People ask, Why is this in a trade Journal? Because wisdom is wisdom. Better to have it and not need it, then need it and not have it.
Source: 50 Survival Lessons From The Great Depression: The Horrifying Things Americans Did When Money, Jobs, & Hope Disappeared<!-- --> | ZeroHedge
2. Follow the harvest. Migrant farm work was the artery that kept many alive. Cotton in Texas, apples in Washington, wheat in Kansas - each crop had its season, its hunger for hands. A family could stitch together nine or ten months of labor by chasing ripeness across state lines, living in tents that leaked when it rained.
3. Ask not what the job is; ask only if it exists. Pride was a luxury item, quickly pawned. Men who had managed offices took up shovels. Women who had worn silk now scrubbed floors. The work itself mattered less than the doing of it, the exchange of sweat for coins.
4. Put every able body to the grind. Children sold newspapers, gathered bottles, ran errands for pennies. Grandparents watched infants so mothers could scrub laundry. No one sat idle; the family was an economic unit, a small cooperative where survival was the only dividend.
5. Scavenge value from the discarded. Driftwood became fuel. Rusted metal became scrap. Bones became glue. The beachcomber and the junk man were aristocrats in this economy, turning refuse into currency through sheer force of will.
6. Embrace the government's outstretched hand - cautiously. The New Deal programs, for all their bureaucratic weight, taught skills and poured concrete. Men learned masonry while building dams; they learned forestry while planting trees. Take the help, but keep your eyes open.
7. Work until you cannot stand. There was no retirement, no gold watch and pension. Seventy-year-olds swept floors. Eighty-year-olds watched grandchildren. The body worked until it broke, and then it found lighter work.
8. String together fragments. When full-time work vanished, people cobbled three part-time positions into a patchwork income. Dawn at the bakery, noon at the cannery, night at the loading dock. Sleep became a negotiable commodity.
9. Knock on every door. The unemployed did not wait for advertisements; they walked the streets, entering every shop and factory, offering labor by the hour. Persistence was the only resume that mattered.
10. Create your own occupation. Women arose before dawn to cook stews and pies, then sold them outside factory gates during lunch breaks. Men sharpened tools on porches, offering services to neighbors. Necessity was the mother of small enterprise.
11. Cultivate the jack-of-all-trades. The specialist starved. The man who could fix a roof, shoe a horse, and balance books found three times the opportunity. Breadth trumped depth when the market for expertise collapsed.
12. Accept payment in kind. Farmers took on hands they couldn't pay in dollars, offering instead bushels of corn or sides of pork. A chicken was as good as a five-dollar bill in many towns.
13. Crowd under one roof. When the bank took the house, families scattered like seeds - not to the wind, but to the homes of relatives. Three generations in one farmhouse was cramped, but the body heat alone saved on coal.
14. Convert your vehicle to shelter. Those with cars or trucks slept in them, parking behind churches or in empty lots. Public gyms offered showers for pennies; the automobile became a rolling bedroom.
15. Build from scrap. Tents, shacks, lean-tos constructed from packing crates and corrugated tin - these were not dwellings but declarations of continued existence. A roof, however patched, meant dignity.
16. Insulate with desperation. Mud, newspaper, tar paper, old coats - anything that could block the wind was stuffed into walls. The goal was not comfort but survival, keeping the pipes from freezing and the children from turning blue.
17. Wear your coat indoors. Thermostats were turned to near-freezing. Families sat in overcoats and mittens, breath visible in the parlor, saving fuel for cooking rather than warmth.
18. Harness evaporation. Wet sheets hung over doorways created crude air conditioning. As the water dried, it drew heat from the room, offering slight relief when the summer sun turned shacks into ovens.
19. Refinance before the hammer falls. Those who could, renegotiated mortgages to lower payments, buying time if not salvation. It was a dance with the devil, but it kept the sheriff away for another month.
20. Cash the safety net. Life insurance policies, that morbid savings account, became emergency funds. Better to feed the living than to enrich the beneficiaries.
21. Trade without currency. Barter economies sprouted like weeds. A morning's labor might yield a gallon of milk; a repaired fence could earn a bushel of apples. Money was scarce; ingenuity was not.
22. Beg without shame. Outside restaurants, on corners, at church doors - asking for help was not criminal but human. The rich who still ate in warm dining rooms sometimes emerged with leftovers, and the hungry learned to wait with hollow eyes.
23. Distrust the marble halls. When banks began closing their doors, taking lifetimes of savings with them, the wise kept cash in coffee cans and under floorboards. Institutions failed; paper promises burned.
24. Keep the books loose. Storekeepers extended credit to regulars, scratching debts on ledgers they might never collect. It was a gamble on community, on the hope that better days would come.
25. Dig in the dirt. The vegetable plot was the difference between malnutrition and survival. Even city dwellers tore up lawns to plant potatoes. Seeds cost pennies; harvests were priceless.
