16 May 1931 “Women in the Workforce and Austria’s Largest Bank Collapses”

After WWI, the idea of women working was more the norm. Prior to that, of course, the working and servant class always had working women. Domestics were often female, male servants being rather expensive and usually only afforded to the upper classes.

Women in Factories had been happening since prior to the WWI, even in Victorian times, in the working class. Many young girls chose the hard labor over becoming a domestic and thus left the remaining domestics receiving higher wages.

By the end of WWI, women of all class working began to be seen as normal and progress. Though, prior to the 1950’s, most women usually worked until marriage, then giving it up to remain home and raise children. Though many poorer families would still have seen a mother working out of the home when she could, as a domestic or in laundry services and the like. Often the close knit and close quarter living of the time afforded free child care amongst the lower class working mothers. That disappeared after the Suburban exodus of the 1950’s. Women in the workforce was not as focuses upon until the later 60’s and by the 1980’s there was more of the need of economy than any real women’s liberation behind the two working income families.

“According to the 1930 census almost eleven million women, or 24.3 percent of all women in the country, were gainfully employed. Three out of every ten of these working women were in domestic or personal service. Of professional women three-quarters were schoolteachers or nurses.”

Here is an interesting from from the 1930’s showing women in the workforce in New York city. I like this quote from the narrator:

“Unless you have enough money to support yourself the full year, Stay Home,” is the guide for these “Coal town Cinderellas”.

This silent film from 1931 was shown to girls in High Schools at the time. Again, the idea of women working becoming more the norm and even having rather high numbers prior to WWII.

I want to start looking more at working women to compare with today’s mothers and homemakers who are usually forced to work due to the high costs of living we modern people must face.

On May 11 of this year, 1931, The Creditanstalt (Austria's largest bank) goes bankrupt, beginning the banking collapse in Central Europe that causes a worldwide financial meltdown.

This bank was based in Vienna and founded in 1855 by the Rothschild Family, a banking family that is still very strong and powerful today. And though it was very successful it declared bankruptcy on May 11 1931 which resulted in a Global financial crisis. This lead to the bank failures of the Great Depression and was, in fact, a major player in the speculation and misuse in Wall St. in the USA.

Following this bankruptcy the bank was saved both by the Rothschild's (who originally owned it and filed for the bankruptcy) and the The Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) which became the central bank of Austria today, an integral part of both the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and the Eurozone. Today the banks capital is 12 million Euros. Previously half this money was held by employer and employee organizations and also other banks and insurance corporations. But, since May 2010, all this capital is currently held by the State of Austria.

The more I hop about the past decades the more I see of the little thin almost invisible string that binds the past financial woes with today's. They say as much as some things change so do they stay the same. It seems with the financial troubles and subtle under play of what is really going on behind the scenes, little has changed over the past 100 years. Parties and presidents come and go and arguments and hatred by dividing camps of the masses seem to be the distraction to the reality behind it all, unchanging except by growing in strength and power.

The current ‘dilemma’ or ‘hot topic media story’ happily distracting one from real problems. And reality tv also does the job nicely. I hope we can all begin to look more closely and turn off the media and read a bit of history. The more we divide the more we are conquered. Perhaps we should think of our towns, states, and countries as larger homes we must care for. And in so doing, be the homemakers of the world. And every homemaker knows that we don’t like mud tracked through our clean homes or dirty smoke spoiling the furniture. And we especially don’t like secrets and whispering, for it is very rude, nor do we condone name calling and childish behavior. We need to be the grownups for the new generations, as I feel they haven’t any to look to for guidance.

I hope all have a lovely day and Happy Homemaking.

8 May 1941 “The Victory Garden”

I thought today, still poking about the 1940’s, we should look at Victory Gardens. In England Victory Gardens had been going for some time, their entrance into war in 1939, and were quite a serious matter. With much of their food being imported prior to the war, the importance of food was tantamount to everyone planting. And women were even drafted into the Women’s Land Army. Labor being of short supply during war times, many girls, the “land girls” as they came to be known, were sent off to help on the rural farms and estates.

