A big menu, "Tables for Ladies," and the prices are right. From History in Pictures
So, I can have a T-bone steak and oyster stew (with crackers!) for 35 cents? Too bad it will take 7 hours of backbreaking labor to earn that much.
Posted by: Mumblix Grumph at September 23, 2013 9:17 PM"Tables for Ladies"... yes in the kitchen peeling the potatoes and kneading the bread.
Posted by: Potsie at September 24, 2013 5:11 AMMumblix,
I think you're being facetious, but still..... the wages were pretty low in those days. The Depression hadn't really set in at that point, and the average Joe still had a job, probably paying something on the order of $10 to $15 a week for a 48-hour week. Rents and mortgage payments were pretty low, and so were utility bills, and suchlike, but there still wasn't a whole lot leftover at the end of the month, I'm sure.
But I think Joe Average could have afforded a hot dog or two a few times a week.
I think about how much got lost in this country from about 1920 to about 1950, and I wince. Yes, some of it should have passed away, and we're better off for it. But some of it shouldn't have, at least so soon. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time to about 1925 with a hundred bucks in my pocket, and go riding trains for about a week-- so much has vanished, and is fading beyond living memory....... One of the sadder sights in this world is a railroad reduced to two parallel streaks of rust in knee-high weeds, with trees springing up between the rails.
My two cents' worth.
Hale Adams
Pikesville, People's Democratic Republic of Maryland
All the men back then, they wore slacks, jackets, probably a tie, and a hat on their head. Shaved every day even if they couldn't afford to go in and eat.
Personal pride. We'll probably see that in a museum someplace.
Posted by: chasmatic at September 26, 2013 9:09 AM
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