Source: 50 Survival Lessons From The Great Depression: The Horrifying Things Americans Did When Money, Jobs, & Hope Disappeared<!-- --> | ZeroHedge
50 Tips From the Great Depression
1. Move as a clan. When work dried up in Akron or Detroit, families packed their possessions into trucks and rolled toward the horizon like Bedouins. Staying together meant pooling resources, sharing bread, ensuring that when one member stumbled, others could prop them up. The lone wolf starved; the pack endured.2. Follow the harvest. Migrant farm work was the artery that kept many alive. Cotton in Texas, apples in Washington, wheat in Kansas - each crop had its season, its hunger for hands. A family could stitch together nine or ten months of labor by chasing ripeness across state lines, living in tents that leaked when it rained.
3. Ask not what the job is; ask only if it exists. Pride was a luxury item, quickly pawned. Men who had managed offices took up shovels. Women who had worn silk now scrubbed floors. The work itself mattered less than the doing of it, the exchange of sweat for coins.
4. Put every able body to the grind. Children sold newspapers, gathered bottles, ran errands for pennies. Grandparents watched infants so mothers could scrub laundry. No one sat idle; the family was an economic unit, a small cooperative where survival was the only dividend.
5. Scavenge value from the discarded. Driftwood became fuel. Rusted metal became scrap. Bones became glue. The beachcomber and the junk man were aristocrats in this economy, turning refuse into currency through sheer force of will.
6. Embrace the government's outstretched hand - cautiously. The New Deal programs, for all their bureaucratic weight, taught skills and poured concrete. Men learned masonry while building dams; they learned forestry while planting trees. Take the help, but keep your eyes open.
7. Work until you cannot stand. There was no retirement, no gold watch and pension. Seventy-year-olds swept floors. Eighty-year-olds watched grandchildren. The body worked until it broke, and then it found lighter work.
8. String together fragments. When full-time work vanished, people cobbled three part-time positions into a patchwork income. Dawn at the bakery, noon at the cannery, night at the loading dock. Sleep became a negotiable commodity.
9. Knock on every door. The unemployed did not wait for advertisements; they walked the streets, entering every shop and factory, offering labor by the hour. Persistence was the only resume that mattered.
10. Create your own occupation. Women arose before dawn to cook stews and pies, then sold them outside factory gates during lunch breaks. Men sharpened tools on porches, offering services to neighbors. Necessity was the mother of small enterprise.
11. Cultivate the jack-of-all-trades. The specialist starved. The man who could fix a roof, shoe a horse, and balance books found three times the opportunity. Breadth trumped depth when the market for expertise collapsed.
12. Accept payment in kind. Farmers took on hands they couldn't pay in dollars, offering instead bushels of corn or sides of pork. A chicken was as good as a five-dollar bill in many towns.
13. Crowd under one roof. When the bank took the house, families scattered like seeds - not to the wind, but to the homes of relatives. Three generations in one farmhouse was cramped, but the body heat alone saved on coal.
14. Convert your vehicle to shelter. Those with cars or trucks slept in them, parking behind churches or in empty lots. Public gyms offered showers for pennies; the automobile became a rolling bedroom.
15. Build from scrap. Tents, shacks, lean-tos constructed from packing crates and corrugated tin - these were not dwellings but declarations of continued existence. A roof, however patched, meant dignity.
16. Insulate with desperation. Mud, newspaper, tar paper, old coats - anything that could block the wind was stuffed into walls. The goal was not comfort but survival, keeping the pipes from freezing and the children from turning blue.
17. Wear your coat indoors. Thermostats were turned to near-freezing. Families sat in overcoats and mittens, breath visible in the parlor, saving fuel for cooking rather than warmth.
18. Harness evaporation. Wet sheets hung over doorways created crude air conditioning. As the water dried, it drew heat from the room, offering slight relief when the summer sun turned shacks into ovens.
19. Refinance before the hammer falls. Those who could, renegotiated mortgages to lower payments, buying time if not salvation. It was a dance with the devil, but it kept the sheriff away for another month.
20. Cash the safety net. Life insurance policies, that morbid savings account, became emergency funds. Better to feed the living than to enrich the beneficiaries.
21. Trade without currency. Barter economies sprouted like weeds. A morning's labor might yield a gallon of milk; a repaired fence could earn a bushel of apples. Money was scarce; ingenuity was not.
22. Beg without shame. Outside restaurants, on corners, at church doors - asking for help was not criminal but human. The rich who still ate in warm dining rooms sometimes emerged with leftovers, and the hungry learned to wait with hollow eyes.
23. Distrust the marble halls. When banks began closing their doors, taking lifetimes of savings with them, the wise kept cash in coffee cans and under floorboards. Institutions failed; paper promises burned.
24. Keep the books loose. Storekeepers extended credit to regulars, scratching debts on ledgers they might never collect. It was a gamble on community, on the hope that better days would come.
25. Dig in the dirt. The vegetable plot was the difference between malnutrition and survival. Even city dwellers tore up lawns to plant potatoes. Seeds cost pennies; harvests were priceless.