The U.S. had its its own Victory Gardens. Though the threat of actual invasion was never really plausible here and with more than enough farmland to go around, we still needed to provide more food for home so the rest could go overseas with our boys.

Here is a wonderful and fun 20 minute film from 1941 America showing a local family and their change to a Victory Farm.

Though we currently are at war in 2012, we seem to not really speak about it in the same way. In fact, our country is involved in many wars and skirmishes and occupations all over the world, yet for some reason the press and Government has not seen fit to rally our country to a war time status of community and self-reliance. In fact, with the growing climate of increased food costs, loss in jobs and a very shaky economic climate, we are almost an odd amalgam of both the Depression and the War Time years. Now, more than ever, would we all benefit from such government advertising of self reliance and gardening and make do and mend. However, being a complete consumer culture now more than ever, this would not sit well with the major large corporate chains and big box stores and groceries.

However, those of us who do care to pay attention or simply look carefully at our current world, can see a very real need to learn to do more and to grow your own. So, there is much to take to heart today from our WWII homemaking sisters who, much as today’s mothers, had to go out to work as well as run a home, care for children and work to earn.

The main difference, as was seen in the movie above, is that many homes had elder relatives in who could help with day care. We are pre 1950’s mass building and the concept of the new Middle class set out in isolation from the extended family into neat little rows has not as yet happened. So the concept of extended family and more general knowledge in cooking, gardening, and even sewing was already part of the WWII women’s arsenal. And there were many Government printed booklets to help any new to it. There was a general overall support that does not exist today.

And today the working mother has much  more to spend to drive places, while pre 1950’s neighborhoods and towns were much more walking biking friendly. So when there was no petrol for the cars due to the war, it mattered little. Today, however, when one has to work  just to pay the debt on credit cards ,but the shops and the work is at least 20 minutes away, then one HAS to pay the $4 a gallon of gas. We seem to be rather trapped in a way that our Wartime sisters weren’t. They had it bad, for sure, but in many ways they had each other and their community in a way that we no longer even understand. That will hopefully be rectified as more and more people realize that we are not enemies of each other but that to combat high prices and changing environments of economy and such, we need to help each other despite our differences and realize that the camaraderie of failing economy is a great equalizer for us all.

If you haven’t room for a plot of land, there are many veg and even soft fruit you can grow in containers on balconies or even in window boxes. I came across a miniature tomato the other day that stays small enough to be in a window box, but bears cherry sized tomatoes all summer. So, don’t plant flowers in those boxes, plant herbs and tomatoes!

And some veg, like my onions here, can do double duty. As we had such a mild winter, my yellow onions wintered over so nicely, that I simply moved them to the border of my little garden where I will have edible flowers and herbs.

While the onion flowers are not as bright and purple pink as a chive flower, they are still none the less quite lovely. They will be a wonderful white and chartreuse. And, as a perennial now along the border of my veg beds, will be a showy and edible plant. Though the bulbs will not be large and worth digging up, as the energy is going into the seeds rather than the bulb, the stems and flowers are still edible like a chive. And I rather like them in arrangements and in salads both. Now that is Victory garden double duty, a bit of brightness at dreary times and then, plop, onto the dinner plate to eat right up!

Pots on roof decks or balconies in cities can certainly grow many food items and I even recall sharing this idea with an apartment dwelling follower a few years ago. HERE is the site where this family did just that. One could easily do this on the railings of a deck in an apartment or the walls on the deck. A kind landlord might even allow them along the outer walls of a south facing apartment building. Say you will share your harvest with the Super and you might get a green light on the idea! Again, community sharing and coming together, we can’t all do it alone. Our War time sisters knew this and they worked together helping neighbors and friends out as they could.

Of course, keeping chickens became more important during the War years. Not only did it provide eggs and meat, but much needed manure for compost for the veg garden. The cycle of growth and the importance of living within the cycle of nature was right at your doorstep, even in cities.

