The Anatomy of Depression
From James Algiers
Subject: some thoughts
Date: August 22, 2009, at 9:52:57 AM CDT
To Clouis Frey
Louie,
A few remembrances of a better stimulus package:
The Anatomy of Depression
During the past four to five months the economy of the United States and of the world has gone from perceived vigor to abysmal failure. What was, only 24 months ago cited as the best of times, is now rapidly approaching the worst of times. Bank failures of major banks and previous stability are becoming daily occurrences.
People who have saved diligently are becoming destitute, if not in actuality, at least in spirit. The specter of lack of funds haunts the prudent and the spendthrifts. It is a devastating time, a time not seen for many years, in fact, a time not seen by anyone under seventy-five years of age.
The last depression occurred during the late 1920s and most of the 1930s. That depression saw twenty-five percent unemployment, soup lines, and government programs such as WPA, IRA, CC Camps. The CC Camps were the answer to improving the infrastructure of the country, when young males, predominantly white males were employed in an army-like existence. Camps were set up in rural areas, tree farms were planted, streams were cleaned, fish were introduced, roads were built and the country was cleared, cleaned, and restored. In the urban areas, parks were created, neighborhoods were forested, and cities were restored. This was all as an effort to conquer unemployment.
Then came Pearl Harbor; sudden, and committed. The world was turned upside down. The draft was instituted, the CCC Camps were emptied, the training camps, boot camps, and Air Corps depots were filled. The country was mobilized, unemployment ended, the country was transformed. That was 1941. What about the transformation as seen by a young boy, born in 1926.
At home, my father was never unemployed but had an almost indentured existence. He worked for $0.33 an hour in a general store - The Heppe Cash Store. It was a general store, a three-story building, on Main Street. It opened for business at 7 a.m. six days a week, closed at 5:30 except on Friday nights, at nine. The traffic parked up and down Main Street on a diagonal grid, until 1935 when parallel parking was instituted. That was a ball, for a few months, when the farmers tried to parallel park. But they learned, we all learned. We learned to save and reuse. We stitched baseballs with paraffin-coated string: each night the ball was repaired and used again the next day, and for the summer. And it lasted. Root beer was concocted in the kitchen, root beer bottles fermented and exploded, sometimes, under the kitchen sink, often during the night. What a noise, what a scare, almost wet the bed.
Jim Algiers pictured second from right.
Knickers, long stockings, rubber garters, and resoled shoes were worn to school, worn to church, worn almost day and night. Long underwear, with flaps in the posterior and urine stains in the front were worn day after day; laundry was done only on Mondays. A new jacket was a hand-me-down from an older neighbor. A cap was hand knitted, we all learned to knit. Toothpaste was baking soda, teeth were clean but gritty.
The dentist was seen only when aching was too bad to sleep; mercurial amalgams were placed without local injections or laughing gas. It just hurt. The doctor was seen for deep cuts, fractures, sicknesses which lasted longer than a week and sudden deaths. Sudden deaths after heavy church meals were called “acute indigestion,” CPR was unknown, and EKG’s were unknown. In 1940 the EKG machines were finally in local hospitals. Many episodes of ruptured appendicitis occurred, not from failure to diagnose, but from failure to seek care until the belly was distended and the patient was near moribund and profoundly dehydrated. The mortality was high.
Strep throat was treated with poultices to the neck, and a St. Blase blessing in February. Subsequent valvular heart disease was the cause of death in many from the age of 20 to 45; initially from mitral valve disease and later from aortic valve failure. Alzheimer’s disease was old age senility and infirmity.
Old age was a blessing shared by few. But people were happy, drank beer, ate beef stew and dumplings, spaghetti and meatballs, rye bread and beer on Sunday; went to fish fries on Fridays, all you could eat for 50 cents, and procreated at will. Families were large, all worked someplace, sometimes, and laughed a lot. Somehow life went on and folks were not unhappy - disgusted and worried, yes, but not unhappy. Church attendance was up, the clergy were active, and sexual abuse was uncommon. School attendance was sacred but short. Eight grades were the usual term of school education, the lucky went to high school, the fortunate went to college.
In 1935 at the age of 9 years, I became of age and of awareness. During that summer we lived at 266 Forest Street, and that street became a center of activity. The WPA’s stimulating workforce became active in the neighborhood. Before that time we had no curb or gutters on the street; the street was poorly surfaced, gutters were runoff waterways, and sidewalks were gravel pathways. Under the WPA the sidewalks and curbing were done on the northwest side of town, the old 3rd ward. I was inquisitive and spent the free time of the summer watching the modern marvel of street construction. Men with shovels, wheelbarrows, cement mixers, trowels, and rakes, dug, leveled, and reconstructed grades for the new roads, new sidewalks, and new curbs and gutters. It was fascinating to watch the progress, to speak with the laborers, and to realize the changes being made.
In the fall we walked to school on the new sidewalks, later my children and their children all walked on the sidewalks which were made in 1935. In fact, the gutters were redone this past year on Forest St., during 2008. Instead of fifty men, 10 wheelbarrows, and many trowels, six men, three cement trucks, and a Wacker trowel accomplished, in two weeks what had taken a summer, twelve weeks in 1935.
The workforce of the WPA in 1935 consisted of many clerks, factory workers, and unemployed graduates; the unemployment was 20% of the total workforce. The WPA was the government stimulation package of 1935. It worked; the dignity of work was continued and the progress was visible by weekly inspection. The success was measured by honest sweat and visible progress. It was appreciated by my friends and myself as we watched and listened and noted the smiles and sometimes the profanity of hard work. We learned during that summer that progress was and could be made, that conditions could and would be improved, that our parents were happier when work was being done; and later we, if we took time, were aware that construction, well done, lasted. These were good lessons.
But the greatest lesson was that things could be better.
As projects were accomplished, the derogatory description of the WPA--Wipe Pa’s a**, was replaced by recognition of Workers Progress Administration; it became a privilege to again be employed. The anatomy of depression changed with employment and accomplishment, with sweat and calluses, with aches and pains; but with awareness of an accomplishment for the ages. It was a summer to remember.
Boys of nine or ten years of age do observe and learn.
Jim Algiers in a family picture - he is pictured on left, wearing tie, knickers, and argyle socks.
