Christmas Wish Lists in the Depression

Have kids in your life with Christmas wishes? Sons, daughters, nieces, nephews? Take a look at what Depression--era kids requested, in today's story in the Courier.

Depression-Era Children's Letters to Santa

Some say that unemployment levels in Michigan, if you count those people who have simply given up on looking for work, approaches or equals depression-era levels.

How does one Depression-era Christmas compare to Christmas 2010? In particular, how did Ypsi children react to the difficulties they could see all around them, to the worried nighttime conversations around the kitchen table overheard from their bedrooms, to their parents' inability to buy them a new warm coat?

How many could afford the trains, skates, and velocipedes on sale at Shaefer's Hardware in December of 1932?

That story will be in tomorrow's Ypsilanti Courier (if they run it); be sure to snag a copy!

When the lights went on in Ypsi for the very first time

Twinkly lights, blinking lights, glowing lights all around town...like to read about the very first time the lights went on in Ypsi? Here's my story about it, in today's Courier (thanks Austen!)

Sleighs! Sleighs! Sleighs!

For the fun of contrast to the previous Congdon's "shiny things" Christmas ad, here's an ole-timey 1887 Ypsilantian newspaper ad offering pure-D Norman Rockwellesque nostalgia, to which Dusty D is not immune.

Ah, for the days when a simple, healthy outdoor wooden toy was The Thing. Plus, it's "strong enough got the big boys and fancy enough for the small ones." Join Dusty D in stopping by Alban and Johnson's today over on Congress, maybe during your lunch hour, and making a cash purchase of a boy's overcoat. Bingo--there's your Beautiful Sleigh. See you there.

Christmas Goodies from Congdon's, 1950

In Dusty D's experience reading the old papers, it's only after WWII that the Christmas shopping frenzy with which we are regrettably familiar kicks in.

People had lived through a decade of the Depression, then the rationing and tragic losses of a world war. Once the economy reverted to peacetime, with no more need for bombers or tanks or other wartime needs, it began producing such consumer goods as these at left.

The wonderful downtown hardware store Congdon's has been in town a very long time as you can see; since at least the '30s if I remember correctly. Still a cool place to get practical Xmas items and neato, unusual yet useful li'l stocking stuffers.

One Reason I Like the Past is Because It Did Not Contain Thomas Kinkade

1. The 1930 Michigan Census included a special check-box to indicate if a resident in question owned a radio. Ownership of a radio was seen as an indicator of wealth and modernity, and was carefully noted by the census-takers.

2. Did you catch last Sunday's New York Times article about the proliferation of self-storage in this country? "The Self Storage Association notes that, with more than seven square feet for every man, woman and child, it’s now 'physically possible that every American could stand — all at the same time — under the total canopy of self-storage roofing.'” The article also mentioned that on average, the typical American buys an article of clothing every 5 days.

3. Ypsilanti teen diarist Allie McCullough recently described buying one new dress for the upcoming school year, and sewing on another.

4. Train tracks do not run in circles within gigantic pine trees; they run on the ground. The ridiculous mashup of several sentimental ole-timey idioms in this item, while ignoring such realities as infant mortality, hunger, and tuberculosis, from the latter of which Allie McCullough died, is distasteful because it is dishonest.

5. Anyone impelled to purchase this hideous item needs to work harder on creating their own authentic holiday traditions, in lieu of buying a landfill-destined piece of tasteless electricity-wasting junk.

6. Dusty D's spleen is now fully and comfortably vented, thank you.

(Image taken from the pages of the "America Profile" magazine insert in this week's papers.)