OT nostalgia:
Also, in July 1932, the cost of a first class stamp was increased 50% from 2 to 3 cents. A month before my 5th birthday. Substantial problem in the Depression. Well, not too much; there weren't that many letters written.
I remember the first time I saw a typewritten letter which my mother received. The next year, 1934. I'd never previously seen anything but cursive. She tried to explain the typewriter, but I couldn't imagine it until I later saw one. A decade after that I won speed typing contests in high school. Too little and slow to excel in sports.
A "post card" issued by the post office had a preprinted 1 cent stamp; you wrote a note on the clear back side, no envelope. Got the card and postage all in one for a penny. Lot of people used them. "Long distance" telephone cost over $3 per minute, depending on the distance; a little cheaper in the night time and Sundays. That's the only time anybody I know called long distance, and that rarely.
A dollar was hard to come by. When a good harvest required hired help my father was able to get plenty of takers at fifteen cents an hour, hard work. $1.50 for a ten hour day. He raised it to two bucks when the work was extra hard and only the strongest men could stand up to it. As a 12-year old, I made five cents an hour, fo' bits for the day.
We delivered milk to the front porch all over town in glass returnable glass bottles for 12 cents. Bread was 5 cents a loaf. "White gas" was 11 cents. "Tennis shoes" for kids on sale were 98 cents, I never wore shoes at all (except Sundays) until winter, and then only on cold days. My sister (two years older) later told me that she never had a coat, just a heavy sweater.