Here you can see one of my new veg beds this year. I did four. I took some old 2 x 8’s I had lying about and made four beds. Here it is just sitting atop last years garden. The weeds are happily enjoying last years rich soil, but this year I of course dug up inside the bed nice and loose. Then I added a wheel barrel full of chicken manure from my chickens compost and then some top soil from my compost pile to make a nice rich loose soil to plant. I did my potatoes here. I sprouted my spuds in my pantry in a wire basket while we were away on our week in Maine. I was happy to find them thus on our return. They are now happily nestled in their new rich organic beds.

And around the beds I will plant step able herbs like thyme and chamomile, that acts as an edible lawn. And will border them with basil and coriander.

You can also add to your flower beds things like asparagus, rhubarb, blueberries and such. They are perennials that give more and more each year and are still pretty additions to your landscape. Why not have something to look at and eat?

Here are my snow peas, happily growing towards their bamboo supports. They were started in the ground in mid April as were my Swiss Chard and Arugula. Salad greens and some peas, such as these, like the cold and can be sewn outside as the early crop before you get to the more tender summer crops of tomatoes and peppers.

Here are my arugula, chard, and lettuce mid April before we went on our holiday. Luckily the rain we had while we were gone made them happy and they have grown twice as big. Here is a close up of the chard, which is such a beautiful plant. This could make a lovely border for the early flower bed. Again, grow pretty AND edible. And things like beets are pretty and you eat the root AND the leaves are lovely in salads. I have a pretty purple leaved variety growing this year in my little beds and they will make a salad pretty as well as tasty. Beet root also preserves or can be canned very well too.

We have much we can learn from our 1940’s sisters and brothers. The least of which is to depend upon family and friends and not feel we must go it all alone. I abhor the increases amount of old people in nursing homes. We lock away those with the last bit of working knowledge away from our younger generations. Look out the young kids in the 1941 Victory garden film learn from Grandpa. Today he might very well be in an nursing home rarely seeing his grandchildren. We need to begin to restructure our lives upon the good bits of the old days, as I fear much of today seems to take us further and further from one another and more and more dependent upon technology that is often merely a time waster. We can do it. I know we can!

Happy Homemaking.

4 May 1947 “Budgeting Our Time the 1940’s Way and a Need for Home Economics Today”

I know I have shared this little checklist with you before. It is from my 1947 America’s Housekeeping Book.  It is a handy little book and this is a good layout of a possible weeks work.

You will notice the little addendum on the bottom that tells one Saturday can be planned in advance as a rest day. This is certainly true if you plan the meals ahead of time and set in the ice box to simply cook that day.

It also mentions wash and marketing. I do my laundry on Monday, ironing is Tuesday and my Marketing is done on Friday as there are often sales then. But there is a list of reasons you may not be able to maintain your schedule outlined in the book and here it follows. (Simply click on any image to read full-size of course).

 Some of these things refer you to other pages in the book, but most are simply an ‘ask yourself, test your common sense’. And some things, like the reference to the ‘one handed kitchen set up on pg. 20’ simply tells how modern cabinets are often too deep. Try to arrange like things with like such as bowls of same size together not nest larger and smaller together, as you would need two hands to get at it. Also it points out how shelves made or adjusted to simply hold one row of things, such as canned goods, make more efficiency as well as do not lead to clutter or digging to find things and lets one know what is on hand and what is needed when making next weeks marketing list.

Such films as this from 1950 on simply buying foods would not only be helpful today but would point out what I have learned. That inflation is currently rampant. Many shop haphazard and with no list or particular pattern. I have been with friends when they have shopped thus. This way many do not see the changes in prices. Because many prices are hidden cleverly today. For instance ice cream has reduced its packaging. It deceptive is the same height and width along the front of the packaging but it is narrower now. So, even when the price stays the same you are literally buying less, thus that means you are paying more per weight of item.

This has been true with tuna as well which has shrunk from 10 oz down to currently 5 oz. Just since I started my 1955 project tuna has gone from 7.5 oz. 5 oz for same brands. And though it might sometimes be on sale, even then the price over all is higher.

