How Did Rich people Live in the 1930's?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

As far as controlling heat, don’t forget one aspect of architecture that was very popular then, and which has faded away with the advent of better insulation and air conditioning - the sun porch. In fact, according to some social theorists the culture changed with the advent of air conditioning, because people used to go outside on their porches, which would cause them to become closer to their neighbords. Now people shut themselves inside their houses, which erodes the sense of community somewhat.

I actually lived for a long time in much the same way people in the 30’s would have - my grandparents were poor farmers, and I lived with them for long stretches of time (every summer until I was 18, and I lived there and went to school for a couple of years when I was younger). We did not have running water, or indoor toilers. Our house was built in the late 1800’s, and was largely unchanged from then. We had an outhouse, and a hand pump in the house connected to the well (luxury!), and a giant cast-iron wood burning stove in the center of the house. The stove was used to cook supper, and the heat from the stove would warm up the house while we got ready for bed. In the winter, we’d pile what felt like 20 pounds of blankets on top of us, because by morning the house would be ice cold. Midnight bathroom runs were a real adventure.

I still remember when my grandmother got her electric wringer washer. It was a big, big deal to her. Until then, washing was an amazing chore. Hand-scrubbing each piece of clothing on a washboard. Wringing them by hand, or with a crank-operated mechanical wringer. Then you’d have to take them out and hang them on a line, and then take them down later.

When I first got old enough to work the farm seriously, I used to drive an old Case tractor that dated from the 1930’s. So I know a bit what that part of it was like. It had a hand crank on the front which could break your arm if you weren’t careful. It had a hard metal seat on a spring for shock absorption. Riding that thing was loud, hot, and very, very dirty. At the end of a cultivation day, you’d be just black from head to toe.

Which brings me to bathing. Preparing for a bath consumed at least an hour. We would heat pots and kettles on the stove, and pour them into our tin bathtub. It takes a LOT of kettles to get a reasonable amount of hot water. And then we would share all the bathwater, because it would be far to much work, and waste far too much water, for each bather to get his own fresh tub. And of course, just to heat the kettles meant hauling wood, stoking the stove, getting the fire going, etc.

The people who have really been helped by technology in the past 70 years are not the rich. They had servants. The people who really did better were the poor, the lower middle class, and women. Women, especially. I am still amazed at how much work my grandmother had to do back then to keep the household going. From keeping her own garden, to making clothes and constantly repairing them, to having to can food for the winter, she was BUSY. All the time. When we woke up in the morning, she had already been up for an hour making breakfast and preparing clothes and such for the day (and we were up at 5:30 or 6). At night, when the men could relax and chat, she would be mending clothes, cleaning, washing, getting baths ready, you name it.

The poor and middle class today live like the rich did then, because we have technology to replace all the servants, and mass production to replace the expensive, handmade things the rich had then. But the rich in the 1930’s lived fine lives. Medical and dental care lacked, but in terms of living quality it wasn’t so bad. They had electricity, and radio, and nice cars, and warm homes.

22

“Toilers”? I meant indoor toilets.

23

My mother (born in 1929) thought her aunt and uncle were rich because they had butter. It’s all relative.

24

It’s a tough comparison. Even those we call poor now often enough have cars and televisions.

But little security.

My mother was raised as a New York City rich kid (Grandfather was an inventive engineer who made a bundle, and then blew it in the '50s and '60s). Their house in Brooklyn was plenty big, but nothing compared to the mansions I see today. They had an upstairs maid, a cook/chief housekeeper (and then housekeeper when the upstairs maid became history) and a chauffeur/butler. All that household staff would seem intrusive to me now.

She went to a private school, they had a summer place (and moving for the season would seem like a huge PITA to me) and took long vacations every year (they spent August of 1939 in Germany).

It might make a better comparison to contrast the lives of the wealthy from the 1960s or 1970s to that of the middle class of today. The house I grew up in had a servant buzzer underneath the carpet in the dining room (not that we had any servants) and, like all the other houses in the neighborhood, had a servant’s quarters built onto the garage (not what is commonly called a garage apartment).

25

I agree that life is more comfortable, if less elegant, now than it was in the 1930s. What I really regret, though, especially as an apartment-dweller, is the increased noise. Now everybody has a TV and a stereo, often in every room, and definitely has a telephone in every room. I am a quiet, quiet person and my neighbors drive me nuts. My parents lived in dormitories and apartments in the 1960s and 1970s and say they never had the noise problems I do (a motorized treadmill in the room below my bedroom! That she uses at 6 a.m.!)

