The Great Depression

I have re-found "The Waltons" of which Dad's truck (1929 Express) is of particular interest.

I remember the show from back when it was broadcast (1973-79) but I was in college and didn't really have time or opportunity to watch regularly then.

I'm measuring out the episodes which are available from a few sources online.

It's a little "goody-goody" in the telling but I believe it does fairly represent a time and place in American culture - a time which perhaps we would do well to recover. Not that I want a world war on the horizon.

Or maybe that would be better?

Based on the pleasant watching I went out and bought Hamner's "Spencer's Mountain" upon which The Waltons is supposedly based and am now about 2/3rds the way through it. Based on but there is a wide variance in details. In Walton's Papa "Owns" his home and cuts wood to ilk out a living. In Spencer's Mountain Papa rents his home from "The Company" and works at the company mill - and is building his own home on the mountain.

Spencer's Mountain varies in goody-goody. It also pictures a time and family considerably at the edge of "civilization" with company electric power, but no radio. Papa has a truck but their financial condition almost precludes being able to put gasoline in it. Unlike the TV show, Spencer's Mountain was a very "hand to mouth" existence. One might imagine John Walton's family might think of the Clay Spencer Family as "those poor people" and invite them to stay for dinner?

The dialogue in Spencer's Mountain is a little off-putting. Those of respect for education don't generally slur or mispronounce their words. It may be Hamner attempting to effect a southern dialect?

IMHO, Hamner's "Waltons" is a more entertaining diversion than the book. Characters in the book are primarily motivated by "survival" whereas the TV shows a "variety" of motivations. With a better display of the contest between good and evil. And more like real life.

Joe K
 
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updraught said:
A recent Youtube addition. Quite long.
I found it interesting where all the photos in the Library of Congress came from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIGIDEC-bZM
Click to expand...

What do you know about the creators of this video?

I could find nothing about this FD Finance organization.

It is not always easy to tell, but I think this video was created by AI from a mix of old and new photos. The new photos can be turned into B&W and made to look old. There are several factual errors that scream AI-generated material. "President Edgar Hoover"? Really? That is classic AI error where they mash together to different things into one (AI is easily confused).

The overall tone of the video has an anti-American, anti-capitalism tone. I'm concerned that FD Financial may be a bad actor pushing a negative agenda.
 
President Edgar Hoover"?

Or as radio announcer Harry von Zell so famously said during a live broadcast in 1931 on the occasion of Hoover's birthday celebration: "Hoobert Heever". Von Zell never lived that slip of the tongue down.
Marshall
 
Jim, thanks for the observation.

I'm relieved to think that I was not the only one who saw thru the lines and picked up on that:p

AI is spooky stuff and as they get it 'down' and perfect it. it will be quite dangerous. Nothing will be as it seems, and 'who' controls this will be the Master....
 
Well, you can't expect me to be an expert on American history!

We only got British history when I was at school. I did ask, why don't we learn Australian history?
The answer "there is none".
That answer was also wrong. So you can't just blame AI for history wrongness..
 
No, I don't expect you to pick up on that subtle detail. I wish YouTube would do a better job of flagging the AI-generated stuff, then people could decide if they want to watch it or not.

There is an entire category of YouTube videos now that are made up, inflammatory "stories", often with some celebrity person as the subject, but also with some random made up person as the subject. They are complete made up stories about how someone was taken advantage of and underestimated by someone else (the courts, the police, some other random official) and how they prevailed, showing everyone else how prepared they were, how proud they were, etc. It appears that the primary motivation of the people making this junk is to get "views" so that they get paid by YouTube. YouTube gets paid by advertisers for having eyeballs there to hawk their stuff to. Crazy.
 
Most people think that "The great depression" was only in the USA, while it was actually worldwide.
 
This one attempts to explain somewhat quickly, what happened in America at least.

https://youtu.be/qF3ekm9Gx_E?si=vLTl6zk1_F5a8GFJ

Seems mass production and loose lending played a part.

Here, we relied on agriculture at the time.
Things weren't good in the twenties after losing so many men in the war. Things just got worse to nearly one third unemployment. The iconic Sydney harbour bridge is a result.
 
updraught said:
This one attempts to explain somewhat quickly, what happened in America at least.

https://youtu.be/qF3ekm9Gx_E?si=vLTl6zk1_F5a8GFJ

Seems mass production and loose lending played a part.

Here, we relied on agriculture at the time.
Things weren't good in the twenties after losing so many men in the war. Things just got worse to nearly one third unemployment. The iconic Sydney harbour bridge is a result.
Click to expand...

Here is a little known fact about WW1. On a per capita basis, no country lost more men than Australia - and we are about as far away from the idiocy as can be. I had two great aunts who were like soo many other young women during the 20s. There were no where near enough men to go around so many never married. Now imagine life for those women when the depression hit. It brings a lump to my throat to think of it and I shake my head about some of the %^& we argue about these days.
 
katy said:
Most people think that "The great depression" was only in the USA, while it was actually worldwide.
Click to expand...


Most people in the USA, yes...


There was a worldwide crisis with unemployment, leading to the rise of far-right parties in several countries and culminating in 1933 in the taking-of-power of the Nazi party in germany. In the USA, in addition to the world economic crises, there was the partially-man-made problem with the dust bowl in Oklahoma and others.


I have to repeat myself here, read 'grapes of wrath'. I once saw a pjoto of a Model T big-end where the bolts holding the big end together were welded on. I thought that could have been a repair done on the way to California.
 
