The Depression as Depicted in Art, Literature and Pop Culture. True or not?

[sheeplady]

My grandmother lived through the Depression. In 1929, she would've been 15. Gran never told me anything about the Depression. She told me a lot about the War that followed. The Japanese invasion (she would've been in her mid/late 20s when that happened), and the food-shortages, the fighting, the bombing, the lack of electrical power. But of the Depression, almost nothing.

My grandparents never spoke about the depression either. The only things I know about are things that my parents told me "slipped out" in conversation with others, came up in fights, or other family members told them about their parents. I think they were from the generation where you didn't talk about things that were hurtful or dwell on those types of things. They did talk about the war and everything else, but nothing about the depression.

My mother told me once the only way to get my grandmother to talk about her experiences in the depression was to get her really mad at my great-grandmother and give my grandmother a bit too much whiskey. Then my grandmother would talk about what happened when she was a child. I know my grandmother was extremely ashamed of her experiences in the depression and what she and the family did to get by (probably more so than most). But honestly, none of my grandparents spoke freely about it or would answer any questions about it. I highly doubt my grandmother would have ever said "we were poor and everybody else was so we didn't know it" because she felt they were poorer than everybody else- essentially the destitute among the poor.

 

[Shangas]

When my grandmother was still alive, but living in a nursing-home, the residents there (mostly old women) used to tell me stories about the Depression as it affected Australia.

Australia got hit HARD by the Depression. Worldwide, it had one of the highest unemployment rates of the 1930s, up to 1 in 3 couldn't find work, and they were all shunted from town to town, looking for employment.

There was even a small home-publication at the nursing-home. Some man and his wife went around interviewing all the residents about their life-histories, and they wrote it all up in a book which was for sale in the home. It was called "To the Best of my Memory". And it covered subjects like schooling, health and medicine, work, the War, the Depression, household life, as recalled to mind by the people who lived then.

In the chapter on "Depression", one story was related by a resident of the nursing-home, who at the time (ca. 1932) was a boy about ten or twelve years old. The Depression was in full swing at the time, and he related the tale of how his mother asked a local friend (and salesman) whether he could fix up a job for her son. He managed to get a job at a local department-store, wrapping and packing parcels and boxes for delivery. It might be boring and low-wage, but he was happy to have it.

Another one was about a man who related his time working in a grocer's shop during the Depression. He was lucky enough, at the age of 13, to be employed as the Shop Boy. He was basically a boy-of-all-work, handling all the small things like cleaning and packaging, weighing stuff, carrying deliveries and so-forth. His pay was miserly. It increased later on in the Depression, but it was still not much. Something like 2-4 shillings a week (back then, Australia still used British-style currency).

On the subject of job-loss and family pride, one old woman related a story of when she was a girl in the Depression. When the Depression hit, life went on as normal. Her father went to work. Her father came home. Every Thursday (payday), Father would bring home a cheque, and show it to the Little Woman, to prove that he could still put cash in her wallet and food on the table.

Everything was fine. Everything was dandy.

But then one night she woke up and her parents were fighting. Apparently, it all came out.

Her father had actually lost his job WEEKS ago. He'd been taking small loans from the bank, and bringing home loan-checks to his wife, passing them off as his weekly salary, because he was too ashamed to admit to her that he'd lost his job and couldn't provide for his own family.

Another one was about a boy who got lucky and had a job as a telegraph-boy. It was his job to ride around town and deliver all incoming telegrams to their intended recipients. At first, the job was rather cushy, but when the War came, a lot of people gave him the cold shoulder. Of course, this was because you only received a telegram in WWII because your soldier-sweetheart had been killed in action.

 

[LizzieMaine]

In fact I remember (a LONG time ago now), how FDR had to put in place some sort of law or condition of some kind (I forget what) to keep farmers sending their food into the cities, otherwise the city-folk would all starve. Perhaps someone with better knowledge or memory of these things could back me up on this. It was something I learnt in 10th grade history, a long time ago! .

