1,000 to $2,500 in the mid-1930s was in the middle class. Only 12 percent of American families in those days fit into that category. I don't know what the Salyers family income was, but – based on what I read in the scrapbooks – I suspect they may have been at the low end of the middle-class range, even counting multiple incomes. I marvel about their determination to "keep up appearances" and to pay for college for all four offspring.

Families struggled financially, but so did businesses and banks. The letter above from Mr. Fisher refers to the Carrollton National Bank, one of more than 9,000 banks that failed during the Depression. This paragraph from Living History Farm summarizes the banking crisis:

As the economic depression deepened in the early 30s, . . . banks began to fail at alarming rates. During the 20s, there was an average of 70 banks failing each year nationally. After the crash during the first 10 months of 1930, 744 banks failed – 10 times as many. In all, 9,000 banks failed during the decade of the 30s. It's estimated that 4,000 banks failed during the one year of 1933 alone. By 1933, depositors saw $140 billion disappear through bank failures.

While the page refers to the history of Nebraska, the same was happening in all states. No wonder Mr. Fisher and others in Carrollton and throughout Kentucky were in dire straits. Deposit insurance didn't yet exist. People who had their checking accounts and life savings in a bank that failed lost their money. The federal Glass-Steagall Act (also called the Banking Act of 1933) established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and imposed various banking reforms to stabilize the banking system. The act separated risky investment banking activity from depositors' funds, and it stood the nation in good stead until its repeal in 1999 led to the 2008 financial crisis. (See details online.)

This front page of a pamphlet pasted into one of Sarah's scrapbooks tells us the thinking of the National Depositors Committee, formed to speak for Americans who lost money when banks were closed.

In his letter to young David Salyers, Mr. Fisher sounds worried that the Carrollton National Bank, founded in 1881, might not re-open for business. Apparently, the bank survived. There is a bank called First National Bank of Kentucky (previously called First National Bank of Carrollton) in the town today.

I don't know if the Salyers family lost deposits during the Depression, but the scrapbooks make it obvious that they struggled financially. Still, all was not gloom and doom. In the next post, we'll look at some happier aspects of the family's life in 1933.