Could you survive?

[Miss Neecerie]

I am made of the same stern stuff that my grandmother was, and her mother....all of whom had the misfortune to pick really weak and useless men.

So of course I would survive. I won't hazard a guess at what I would do precisely, but my grandmother had her own business and so did her mother even after they stopped farming.

 

[jgilbert]

Why not play the stock Market?
You know what companies are going to do well.
And there is always real estate.
How much land in Ca would you like to buy in 1937?

 

[DominusTecum]

Yeah, I'd survive. I'd do much better, I daresay, than one is able to do now. Whether there was technology or no, back in those days, if you had a job, it usually paid enough to support you and your family (ie: a living wage.) Today, the same thing can't be said. The family farm wasn't sold until the 1970s, so I could make a go at that. My hobbies include classic car restoration and typewriter/adding machine collecting, so barring the great fun of working on a Kansas farm in the middle of the great depression and severe drought, I could probably find work quite easily as a mechanic, maintenance man for office equipment, or even stenographer. Remember, back then being skilled on a keyboard was a great asset. It's taken for granted now, but at that time it was comparatively rare. All these lines of work failing, another hobby of mine is penmanship and calligraphy, and I could probably manage to live off this -the skill was still in demand in the office in the '30s, though that was changing slowly.

As for the technology aspect of the question, I wouldn't miss it a bit. I have friends in Australia and other countries whom I can easily and cheaply keep in contact with through the internet, but assuming the time shift brought them back too, and kept them in their same locations, there's always letters.

 

[Feraud]

I would think we would all be doing more or less exactly what we do today in any past life.
The state of mind of a person does not change because technology or fashion does.

 

[RedHotRidinHood]

I have often thought of this, but my situation would be a little dicey...I am white, and my beau is black, so if we were put down in Phoenix in 1937, he would probably be lynched and I might go to jail or at least be in a lot of trouble! Maybe it might be a little better if we lived in an interracial-friendly place, but I don't think many existed in 1937. Other than that, I would probably be a regular housewife, or some other domestic type of person. Maybe run an Ironrite at a laundry! I think I'll stay here, thank you. Even though I pine for simpler days as much as anyone else here, I know that there are certain realities that make living in the modern age a wee bit better for us.
One of the worst things about that time would be that my beau, who is very smart and working on a Master's degree, would have very few opportunities to better himself. He'd be stuck being a menial worker somewhere, not being able to use his abilities at all. It would be a terrible waste!

 

[reetpleat]

But have you been to the moon lately? It's not like it used to be,...too many tourists. lol

And no atmosphere.

 

[ScionPI2005]

I'd survive. As an investigator, my job would essentially be the same. The only difference would be that I would no longer have the computer to do background checks on the fly or research. This being, I would spend more time down at the courts, library, and a lot more time out of my office.

Hobby wise, I'd still have my writing. I'd miss video games and internet, but I guess I'd get over it.

 

[ShortClara]

I'm an actress, and I might be doing better in 1937, as I might have been considered better looking on the whole than I am today I think.

However, the question hits me hard today, as my Mom get a pacemaker this afternoon. Couldn't have happened in 1937, so I am thanking the Good Lord above for being in 2007 today. Yes, Sir.

 

[killertomata]

If I was still in San Diego 1937, yes. I have had bad asthma since I was a child, but as long as I could find a Chinese herbalist to hook me up with ma huang- which I used extensively before people started using it stupidly and the FDA decided they had to protect them from themselves- I'd be fine. SD had a China town in 1937, remnants of it remain downtown in some beautiful buildings.

I'd prefer the clothes, the cars, and the music, but I would probably have problems with racism because I'm Native Amer and Euro (mostly Scot, Irish and French on that side) and no one can tell what the heck race I am. And dealing with different attitudes about women would be an adjustment. But others have survived far worse, I'd be fine.

 

[HadleyH]

That's what I was pointing out. All people could do was "Survive" ...



BRUNO

.. I'm sorry to hear the bad things that happened to some of your relatives but if we think of it, bad things also happen to people today too ...[huh] thats life more or less, isn't it?

You say that all people could do was survive, not all people akaBruno, some poeple live perfectly happy and confortable lives, lets face it... generalization is always a bit...well a bit unfair.