It was the farmers themselves who were refusing to send their produce into the cities as a protest against collapsed commodity prices. In the Midwest they formed the Farmer's Holiday Association in 1933, and went to great lengths to keep farm products off the market -- they set up road blockades, derailed trains, mobbed trucks and emptied the milk into the road, anything they could do to drive up the price they were being paid for what they grew.

By 1933 prices had collapsed to the point where it was more cost effective for farmers to burn corn and wheat as fuel than to sell them, and they were slaughtering entire herds of cattle and hogs because they weren't worth their feed. Unless something was done, the entire farm supply system was in danger of collapse. The Roosevelt Administration pushed the Agricultural Adjustment Act thru Congress in order to set up a quota system that would subsidize market prices and, in effect, pay farmers a stipend to keep a percentage of their fields fallow in order to force prices back to a sustainable level. More hogs were slaughtered under this program, and their meat taken into the cities for distribution to relief agencies. The entire program was bitterly controversial -- but there was no alternative if a farmers' revolution were to be averted, paralyzing the entire nation's food supply.

 

[Shangas]

LizzieMaine to the rescue!!

Yes, that's exactly what I'd learnt in school. But it was so long ago, I'd forgotten most of the details.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Farmers Holiday boys played for keeps -- most of them were armed, and weren't afraid to use violence to secure their goals. This was the group that dragged an Iowa judge off his bench during a foreclosure hearing, beat him, and then tried unsuccessfully to lynch him. This was no "Occupy The Midwest" deal, these were real revolutionaries, and FDR knew it. He did whatever he could to mollify them before the movement spread out of control.

"A Farmer's Holiday we'll declare!
A Holiday Let's Hold!
We'll Eat Our Wheat and Corn and Eggs
And Let Them Eat Their Gold!"

 

[tonyb]

...

On the subject of job-loss and family pride, one old woman related a story of when she was a girl in the Depression. When the Depression hit, life went on as normal. Her father went to work. Her father came home. Every Thursday (payday), Father would bring home a cheque, and show it to the Little Woman, to prove that he could still put cash in her wallet and food on the table.

Everything was fine. Everything was dandy.

But then one night she woke up and her parents were fighting. Apparently, it all came out.

Her father had actually lost his job WEEKS ago. He'd been taking small loans from the bank, and bringing home loan-checks to his wife, passing them off as his weekly salary, because he was too ashamed to admit to her that he'd lost his job and couldn't provide for his own family.

...

I happen to know of a similar story, except that it happened during this most recent economic downturn (like, four or five years ago), and instead of taking out those old-fashioned kind of loans, this suddenly unemployed fellow had his family living on credit cards, while he frantically scrambled to find gainful employment, until his cards were maxed out. He arose every weekday morning and went through his daily routine and headed out the door, to a job that no longer existed, although he neglected to tell his wife about that part.

Me, I've never had so much of my identity invested in that "head of the household" thing that I would ever do that, but for those who do, losing one's job can be devastating in ways other than just financial. It's just so sad to see a person's sense of his place in this world shattered like that. The subject of this story is an otherwise intelligent young man. He knows that living on credit cards while his wife goes on spending on groceries and kid clothes and all as if nothing has changed (gender roles in that family more resemble those of a couple of generations back than what is typical today) is worse than foolhardy. But he figured he'd get back to work, in his field, before disaster struck.

I found the whole thing hard to believe, but the principals acknowledged, when the hard reality of their situation couldn't be ignored any longer and their desperation had them reaching out for help, that it was indeed true.

Like the vast majority of us here, I have no firsthand experience of the Great Depression, but I was born soon enough after it (and the war) that I was surrounded by people who knew it all too well. Considering the extent to which it influenced their worldview, it couldn't help but influence mine, for better and for worse. Funny thing, though, is that some children of the Depression I know quite well are downright profligate. (Or were, anyway; some of those folks have since gone to the big Soup Kitchen in the Sky.) Maybe they figured that they'd lose it all anyway, one way or another, so they may as well lose it on something they enjoy.

