Why our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.....

[Aviation Pro]

...were able to survive the Great Depression. (And bear in mind they couldn't even dream of the advances that we have today and therefore suffered more).

Because they were one generation and sometime no generation from the horrors they escaped in Russia, Ireland, Poland, Germany, et. al. They were tough mofos because life had been harsh for them before. Yes, there were terrible tragedies, but they manned and womaned up and made the best of it.

The question for us is do we have that inner toughness now?

[jwirr]

1. I think that may be true for some of them but my family had been here

for at least 3 generations before the Depression. I think that they survived because they had no choice.

[enlightenment]

6. Agree. My latest immigrant ancestor arrived in 1845.

Most were here before the Revolution. People survive because the alternative is unacceptable to them.

My great-great grandmother wrote about making a wedding 'cake' for a young neighbor woman by beating the 'dough' inside a butter churn because they had no leavening. That was during the Civil War. My great-grandmother saved my great-grandfather's leg from amputation from infection by repeated soakings in scalding hot water and carbolic acid. That was in the 1890s. My grandparents on both sides have endless stories of how they survived the Depression.

You make do with what you have - and you get damned creative about it.

[Aviation Pro]

9. Since we were just coming out of an agrarian based economy....

...the same thing applies to those who settled in the mid-West (mostly Eastern Europeans and Scandinavians) who learned how to survive harsh winters and the dustbowl.

[amandabeech]

15. Believe me, the Scandinavians ALREADY knew how to survive harsh winters.

The dustbowl did not consume the entire midwest, although most places had some amount of grit in the air from time to time.

For many farmers, the whole point of the Depression was to keep the bank from repossessing the farm.

My parents and grandparents made it.

However, we still have that paid for family farm on which a whole bunch of my family could grow food if the worst came.

[shraby]

2. Like my grandmother said one time

"You'd be surprised at how much can be left out of biscuits and still make biscuits."

[Warpy]

3. Of course we do. Our learning curve is just a little steeper.

I have survived poverty several times in my life due to my rotten health.

If one can accept the challenge and adapt to it, one will likely survive it. If I can learn the skills, so can everybody else.

It's the people who cling to entitlement of how they lived before the catastrophe and fall into helpless bitterness who will fail.

Always remember who did this to us and why. However, in the short term, just learn new things every day to cope with it.

[Hello_Kitty]

4. We are more specialized now

Back in the '30s people could grow their own food. The typical housewife could bake bread from scratch and sew the family's clothes.

[Madam Mossfern]

8. It's not hard to bake bread

or to learn how to sew.

[Mrs. Overall]

5. I think you are right. And also, many of our parents and grandparents lived in rural areas

and were fairly self-sufficient. Both of my parents were small children during the Depression and both of them were raised on ranches in rural California, where they grew their own food and raised livestock. Neither of them lived in households with electricity and everything they wore was a hand-me-down or handmade. My mom remembers going to the store as a young child, and the only items her mother bought were sugar, flour, salt, leavening agents, and a few spices. In the winter, they ate pork, beef, chicken, eggs, and canned fruits and vegetables and homemade baked items--that was it.

It's much more difficult to be self-sufficient in our current society. I'm planting a huge vegetable garden this year and buying some fruit trees to plant. We've begun to live very simply and, you know, even though our financial situation is tenuous, the simplicity feels very good on a deep level.

[rucky]

7. that definately applies to my grandparents

so maybe us 3rd-gens are soft, but there's plenty of 1st generation immigrants who will get through this okay - much to the dismay of the Republicons.

[leftstreet]

10. Let's not turn this into another Personal Responsibility Tirade

That's so yesterday.

The only 'inner toughness' Americans need is to stop identifying with the Ruling Class, and put the blame where it belongs.

[Aviation Pro]

11. And you can't eat the blame game.....

...and FDR's radical departure from business as usual saved the country and the country responded by pulling together under trying circumstances. So the responsibility, much like President Obama asked for from us, was shared.

[leftstreet]

14. FDR saved Capitalism for the Ruling Class

The 30s were a time of strong anti-capitalist sentiment and the socialist revolution was gaining ground in the US.

People didn't really 'pull together' so much as catch the bones being tossed to them. Then, of course, they got this War thingy which was good for Capitalism.

[Aviation Pro]

16. Oh, fer cryin' out loud......

...guess you don't need Social Security. FDR recognized the peril and came up with a compromise that the Republicants have been trying to tear down ever since. And by the way, the Nazis were an actual threat to our way of life, which needed to be dealt with. (See WWII for more information).

It was only after the war that the unholy alliance, so wonderfully articulated by Dwight Eisenhower in the Cross of Iron and Military-Industrial Complex speeches, began formulating.

[elocs]

12. That was then, this is now. Apples and oranges.

Besides, my family has been in this country for hundreds of years so I don't identify with or have any connection to European horrors of the past. People do what they need to survive no matter what the era may be.

[Aviation Pro]

13. Dangerous combination of Eloi and Morlock....

...nonetheless see post #9 above.

[Igel]

17. Mine worked for a steel mill.

The steel mill shut down for a while, but not that long, then employment resumed. They lived in houses on company land, and the company neither kicked them off of the land nor out of the houses. They found other things to do for that time; it was tough, probably, but not nearly as bad as elsewhere. They were the right age to have seniority and not be the first laid off.

[uppityperson]

18. I have several relatives who didn't survive.

A couple uncles and an aunt who died. Out of 8 kids, 5 survived of my parent's sibs. My grandparents survived though, in a great deal because they were (one set) on a farm and (other set) in a small farming area town.