Vacations were so long because it took so darned long to get anywhere.

26

Sorry for the double posts, though they are several hours apart. I thought of something else: remember life before the “information superhighway”? Remember life before cable TV? Before really big bookstores (when Waldenbooks was the best bet)? I’m dating myself by not thinking of even more information-deprived times, but my point is that a modern consumer would have gone stark-raving mad over how difficult it was to look anything up. I think that the increased availability of information today trumps a lot of the advantages that a rich person enjoyed in the 1930s.

27

As I understand, domestic help was a lot cheaper “back then” than it is today. In the 30s, jobs were somewhat scarce, especially for women, and more especially for women of color. Once factory positions became more widely available, domestics bgan demanding more than their usual pittance. Households had to compete, wage-wise, with the factories, and most couldn’t afford to pay that much.

28

My parents were among those who followed the F. Scott Fitzgerald way of life - or tried to. Their top daily priorities were: alcohol ( a drink for every time of day starting with a Bloody Mary which they called “the hair of the dog that bit you” to cure your hangover of the night before) several changes of attire - they always dressed up for dinner - lots of clever chatter, the need to be ceaselessly entertained, and almost no interest in their own children. Musical comedy reigned; serious talk and pursuits were shunned.They liked to drive to the Princeton-Yale football game and each trip was an occasion for bringing top-drawer food and lots of booze.There were do’s and don’ts. Do vote Republican (get rid of FDR, "that man in the White House"and ladies, do make faces to mimic that “ugly” first lady, Eleanor. Don’t: mention Jews unless to belittle them. Do own the right china, sterling,
clothes from Paris (if you’re a woman) or from London (if you’re a man). If you live in the country, own Springer Spaniels and have leather patches on your bespoke tweed jackets. Style was their God and God didn’t exist. Their way of life caught up with them; when children were in crisis and alcohol took its toll. All their clever chatter added up to not much. My dad died at 61, having brought on the diseases which self-indulgence can cause. My mother, a volcano spewing anger after she lost her beauty and her two husbands, lived to 94.

29

My parents were among those who followed the F. Scott Fitzgerald way of life - or tried to. Their top daily priorities were: alcohol ( a drink for every time of day starting with a Bloody Mary which they called “the hair of the dog that bit you” to cure your hangover of the night before) several changes of attire - they always dressed up for dinner - lots of clever chatter, the need to be ceaselessly entertained, and almost no interest in their own children. Musical comedy reigned; serious talk and pursuits were shunned.They liked to drive to the Princeton-Yale football game and each trip was an occasion for bringing top-drawer food and lots of booze.There were do’s and don’ts. Do vote Republican (get rid of FDR, “that man in the White House”)and ladies, do make faces to mimic that “ugly” first lady, Eleanor. Don’t: mention Jews unless to belittle them. Do own the right china, sterling,
clothes from Paris (if you’re a woman) or from London (if you’re a man). If you live in the country, own Springer Spaniels and have leather patches on your bespoke tweed jackets. Style was their God and God didn’t exist. Their way of life caught up with them when children were in crisis and alcohol took its toll. All their clever chatter added up to not much. My dad died at 61, having brought on the diseases which self-indulgence can cause. My mother, a volcano spewing anger after she lost her beauty and her two husbands, lived to 94.

30

For all of us eventually, the kissing has to stop.

31

Wealthy people then were rather constrained in their lifestyle, and in most cases had to be in order to maintain their wealth. It was much more important then to make a show of wealth and be in correct society, in order to keep the money circulating. Wealth was a part of a loop, and you were either in or out. So you had to dress correctly, entertain the correct people, be a member of the proper societies, because your income depended largely on business contacts with all those people.

Of course, there were a few families that had so much money, they could live like Howard Hughes, but for the upper one percent (a million people or so), their wealth was a constant renewal of income, which was subject to crashing if you were not in a loop of abject conformity with your peers.

It was extremely rare for an upstart to find a way to become even modestly y wealthy. Wealth was hereditary, and the children who would inherit the wealth had a firm hold on social breeding.

32

We’re very pampered and fat these days!

I’ve driven cars with out power steering for many years. Its not the same as having your power steering going out

33

Household help out of vogue? I guess it depends on the definition of vogue for sure!