 

[kiwilrdg]

The Farmers Holiday boys played for keeps -- most of them were armed, and weren't afraid to use violence to secure their goals. This was the group that dragged an Iowa judge off his bench during a foreclosure hearing, beat him, and then tried unsuccessfully to lynch him. This was no "Occupy The Midwest" deal, these were real revolutionaries, and FDR knew it. He did whatever he could to mollify them before the movement spread out of control.

The milk strikes were indeed quite violent. They continued quite a while after the depression. At one point the teamsters tried to "organize" the farmers in Upstate New York. The thugs who were sent to the farms must have been a bit unreliable because their bosses didn't hear back from them very often.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I happen to know of a similar story, except that it happened during this most recent economic downturn (like, four or five years ago), and instead of taking out those old-fashioned kind of loans, this suddenly unemployed fellow had his family living on credit cards, while he frantically scrambled to find gainful employment, until his cards were maxed out. He arose every weekday morning and went through his daily routine and headed out the door, to a job that no longer existed, although he neglected to tell his wife about that part.

Me, I've never had so much of my identity invested in that "head of the household" thing that I would ever do that, but for those who do, losing one's job can be devastating in ways other than just financial. It's just so sad to see a person's sense of his place in this world shattered like that. The subject of this story is an otherwise intelligent young man. He knows that living on credit cards while his wife goes on spending on groceries and kid clothes and all as if nothing has changed (gender roles in that family more resemble those of a couple of generations back than what is typical today) is worse than foolhardy. But he figured he'd get back to work, in his field, before disaster struck.

I found the whole thing hard to believe, but the principals acknowledged, when the hard reality of their situation couldn't be ignored any longer and their desperation had them reaching out for help, that it was indeed true.

The same thing happened to a friend of mine's Husband two years ago. They had been married for three years..and he had gotten up each morning and supposedly left for work at a supplier for GM where he had worked for years. In actuality he had been layed off shortly after their marriage took place. After loans...maxing out credit cards..and bills way past due...he took his own life abruptly in front of her at the kitchen table while finally confessing everything. She was left with over $30,000 in outstanding moneys due. What a tragedy. I don't think I've ever felt so sorry for someone.
HD

 

[tonyb]

The same thing happened to a friend of mine's Husband two years ago. They had been married for three years..and he had gotten up each morning and supposedly left for work at a supplier for GM where he had worked for years. In actuality he had been layed off shortly after their marriage took place. After loans...maxing out credit cards..and bills way past due...he took his own life abruptly in front of her at the kitchen table while finally confessing everything. She was left with over $30,000 in outstanding moneys due. What a tragedy. I don't think I've ever felt so sorry for someone.
HD

Oh good Lord Almighty. If I'm at all fortunate, that will be the saddest story I'll hear for a good long while.

If it points to anything, it's the necessity of caring friends and trusted confidants. Such persons are even more important these days, when our families are generally smaller and scattered about than they were during the Depression years. While I've never been the suicidal type myself (there are just way too many worthless [expletives deleted] around that I really wish to outlive), the deaths of too many of my closest people, combined with my now residing an hour's drive (or more) from where I had for, oh, nearly four full decades (my adjustment to an unstable early life is to STAY PUT; I may live in a relative hell hole, but I make it MY hell hole, where I know the people and the lay of the land), leaves me all the more sympathetic to people who have no one they can take their troubles to.

As to the case you cite, HD, thirty grand in debt and no job is indeed a difficult circumstance, but many, many people come through much, much tougher situations. But they first have to face the hard reality and not waste their energies wallowing in self-loathing or self-pity or self-whatever. I know that few things brighten my outlook quite like taking steps, small as they may be, in the right direction.

 

[John in Covina]

The Depression as Depicted in Art, Literature and Pop Culture: bleak except maybe in film comedies.