To have the ability to plan and look and watch what you are spending both for meal planning and money planning is almost unheard of today. My friend who is 28 told me she had ‘Life Skills’ courses in High School not Home Economics. And in that class they taught them how to make packaged macaroni and cheese as well as packaged cake mixes! And the school had to buy these pre packaged national brand packages as well! Wouldn’t you think one who can simply read could make mac n cheese on their own?

When I told her about the 50’s Home Economics teaching about weights and qualities and how different cuts of meat are created and used. How leftovers can be used and even understanding different fabrics to see what clothing lasts longer and how to prepare it, she said how much that would have actually helped her. So, it isn’t that today’s youth don’t want to know or understand such things.

Here is the film on buying food:

And for those who may have  been worried of the ‘Rock n Roll’ set or even if young men in the 50’s took Home Ec., here you can see this short film about young teens going to a local grocer as part of the training in their Home Economics class room.

These young people even visit the butcher while there to see the different cuts of meat and how they are used. Many people today buy premade or simply ground beef. When there is so much more economy, taste, and really quality if full meat. Though much of the meat is still full of hormones and antibiotics and the cows themselves are poorly fed on corn (not their natural diet) at least buying actual cuts of meat lets you know what you have. While pre-packaged fish fingers, chick patties and the like are mostly made of who knows what.

I heard something about some sort of ‘pink slime’ that is now used in ground beef and was only last year labeled only fit for animal foods. Another way, by the bye, that the increase in food costs are hidden, by decreasing the quality product to include ‘filler’. In a world where little is prepared but comes prepared, it is easy to slip in such false economies.

Enjoy the teens and their class at the supermarket:

I am going to close with this darling photo, also from my ‘47 Homemakers book. Here we see the good idea of allowing the young child to emulate and learn at an early age how to cook and bake. Of course, one must have a family member with such skills in order to pass this on to children. I fear this might be also vanishing. Today children may simply learn how to press the buttons on the microwave and how to toss out their paper plate rather than ‘cleaning up’ afterwards.

In many ways most of we modern people are like the child and do need more lessons. I have certainly given myself a thorough training session in Home Ec over the past three years. But, I am always learning and with still so much to understand. And with every day I feel a bit more in control of my small part of life. I only wish we had more control over our lives on the grander scale concerning laws, rights and such. So, the haven of the home shall have to be all the better equipped to handle the ups and downs of the economy and a better refuge from the turbulent modern world.

Happy Homemaking.

3 May 1943 “Thrift, Wartime, New Kitchens and What it Meant in Advertising”

During the War years Thrift and Conservation became words used often. The idea of it being an ‘Old Fashioned’ value is present in this ad. That Grandmother’s generation, or that of the last century, valued savings and conservation. In many ways the actual amount of available products just weren’t there in her time. What is interesting in this ad is that advertising is using the idea of Patriotism and saving for the war effort as a way to sell the homefront homemaker new towels. Not thrifty at all, in fact.

Here is an article from this same 1943 magazine which opens with tugging at one’s heart strings for what the soldier longs for home. In his desires for the wing chair by the hearth and that ‘old bed’ to sleep in, really we see a complete doing over of the house. New things bought, post war, with War bonds bought now. Or to do so now would be, in a way, Patriotic. When in fact, the returning soldier would most likely want to see the old things as he left them and as he recalled them. The comfort of home is constancy not change.

  I look at such war time ads with different eyes than I did when I started my 1955 project. Then I was keen to see what we had and what was new in the post war years. Now, I see us beginning to be told how we, as Americans, define ourselves through our things rather than our deeds. The idea that the old kitchen wasn’t good enough and that such luxury is not considered so or that our freedom is somehow tied to purchase rather frightens me now.

In some ways it makes me shutter for those older people during those years, the grandmothers, that wondered at their own value system dying away. I am sure, much as we see today with older people to today’s youth with constant need of new phones/computers etc, the same thing. Yet, that idea of flux and constant change. The very business model of constant growth was rather foreign in 1900 yet by WWII we really see that changing.

