Name:
US History 5/2
Entrance Ticket
Causes of the Great Depression:
“All the evidences indicate that the worst effects of the crash…will have passed during the next 60 days.”
President Hoover. March 1930.
Did President Hoover’s prediction about the stock market crash turn out to be right? Why or why not?
How was the Great Depression visible in US cities?
NAME:
Experiences in the GREAT DEPRESSION
Robin Langston
What
information is
included
about the
individual?
What
information
do they reveal
about their
social/group
status?
What do they
say about
how the Great
Depression
impacted
them?
What do they
say about the
impact of the
Great
Depression on
others?
Jerome Zerbe
Studs Terkel Interview with Great Depression Survivor Robin Langston
The following is an excerpt from his interview with Robin Langston, who lived in Arkansas
during the Great Depression.
Robin Langston: My father had a restaurant.
(Reporter) Studs Terkel: This was where?
Robin Langston: This was in Arkansas. And when I knew the Depression had really hit with full
impact, the electric lights went off. Parents could no longer pay the $1 electric bill, which had
amounted to, maybe for a month or two months, $1.80 at the most. And kerosene lamps went
up in the home and in the business. Over each individual table in the restaurant, there was a
kerosene lamp. This did something to me. Because it let me know that my father wasn't the
greatest cat in the world, and I had always thought he was, you know. But it also let me know
that he could adjust to any situation. And he taught us how to adjust to situations.
Now, we were fortunate compared to the situation of other people. We always had food.
There was never any money, but who needed money then? The restaurant went right through
the Depression. We were selling hamburgers for a nickel, Studs. My father would have a meal
ticket. You could get a full-course meal-- that is, meat and three vegetables-- for $0.25.
I remember distinctly feeding little snotty-nosed white kids. My father and mother just did this
out of the goodness of their heart. I guess there must have been 10 white families within 50
feet of us. And I remember feeding them. I remember my parents feeding little black kids. I
remember when the times got so hard, the sheriff pawned a radio to my father for $10. This
was a white sheriff, a white official, who had to come to a black man to get $10. The reason he
needed the $10, he had some people out of town. He wanted to bring them there to eat some
chicken.
(Reporter) Studs Terkel: Do you think a Depression of that intensity could come again?
Robin Langston: I think it could come again. But I think it would behoove the federal
government not to let it come. Because you're dealing with a different breed of cattle now.
See, now, if they really want anarchy, let a depression come now. My 16-year-old son is not
the person I was when I was 16. He's an adult at 16. He's working in a department store and
going to school, too. So he has manly responsibilities. And he doesn't want any [BLEEP]. These
kids now do not want it. When I was 16, I wasn't afraid to die. But the kids at 16 now is not
afraid to kill.
Studs Terkel Interview with Jerome Zerbe
Jerome Zerbe was a successful celebrity and fashion photographer.
Jerome Zerbe
From 1935 to 1939, I worked at El Morocco. And I invented a thing which has become a pain in
the neck to most people. I took photographs of the fashionable people and sent them to the
papers. These were the women who dressed the best. These were the women who had the
most beautiful of all jewels. These were the dream people that we all looked up to and hoped
that we, or our friends, could sometimes know and be like.
Studs Terkel
Do you ever talk about what happened outside? There were breadlines. There were various
other things occurring, not too nice, you know.
Jerome Zerbe
As I remember, I don't think they ever mentioned them. Never, socially. Because-- I've always
had a theory. When you're out with friends, out socially, everything must be charming. And
you don't allow the ugly. We don't even discuss the Negro question.
Studs Terkel
What was happening around the city? Do you remember the people talk of breadlines, or
Hoovervilles, or apple sellers?
Jerome Zerbe
No, there were none of those.
Studs Terkel
No.
Jerome Zerbe
Not in New York. Never, never. There were a few beggars.
Studs Terkel
New deal.
Jerome Zerbe
New deal? Well, that was an invention of Franklin Roosevelt's that meant absolutely nothing
except higher taxation. And that he did.
Studs Terkel
The '30s society, a last image.
Jerome Zerbe
It was a glamorous, glittering moment.
Source: “Who do you think you are?” This American Life. Episode 368. 7 Nov. 2008.
<http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/368/transcript>.