 

[sheeplady]

The same thing happened to a friend of mine's Husband two years ago. They had been married for three years..and he had gotten up each morning and supposedly left for work at a supplier for GM where he had worked for years. In actuality he had been layed off shortly after their marriage took place. After loans...maxing out credit cards..and bills way past due...he took his own life abruptly in front of her at the kitchen table while finally confessing everything. She was left with over $30,000 in outstanding moneys due. What a tragedy. I don't think I've ever felt so sorry for someone.
HD

That's horrible. Thankfully it was only $30,000, but honestly the worst part is that he took his life in front of her. That's just tragic. It would be my hope he had the resourcefulness to at least take out (at least) a small life insurance plan and had most of the debt in his name preferably in a way they couldn't come against her or such that she wouldn't lose shelter, etc.

I really don't get why someone couldn't just be honest about something like a job loss. Granted, it's hard and it's gut wrenching, but most people won't leave you if you've lost your job. If they would, chances are you deserve better than someone who will leave you when times are thin. Heck, there are homeless families who stay together. A job loss is nothing close to that. If people can hold it together while living in a shelter or out of their car, I would expect my spouse and I to hold it together through a job loss.

 

[Stanley Doble]

The depression was hard on some, others went through nearly unscathed, still others had the time of their lives.

My mother was a little girl during the depression. She grew up on a farm. She was a little proud of the fact that their family had a car and a telephone right through the depression, luxuries some of the neighbors could not afford.

They got through by being largely self sufficient and by not having a big mortgage. She told me one year her father was very broken up when a hay stack accidentally fell over, killing some cows. He had been depending on those cows to pay the taxes. He had some sleepless nights but somehow the taxes got paid and everything was ok.

Most of the neighbors pulled through because they were good farmers and were not in debt. Money was scarce for a while but there was plenty to eat, fire wood from the wood lot, they even had enough to feed the men tramping the roads looking for work.

Another old friend graduated college about that time. He was lucky enough to find a job working for the government. He said he never had it so good. With the regular government pay check he rented a fine house at a low rent. Bought a used Studebaker at a very good price. Everything was cheap, they even had a servant girl. When they went on vacation the resorts, hotels, trains etc were nearly deserted and they got excellent service.

I think there were some people who used the depression as an excuse for never amounting to much. They preferred to blame the depression rather than their own laziness or lack of ability. I know this was the case of some people who never amounted to much, either before or after. They loved to talk about how the depression was the cause, but they were never anything but failures.

 

[Shangas]

I have wondered how the Depression affected race-relations during the 1930s.

I'm full aware of the facts that Jim Crow laws were prevalent throughout the South, and that Segregation was a national law throughout the U.S. at this time. But the impression I've seen in films and TV series is that, and this may or may not be realistic, the Depression improved race-relations.

I think, with stuff being so hard for so many people, race and a person's nationality or skin-colour became of secondary concern. It was more important to get the car fixed. Or to find food for the table. Or to get the roof repaired.

Whether or not the person who provided such an essential service to get that problem fixed was Chinese, Black, White, Jewish, Mexican or had blue polka-dot skin didn't matter. You were happy to get the help, no matter who provided it.

I was thinking of examples such as the 2000s film "King Kong", where black and white performers work together in their vaudeville acts, or where the helmsman of the 'Venture' is an African-American. Or in 'To Kill a Mockingbird', with the black housekeeper, Calpurnia (and the whole issue of racism contained within that volume).

In 'The Waltons', the character of Verdie, a black seamstress, is treated with friendship and respect by everyone in town, and John-Boy even teaches her how to read and write.