The idea of saving, though here in war bonds for future use, is already changing. The setting aside for a rainy day is beginning to blue a bit. And today savings is an almost unheard of concept. Add to that the 0% interest rates, which are meant to somehow help the failing economy, actually punishes saving. With no interest on money set aside, there almost seems little reason or incentive to do so. And many young people today most likely live only on debt from credit cards.

There is most likely not one element that has lead to the rapid change in our concept of who we are as American’s, but one has simply to step back one decade at a time to the turn of the last century to get a feel for how it has been greatly affected.

Though we had concepts of thrift as a national idea during the last World War, we today, though the US is involved in many wars, have no such national idea. We are told to spend to be American. I feel for our soldiers today and those left at home. And I feel for all of us, homemakers alike, who live in a world of flux, constant change, and continual disparaging and contradictory news and realities as espoused by whatever channel we are tuned into. When really, is any of it actual reality? We get our reality through programming while our own lives go unlived in ways unthinkable hundreds of years ago. In many ways I feel like that mythical soldier in the article above who simply wants to leave it all come home to a comfortable bed and feel safe in the constancy and comfort of home. Have we all, as a nation and a world, lost our home? Is the concept of Home even alive anymore for us to get to or is it just a marketing idea only achieved through discount shopping? I hope not.

Let’s not let Home be a product to be bought but lets make home a place of frugal savings and comfort of love not things. The comfort that comes from less and easy living because of camaraderie and not picking sides of being part of a clique is Home. Let there not be Them and Us, but let our homes be We. Let’s not be branded like cattle into our little pigeonholes, lets be happy industrious home loving families who revel in knowledge and skill. Who look at challenges as tasks to be overcome with grace and study and not to ease or overstressed life with ‘shop therapy’ or to ‘get away from it all’. A new kitchen won’t bring as much feeling of safety and home as will some savings and a meal made through thrift and skill. Getting more and getting it cheaper isn’t always the answer. Having less and caring for it and ourselves is.

Happy Homemaking.

30 April 1941 “The Spirit of Self-Sufficiency, America First Rally in NYC, and a Free War Time Recipe Booklet”

Its unfortunate that while we were happy to remember the atrocities of war to try and not fight again (though that seems a failed attempt today) we were happy to let go of the camaraderie, and self sufficiency. Had we remembered what it was we could do without, how little we really needed to survive and be happy, and that people and not things were important; perhaps we would not have been swept up in the ensuing commercialism of the following decades.

Certainly, we were happy to have things again. Safety and a new world seemed to make us willing to build more houses, buy more things and pave over our lands to allow easy travel by automobile. Yet, I wonder, how many homemakers of the war years, though happy to have the war over, sometimes thought, “Gee, we were fine without all these things before the war, now we have so much to pay for and care for”.

It would have been the homemaker who would have noticed such things. And happy though she was to have an easier time of it, one wonders if the TV and the need for cars ever made them think of life during the war and before with less cars and less things. Or had thoughts of how her new flower borders might be better used to grow vegetables for her family as they once did during the war. She might even have missed the scratch and peck of her chickens to the sound of endless lawnmowers trimming the sea of new postage stamp lawns. The good, in even the bad times, can always be paid forward. I hope that is a lesson we can still learn today.

With the fear for loved ones, the scarcity and uncertainty of the future came a self-sufficiency and a brotherhood unlike times before. It was really more akin to say the late 19th century and pre WWI. And the realization of how little “things” were so important. Today we fight wars over “things” at the expense of people. We are always concerned with how can we get more and if we run low on things we must have more at any cost. Not, how can we simply live differently to spare those future lives fought at an expense far too great for any to pay. The concept of living differently rather than fighting for cheaper and more of what we think we need seems never to cross our minds. It wouldn’t be easy, but mightn’t it be fun and possibly better for our communities and the lower classes? But, I digress, on with some news.