 

[LizzieMaine]

How you lived during the 1930s depended to a considerable degree on *where* you lived. The rural South and West dealt with poverty to a far greater degree than the urban Northeast or the industrial Midwest -- but to claim that "the largest segment of the population" lived in poverty is simply not accurate. The population of the US was heavily concentrated in the East and Midwest, and most people lived in what we'd consider today to be a working-class environment -- earning enough to rent a livable home, but rarely to own one, having a radio but perhaps not a telephone, depending on public transportation rather than one's own car to get to work, and expecting kids to finish high school at best, with only a very small percentage going on to college.

It wasn't the sort of consumer-oriented way of life that kids grow up in today by any means, but neither were most Americans scrabbling in the dirt. Some were, and we shouldn't discount their experiences -- but they weren't the majority, and hyperbole won't make them so.

My own grandparents were a classic example of East Coast Depression people -- they lived in poverty for much of the thirties, but they took every opportunity they could find to climb out of it, worked every kind of job there was, and by 1943, my grandfather was operating his own successful local business, a business he'd run for the rest of his life. He was never rich, he never became "middle class," but he made a respectable living, and that's all he ever really wanted. In the truest sense of the word, they Survived, and they were proud of having done so. And I know, because they raised me.

PS: I know what it's like to use an outhouse too. And also what it's like to live in a cold-water flat. So there.

 

[panamag8or]

fftopic:

Dominus:

You need to post some more, so I can send you a PM about typewriters/adding machines.

 

[Mike in Seattle]

Since I do bookkeeping and taxes...and since I learned to type on a 30's Remington...since I can use a fountain pen, since I have actually used ledgers and journals to do bookkeeping by putting pen or pencil to paper, I think I'd be able to do OK. As Dad put it, when times are tough, people want to account for every penny and make sure they're making a profit. When times are good, they want to account for every penny and make sure they're getting every deduction they can...

 

[DominusTecum]

I've used an outhouse before, or the "temple of thought and meditation," as an old man I know used to call it. My elderly neighbor did not have indoor plumbing as late as 1997, and when we were at her house, we duly went out and used the two-holer which was down a path from the back door.

 

[Miss Brill]

I think I could survive anything. My great-grandmother died in 1937, so I'm familiar with the year, and what my then 21 y/o grandma was doing. I think I could also survive being kicked back a few hundred years. We didn't get a telephone until I was 14, and we didn't have air conditioning until about then, and we rarely had a car. I'm always threatening to sell my house & build a log cabin or a yurt and live off the land.

 

[Phil]

I was thinking about this, and I presented the same question to my freinds. They had their own inputs. However, my freind Dave, who's putting up a shed for his gradfather, made a great point.

"I would love it. My tools would stay together longer and work better. They don't make stuff like they used to, right?"

 

[Shaul-Ike Cohen]

First of all, I like much of the style of the thirties, clothing, design, movies, music and the like. That doesn't mean that a flicker or a song published yesterday can't be good by definition, and the other way around, there are lots of movies and musical recordings I don't care about or actually dislike. I'd have disliked them back then, too - like most people back then had likes and dislikes. Authentic Golden Era people weren't uncritical Golden Era fans mostly.

But another, more important aspect is if life was better or worse than today, something that simply depends in the individual case, but may at least be gauged for larger groups. Certainly, there are people who'd be better off back then than today, for "neutral" reasons or for reasons where I have little sympathy. People of a certain position can't afford a dozen slave-style domestics anymore. But all in all, life expectancy was lower, non-lethal diseases were much more painful, poverty was more common (though it seems to get worse again), and anyway, poverty didn't mean your TV wasn't HD, it meant you didn't have anything to eat.

Personally, to answer the original question of survival - yes, I might have survived, but chances are I wouldn't. Chances are I'd have lived on a continent with too many Jew-killers around, and even if I'd made it out of there, as Fletch said, I'd have to sharpen my insulin needles myself. Today, I check my blood sugar every couple of hours, and it's still unpredictable; back then, I'd have long been dead after a series of comas.

You can answer the question like a child, of course - "In 1937, I'd have been the biggest movie star of them all" - but you should be aware of it, and not attack people who answer more literally, even if they destroy your dreams.

 

[JohnTheGreek]

I come from a family of Greek Immigrants who were doing EXTREMELY well for their time and background and even they took it on the chin during the depression.

I think if I were transported back to 1937 or before, you wouldn't find me in a classroom anymore. I'd be "off to Magadhi to shoot some ivory!" or be for hire to help some wealthy industrialist and his daughters do the same.

John

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

I think I'd get strange looks when someone offers me a cigarette and I say, "sorry, I don't smoke". I better keep that to myself.

 

[green papaya]

army or navy

Im sure I could be a US Fighting man