Was stuff like this common? Or is it just softened up for modern sensitivity? "Oh, we can't have a black person being called a nigger, because it ain't right! Even if it probably happened ALL THE TIME back then". You know what I mean? Or was it really the case that in harder times, and in small country towns, where people had to work together to survive, race really was more or less ignored? Or was ignored to as much of an extent as white people felt comfortable with doing?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Segregation was *not* a national law thru the US in the Depression, or at any other time. Segregation laws were on the books in the Southern states, and in border states like Maryland and Kentucky, but there were no "white" and "colored" restrooms, drinking fountains, buses, or railroad cars in the North. There was much informal segregation in terms of neighborhood boundaries -- although it wasn't so much a matter of "black" and "white" as it was a matter of Irish neighborhoods, Italian neighborhoods, Polish neighborhoods, German neighborhoods, Jewish neighborhoods, and black neighborhoods. And you went to school in the neighborhood where you lived, so de facto segregation existed in this way. A black neighborhood had a school which was mostly black. A Jewish neighborhood had a school that was mostly Jewish, and so on. Restrictive covenants in leases and deeds were legal -- allowing sellers to stipulate that the property could not be occupied by non-whites -- until they were thrown out by a Supreme Court ruling in 1948, a decision as important in the history of the Civil Rights movement as Brown vs. Board of Education in its implications for the future.

Although segregation didn't carry the force of law in the North, it did prevail by company rule in some businesses: the "finer" hotels in most cities barred black customers, and "better" restaurants would generally seat them in an out of the way corner if they served them at all. But neighborhood diners and lunchrooms generally had no such policy, nor did most smaller hotels -- for operations like these, green was the color that counted, and they couldn't afford to turn away paying customers. These sorts of attitudes went on for a long time in many different types of business. When major league baseball desegregated in 1947, the Brooklyn Dodgers took the lead in signing black players, and developed a deeply integrated fan base -- much like the polyglot of Brooklyn itself -- where blacks and whites cheered side by side. The New York Yankees, by contrast, refused to bring in black players for several years, with the club's general manager explaining that "sitting near a lot of colored fans would offend our boxholders from Westchester."

Some of these instances of "business segregation" were particularly odd: the Cotton Club in Harlem, where many of the greatest African-American entertainers of the Era performed, allowed only white patrons: it was owned by Owney Maddon, a white gangster, and he didn't want white and black patrons drinking, and otherwise mixing together. But other first-class Harlem establishments, like Small's Paradise and the Savoy Ballroom, welcomed both black and white patrons.

There was a major race riot in Harlem in 1935, stemming from rumors spread that a white cop had beaten a black youth over a shoplifting incident. No such thing had happened -- it was a Puerto Rican boy who had been caught by the store's owner, and threatened with a beating. But no beating was given and the youth was released -- but by the time the real facts got out over two million dollars in property damage and looting had occured. Harlem had been on edge for some time prior to this over the fact that the white owners of most of the department and dime stores in the section refused to hire black staff. The "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" movement grew out of this, organizing boycotts and demonstrations that ultimately landed hiring concessions from many store owners, including Blumstien's, then Harlem's largest department store.

As far as the vast mass of the Northern public was concerned, they really didn't think much about race -- because away from the big cities, they didn't have a lot of contact with African-Americans. In 1930 the overwhelming majority of the black population lived in the South, and those who lived in the North were focused in the major cities. It was very rare for an ordinary white person in a small Northern town to encounter any African-Americans other than Pullman porters. Out of sight meant out of mind -- their attitudes weren't so much actively racist as they were "gee, I never thought of that." And these conditions prevailed far beyond the Era itself -- they continue to exist in many small Northern towns to this day.

 

[NeilA]

My grandfather was born in 1923 on a farm in Missouri. The dust bowl wiped them out, and like many others, they up and went to California because there were no jobs in Missouri. Of course there were no jobs in California either, so they had a very rough time of it until he and his brothers were able to get jobs in a naval shipyard, working on the pre-war buildup. He is a mit miserly, and eats small portions. I dont know if that is a product of the Depression mindset, or just him.

