A Easy, Down-to-Earth Christmas Card from the Nice Melancholy (1933)

The Smith­son­ian units the scene for this Christ­mas card despatched in 1933, a couple of years into the Nice Depres­sion. They write:

Regardless of the glum eco­nom­ic sit down­u­a­tion, the Pinero fam­i­ly used a brown paper bag to fash­ion an inex­pen­sive hol­i­day greet­ing card. They penned a artful rhyme and added some appeal­ing line draw­ings of Mother, Dad, and the children with the mes­sage: “Oh, smartly—despite all of it—right here’s a Mer­ry Christ­mas from the Pineros.” On Decem­ber 19, 1933, they mailed it from Chica­pass to pals in Mass­a­chu­setts, the usage of a one-and-a-half-cent stamp. For a min­i­mal out­lay of money, they had been in a position to be in contact with pals and com­ment on their diminished cir­cum­stances with wit and humor.

This hand-let­tered poem is a pleasure­ful examination­ple of sunshine verse, a whim­si­cal type of poet­ry intend­ed to go into­tain or amuse, although deal with­ing a seri­ous sub­ject in a humor­ous guy­ner. Within the poem, the Pineros sug­gest that that they had strug­gled eco­nom­i­cal­ly for a while, however now, because of the con­tin­u­ing Depres­sion, oth­ers shared their finan­cial plight, which enabled them to be extra open and will­did about their sit down­u­a­tion.

Like many fam­i­lies, the Pineros prob­a­bly had a lot of expenses for neces­si­ties includ­ing hire, gro­ceries, util­i­ties, milk, and ice. As a result of no longer each fam­i­ly had elec­tric refrig­er­a­tion in 1933, many trusted reg­u­lar deliv­er­ies of ice to stay their in line with­ish­in a position meals chilly. Those expenses for milk and ice had been sep­a­charge; they weren’t a part of the gro­cery account. Native dairies sup­plied milk and oth­er prod­ucts on a dai­ly foundation. Each the Ice Guy and the Milk Guy would cometh, so long as they had been paid!

It’s a his­tor­i­cal case of when much less is certainly extra…

If you want to enroll in Open Tradition’s loose e mail newslet­ter, please in finding it right here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­ebook, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you want to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our web site. It’s onerous to depend 100% on advertisements, and your con­tri­bu­tions will lend a hand us con­tin­ue professional­vid­ing the most productive loose cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to be told­ers each­the place. You’ll con­tribute via Pay­Good friend, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thank you!