Not necessarily the AC, it is also because of all our electronic contraptions and the fear of all the nasty people out there. You rarely see or at least I rarely see kids outside playing any time of the year. The church out back of our property has summer camping for kids and its a wonderful “noise” to hear them playing, laughing and what not

How rich were these people with servants, even one servant would seem to be to expensive for the average family but like it seems they all had them even with the few poor

They must have had some low wage or whatever. I dont think servants would be intrusive or even one servant, wouldnt they become somewhat of a family member?

I imagine in the very rich, the “help” had their “place”

But…there was another post here I was going to quote about the Jewish people in the 30’s. I have no doubt the hatred has not changed much over the years.

You would think by now as the generations age and fade away much like the other minority racisms, would evolve and subside with each new generation but since I dont have much racism in my beliefs I could be shielded some what in what the masses retain

Too bad children have to believe the crap their parents spew from their beliefs!

34

My first car had no power steering and I didn’t need a guy to drive it for me and either did any of my women friends or sisters need a guy to drive them around ! My dad showed me how jack up my car and take off a tire so if I got
a flat tire I wouldn’t have to wait for a guy to help me.

35

In fact, when I got my first car with power steering, I wondered why it was even necessary in a front-wheel drive car, where it was just as easy before power steering came along. The only thing that was harder without power assist was turning the steering wheel when the car was standing still.

36

vacuum cleaners were around.

Rather than bikini clad house bunnies, you had sexy French maids. :wink:

37

My mother’s family were upper middle class. Grandmother’s family had many acres of prime farmland and grandfather was the VP of Sales for Northern Pacific Railroad. They lived in one of the largest homes in their small town, and grandfather served two terms as mayor after his retirement. Grandmother managed their farms.

According to my mother, when she was growing up in the '30s (she was born in '29), they were completely untouched by the Depression. They had a housekeeper who also served as nanny and cooked for the family, a yard man, and a day maid. The housekeeper lived in the home, the maid did not. Both grandfather and grandmother had their own cars. They didn’t have a driver, however, as both enjoyed driving and grandmother was handy with cars, strangely enough.

Until my grandmother entered a nursing home in her '80s, I never saw her be anything but impeccably dressed and turned out. She wouldn’t even come out to the kitchen for a cup of coffee until she was dressed and groomed. She had, and wore, several very nice furs, and had some nice jewelry that I have today. She wore French perfume that she’d purchased in France. Grandfather was slightly more casual, but not a lot. As he didn’t have chores to do around the house (those were all done by the help), he had no need to dress down. He, too, had some nice jewelry and was always perfectly groomed.

I wouldn’t say neither of them worked hard, but their lives were cushioned, and money was never a problem.

38

The only part of this that is true is the bit about air-conditioning. By the 30s, air conditioning had spread to commercial establishments (especially movie theaters which had used to close in the summer and and found summer their biggest season as people would duck in for a couple hours of relief). If you were wealthy enough, you certainly could air condition your house. For heating, so long as you had a servant to shovel the coal into and ashes out of the furnace, you were golden. I don’t know where you got the idea that cars were hard to steer without power steering, but they weren’t. And with drum brakes you didn’t need power braking either (although they had their problems, especially if you went through a deep puddle). Once electric starters became standard (some time in the teens, I think) anybody could drive a car.

Polio was relatively uncommon. Or rather it was exceedingly common in infants but rarely paralytic. Ironically, it was the rise of modern sanitation that allowed some people to avoid it as infants and then get it later when it was much more dangerous–often paralytic and sometimes fatal. But other aspects of medicine were very primitive. In the 30s, sulfa drugs could help with some infections, but penicillin and other antibiotics became available only in the 40s. Surgery was fairly primitive. Nothing like bypass operations were available, although things like appendectomies were fairly routine, although without anitbiotics, a ruptured appendix was exceedingly dangerous.

But leaving the medical aspect aside, life for the wealthy was very pleasant indeed. Middle class life now, to the extent there is still a middle class, can be a constant stress to stay in the middle class. Of course, unemployment was very high in the 30s, but once you had a job, you could usually count on keeping it until you retired. And social security was intended to both force you to retire (originally, you got no benefits until you either retired or passed 75) and enable you to retire.

39

Not to be too nitpicky with those who nitpicked my characterization of cars with manual steering as being too hard to drive, but I addressed that 16 years ago.

40

Make that 12 years ago.