 

[John in Covina]

What was the unemployment during the depression? Men that had professions were out of work, the lack of jobs is not a sign of laziness. In an economy that is booming even people with little skill can get jobs but during a recession or depression men with skills are out of work because businesses and factories closed, there were no alternatives to take up the slack. Some people work well in certain positions but abilities in some areas do not translate into abilities for all types of positions. If you doubt that next time you're in for surgery ask the anesthesiologist to fill in for the surgeon and vice a versa.

Today as in the past if you look in my area you will find that there is a never ending cry for good salesmen, but in many instances truly good salesmen are born with the aptitude to sell, others are not able to as some have a conscience. A lot of people seem to think that it is easy to get a job even today. However it is not. We are seeing a swing in the job market where in many instances the competition of a single position is so great that that the persons hiring don't read resumes and don't look at what is submitted electronically and use search engines. Now you have the question as to the competence of those that programed the search engines, what are they looking for, what magic buzz words.

Today putting out a single help wanted ad can result in hundreds and even thousands of responders. In the past during the depression it was the same hundreds of people could turn up for a single opening. Back then there was a sense of taking care of your own in hiring, so jobs went to family, then friends and then friends of friends. This tended to eliminate the people you don't know. If you were an excellent ditch digger you don't get jobs as something else very easily and if ditch digging is a section of jobs that slowed down you're out of work. People that hang drywall for a living don't work as when they're not building new houses, and they don't transition to selling cars easily.

The lazy are just that, but sometimes good people do wind up in hard circumstances. Sometimes people don't get the good breaks and struggle. The question is do people that don't seem to have everything in life sown up simply suck and always make their own problems? The Depression was a crucible of fire. There was some that were exremely lucky just as there were some that were very unlucky. Today there are scams and cons that are operated by those that have the will and desire to take the time and money from those desperate people that can least afford it, it was the same back then.

How many of us have met brilliant people that are failures? I know I have met a number of them. How many of us have met people that are pretty near worthless and have some comfy job that they don't really merit. I have met some of those people too.

(I know a guy that gets a big salary working for the county at one of the hospitals because he's been there so long. Basically he does a half days’ worth of work which he spreads out over a full day. His retirement is going to be spectacular and his benefits are second to none. Even He complains it is boring. How did he get this job, literally he knew someone that got him in back before the county moved to more stringent quotas and testing. He has in affect won life's lottery barely graduating high school, no degrees and he's got a tip of a job. He'd have to kill someone to get fired. I think he's up to 5 or 6 weeks of vacation per year. Personal days are numerous. He basically has to just show up.

I haven't had a job that I have ever just had to show up to, I work my butt off, had higher ups steal my ideas as their own, dealt with unscrupulous business practices and had to listen to the "we're going to have to be lean and mean" speech just before a lay off from people that never had to worry more times than I care to count. It seems in the end having a sense of morality is a hindrance to getting ahead, believing that others will look out for you is a pipe dream, and there will always be someone that will use you up and throw you away because you trusted them in business.

The lazy sometimes may be smarter than the rest, knowing that dealing with business men often brings one to a world of hurt. Maybe they learned that lesson early.

Sorry for rant.

 

[tonyb]

..
Today as in the past if you look in my area you will find that there is a never ending cry for good salesmen, but in many instances truly good salesmen are born with the aptitude to sell, others are not able to as some have a conscience. ...

My nomination for Quote of the Year Award.

Car sellin', lawyerin', politickin', and cattle rustlin'. Some fellas got the knack (or the stomach) for it. Some don't.

 

[sheeplady]

The one exception to black and white contact in rural areas was migrant workers and freetowns.

Here in NYS, migrant workers worked in the western part of the state, mainly up near the great lakes. They were mainly black. However, they had white foremen and the vast majority of farmers only interacted with the white foremen. Although it really depended upon the farmer and many of these individuals used town services. My grandmother taught special education (she trained in the early 30s for it) and most of her students were the kids of migrant workers who had recently settled in the area or needed to be taught while their parents moved through the area. (These kids were put in special ed because their education tended to be choppy at best and were often far behind their more location stable classmates.) Migrants who settled in the area tended to settle in existing select towns for community purposes. Because where my grandmother lived had such a large population of migrants moving through, a lot of them settled in the town if they left their work.

