All the macro-level, numerical data are the sum of millions of individual choices. People make judgments about how they will use their time and money. People reveal their priorities and values in those actions.
One memoirist, R.E. Quinn of Ivyland, Pennsylvania, explains what her neighbors did when her father lost his job, and her family lost most of its income and most of its possessions. She writes:
A neighbor of ours who was a widow fed us one night a week during the worst years. Her only daughter had steady work and they got by fairly well. The menu was always the same: stewed tomatoes over macaroni and cheese, bread, tea, and coffee. No meal ever tasted as great to me as that one!Another neighbor cut down every tree on his property to provide firewood for us, and for others, during the winter. There was precious little money to buy coal for our furnace.
Beyond her neighbors, the business community took action. She describes “the little corner grocery stores” and how they handled the Great Depressions:
Most owners kept a little book listing the families to whom they had given food. They gave it freely, not knowing whether they’d ever be repaid.
Individuals, both as neighbors and as owners of small businesses, chose to give some of what was their own: they gave away part of their own property, and they did so on a regular basis. These small examples were multiplied across the United States when millions of people did the same.
This was how men and women made a macro difference out of millions of micro actions. This was how people survived the Great Depression one by one, and how the nation as a whole survived.
George Liedel of Palm Bay, Florida, records how a friend’s generosity helped:
Those who had work helped those who didn’t. In 1937, I had a part-time job and was laid off just before Thanksgiving. One of my friends was working at the same place, but he more seniority and kept his job.At Christmas, my friend took two weeks off without pay, with the provision that I replace him for that period. I am eternally grateful to him for enabling me to provide my children a bit of Christmas cheer.
The charity of millions of individuals added up to a major force for good. Sometimes, the acts were spontaneous; other times they were planned. Sometimes they were individual, other times they were organized by people who formed local food pantries, soup kitchens, and other forms of voluntary aid.
There were also nation-wide charities which operated on free-will donations, like the YMCA and the Salvation Army.
In all of these actions the underlying principle was the same: people freely chose to surrender some of their possessions, or some of their time, to help others.
Cecile Cowdery, of Long Prairie, Minnesota, earned small amounts of money by sewing clothing. But it wasn’t enough. She documents a significant gesture of generosity:
One day as I was sewing, I heard a vehicle stop by the garage. When no one came to the house, I laid my sewing aside and opened the door. There on the porch sat a big box of groceries, with the name of the store printed on the side of the box.
With the groceries was an unsigned note, saying the food was a gift.
Anonymous gifts were frequent during the Depression. But whether the giver was known or unknown, the net economic effect was the same. American society could not have survived the Great Depression without the simple but powerful act, repeated millions of times, of people giving to each other.