On 23 April 1941, the first major Rally of the The America First Committee (AFC) was held. This organization was the foremost “ non-interventionist pressure group against the American entry into World War II. Peaking at 800,000 paid members in 650 chapters, it was one of the largest anti-war organizations in American history. Started in 1940, it shut down after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.”

There were no such things as ‘hippies’ yet and this anti war organization held many prominent people as well as business men, such as a future president Gerald Ford. Many felt that the only way to keep American sovereignty and protect its own borders was to stay out of the war in Europe.

Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator, air force Colonel, and son of the famous senator, Charles Lindbergh Sr.,  spoke at this rally and urged listeners “to look beyond the speeches and propaganda they were being fed (about the need for USA to go into the War) and instead look at who was writing the speeches and reports, who owned the papers and who influenced the speakers.” This was later seen as an anti-Semitic  feeling as most of these were controlled by Jewish individuals. Yet, he felt their religion was not the point but that their actions, despite their religion, must be watched. But it was easier to spin the idea that he simply was a Nazi sympathizer. This was untrue and he went on to be quite a war hero.

Though Charles Lindbergh had resigned his Air Force Colonel pilots commission as part of his feelings against the US going into the War, he later ( after Pearl Harbor)  strongly supported the war effort after Pearl Harbor and flew many combat missions in the Pacific Theater of World War II as a civilian consultant even though President Franklin D. Roosevelt had refused to reinstate his Army Air Corps colonel's commission that he had resigned in April 1941.

On 11 December 1941, after Pearl Harbor and the USA was in the war, the American First Committee disbanded and made the following formal statement:

“Our principles were right. Had they been followed, war could have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served by considering what might have been, had our objectives been attained.
We are at war. Today, though there may be many important subsidiary considerations, the primary objective is not difficult to state. It can be completely defined in one word: Victory”

HERE is the speech, which is both cheered and booed, by Lindbergh on the reasons behind the coming of America’s involvement in WWII. (I cannot embed the video as it is not allowed, but you can follow the link to watch it on YouTube if you like.)  His father, a state senator from Minnesota, had been against the US in WWI and also strongly opposed the formation of the Federal Reserve. Lindbergh's son, Charles III was kidnapped famously in 1932. One wonders, with his father’s involvement against the Federal Reserve and the general move towards the increase in Banking Power and reformation of American money and Business interest, was there a tie or connection? What I have continued to learn about history, with its odd little “coincidences” I honestly don’t rule anything out any more.

Now, for some fun Wartime Recipes:

Here is a free online Recipe book of the time. You can read it online or print it out. The link is HERE.

Here are a few of the recipes from the book that sound rather fun:

Eggless, Milkless, Butterless Cake (Fruit Cake)
1 cup brown sugar                                  1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups water                                      1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup seeded raisins                              1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 ounces citron, cut fine                          1 cup corn or wheat flour 
1/3 cup shortening                                   1 cup rye or barley flour
               5 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder
Boil sugar, water, fruit, shortening, salt and spices together in saucepan 3 minutes. When cool, add flour and baking powder which have been sifted together. Mix well; bake in loaf pan in moderate oven about 45 minutes.

 

Cheese Pudding
3/4 cup yellow corn meal                       1/4 teaspoon paprika
3 cups boiling water                               1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups grated cheese                      1 cup milk
Few grains cayenne                               1 egg
3 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder
Pour corn meal slowly into boiling water, stirring constantly, and allow to boil about ten minutes. Add cheese, seasoning, milk and beaten egg yolk and cook until well blended. Remove from fire, and when cold add baking powder and fold in the beaten egg white. Bake in greased dish in moderate oven about 30 minutes. Serve immediately. When cold, it can be sliced and fried for either luncheon or supper.

 

I believe I will do more War time posts this week. My week on holiday has left me contemplating my life and future changes all the more. And my family, on this trip, has felt closer and more inclined to want to make more changes to our lives. The future is uncertain and might even be bleak. But, if we choose now to make choices that will help in hard times yet fun in the doing, we shall not be sad for the changes no matter the outcome of tomorrow.

I hope all have a lovely day and Happy Homemaking.