NYS also had a high number of "free towns" which were majority black towns originally settled by freed slaves. There are a couple of towns within an hours drive of where I live now that were "free towns." (Syracuse was a hotbed of abolitionists.) They were self-segregated until the centralization of schools- some of which were centralized as WPA projects. My childhood school district was a WPA centralization project. Most of the schools in rural places were not centralized until the 1950s, however.

 

[Shangas]

Lizzie, when I was in school, and later in university, we were taught that Segregation was a nationwide affair, practiced both north, and south, east and west-coasts. I remember that myself and a couple of friends even contested this. No offence meant to anyone here, but we told the teacher something along the lines of: "We thought segregation was only in the South. Surely the North was more civilised and tolerant and open" etc etc.

As I recall, both of them said "no". Segregation was perhaps, not as NOTICEABLE in the north, due to, as we said, there being higher racial tolerance, but that it did exist nationwide. In the North, people were more likely to turn a bind eye, or to ignore it, or pretend it didn't exist, or not follow the law, but segregation was still there.

If what you tell me is true (and it may well be, and it's something that I'd like to, and until my teachers told me otherwise, did, believe), then it makes me feel much better.

But you're right. In the Depression, money and jobs and patronage, and getting stuff done, would've been far more important than someone's skin or creed and religion. Hotels and restaurants, cafes and shops couldn't afford to turn away someone just because they were black. They needed the damn money, and that was all that they cared about. The patronage, no matter who provided it.

I remember a few historical examples regarding race, such as Benny Goodman, who had the first mixed-race band of note. I also recall a story about...Duke Ellington I think it was (if I'm wrong, correct me here)...or some such famous jazz-musician in the 1930s. On a nationwide tour, he hired a private train when travelling through the Southern part of his tour, so as his black and white bandmembers wouldn't be segregated and humiliated on a public train.

Regarding neighbourhoods that were "segregated", either by mutual choice or by law, I remember another story about a famous black artist (again, I forget the name...I'm so sorry. He's really famous, though). This was after the Depression, I think it was in 1948 or something. He attempted to buy a house in Hollywood, California or somewhere in that neck of the woods. He bought the house, and moved in, or was on the point of doing so, when I believe, the real-estate agent told him words to the effect of:

"We're worried about undesirable people moving into our neighbourhood" (probably meaning blacks).

The new homeowner said: "I'm sure you would be. If I see any, I'll let you know".

 

[LizzieMaine]

As I recall, both of them said "no". Segregation was perhaps, not as NOTICEABLE in the north, due to, as we said, there being higher racial tolerance, but that it did exist nationwide. In the North, people were more likely to turn a bind eye, or to ignore it, or pretend it didn't exist, or not follow the law, but segregation was still there.

If what you tell me is true (and it may well be, and it's something that I'd like to, and until my teachers told me otherwise, did, believe), then it makes me feel much better.

As a life-long, fourth-generation Northerner, I can assure you that it is true. No law in any Northern state *required* owners of "fine" hotels or "better" restaurants to bar black patrons, the law *allowed* restrictive covenants in deeds but did not *require* them, and no Northern public school was segregated by law. These laws were only on the books in Southern and border states. Nor was black-white marriage prohibited nationally -- this was up to the individual state, and while all of the Southern states, all of the Western states and a few of the Northern ones prohibited mixed marriages, many other Northern states had no such restrictions. Maine repealed its anti-miscegenation law in 1883.

I went to school in the sixties and seventies in a school district that was entirely white -- because no black families lived in any of the towns in the district. There was no law requiring segregation on the books, but some would say I went to a "segregated school" just the same, simply because no African-American families lived in our area. That may be what your teachers were thinking about when they talked about segregation, but it's by no means the same thing as what went on in the South, which was a legally-compelled separation of the races backed up by an elaborate honeycomb of written statutes.