It is important to understand the Great Depression and what led up to it and how it led to WWII. But I think the Barn is dedicated to talking about cars. So.... How did the depression effect the survival of Model A's. My opinion is that a lot of Model A's, and Model T's survived because people could not afford new cars during that time.
 
I used to work for a man that worked on A's before the war.Then he ran an automotive machine shop for the rest of his life.He had a dozen reasons why the A survived.According to automotive trade journals at the time,the life expectancy of a vehicle in 1928 was 28,000 miles.The A was the first everyday car to leave that number in the rear view mirror.People liked them and kept them around.Less wood in most models,they didn't cave in after a few years.They could be counted on to get 16-18 MPG for the most part,not the 10-12 of other makes.Very popular during the war.He told me,if the A made it to the war,it made it through the war.My 30 truck was put in the shed after the war,because it had gotten them through it.5 million made,lots of parts around.The old scrap guys here said they wouldn't scrap many A's during the war,they were used and reused over and over again to keep people moving.My grandfather worked at the navy yard during the war,and kept 3 or 4 A's out back to keep him in parts to get back and forth to work.The towns would hound people to contribute to the scrap drives,but the A's were pretty much left alone.If you had a bunch of Model T's out back the town would harass you to death for not doing your part.
 
nkaminar said:
It is important to understand the Great Depression and what led up to it and how it led to WWII. But I think the Barn is dedicated to talking about cars. So.... How did the depression effect the survival of Model A's. My opinion is that a lot of Model A's, and Model T's survived because people could not afford new cars during that time.
Click to expand...


I think the great depression is part of our cars history, even more so Model T's history. It really is phenomenal that Henry was able to sell nearly 4,5 million of As in that time (plus the Chevys at about the same numbers). Tells me that there were a lot of people scraping the bottom to find enough money for food to keep the family from starving, but there was also a middle class, which was able to buy an A.


I wanted to understand what the time was like, when my Margarethe was born. And... if you don't understand history you don't understand the present...
 
@Joe K- I live about 20 miles away from where Earl Hamner grew up and where the area is that his book was about. Spencer's Mountain was pretty accurate on most of the details. Since he is/was semi famous around here his house and surrounding areas have been preserved as much as progress let it be. He grew up on the side of the mountain and it was a rough area to grow up. Lots of moonshiners in the mountains and if they didn't know you, you might not make it back out. We do talk with a drawl, can't help that. Lol.
I agree that at times the Waltons were a little too nice but I always figured that was for TV.
 
Most people who lived where I do now (I grew up here and my family has been here for over 250 years) had no idea there was depression. They were self reliant, grew most everything they ate and “were” extremely independent. They were told how bad they had it because they didn’t know,,,,,,,,,,,,,
 
"Read John Steinbecks grapes of wrath. eye opening."

I posted this information on the old "Ahooga" website 25 years ago, but it seems relevant to dredge it up here again to contribute to this theme, especially in light of yesterday's meeting between the presidents of the USA and Russia.

In the early 1940's, the USSR was beset by dissatisfaction and unrest among the people. Life was hard, money was scarce, opportunities for advancement and improvement in life almost nil and the government had its nose in everybody's business. About this time, director John Ford brought out the film version of "The Grapes of Wrath" that showed the bad side of the American economy and the plight of ordinary people. Stalin and his advisors thought they could draw away the Russian people's dissatisfaction with their government by showing how bad things were in America by comparison. So, even though the USSR steadfastly refused to show American movies to the public, they actively promoted the people to see "The Grapes of Wrath" with special showings and reduced admission fees. Stalin was sure this would make the Russian people feel better about their lives after seeing how bad life was in America.
Government spies were sent to the movie theaters to gauge people's reaction to the movie and report back to Stalin. To the Communist leaders' shock, the people were even MORE depressed about their own lives after watching the movie. How could this be, wondered Stalin? Didn't the Russian people see how democracy and capitalism had failed and how miserable the people in America were? Stalin wanted to find out why the Russian people were so much more unhappy with their own government after viewing the film, so he had his spies innocently interview people leaving the theaters.

Are you ready for this? The Russian people had been told all along how bad things were in America, but when they saw how ordinary people in America were living, their own lives looked even worse because:
(1) The American government was not trying to mix into their daily lives like their own government did;
(2) The people were free to go wherever they wanted without needing the local commissar's approval or passes;
(3) There wasn't a government police force consisting of bullies (the KGB) who victimized the people;
(4) Although the people in the film didn't have much money, they got to keep what they managed to earn instead of turning the fruits of their labor over to the government;
(5) Americans owned their own farms and cars and could turn them into money for whatever purposes they had in mind;
(6) What little government influence was shown in the film was positive and tried to help the people by setting up work programs and providing clean, comfortable temporary shelters;
(7) And most damning to the Russian government of all, even the poorest people in the movie had hope for a better future, something no Russian could ever dream of.

Based on these reports from the spies, the Russian government immediately withdrew the film from the theaters and never officially mentioned it again. Maybe the film was no longer available to the Russian people, but the damage had been done and the dissatisfaction with their government and their lives only intensified. The only thing that saved the government was Germany's invasion in June of 1941. The people set their personal dissatisfaction aside in order to repel the invader and survive the war. One wonders what would have happened had Germany not invaded the USSR when it did? Would the ripple effects of "The Grapes of Wrath" (among other factors) have eventually led to another great Russian Revolution??? History does not reveal its alternatives, so we'll never know. I just know that I like to watch the movie over and over again when I feel life sucks. What those Americans went through during the Great Depression somehow helps me survive my Little Depression.
Marshall
 
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