A high school fraternity *and* untouched by the Great Depression?
April 18, 2022 7:49 AM Subscribe
My late father-in-law was the archetypal privileged, middle-class, white, nothing-touches-me, arrogant and unseeing of anyone he deemed “beneath” him. Got the picture?
We were talking about the Depression and how it hit my parents’ families hard, as it did *most* families. I asked about his experience as a kid. (He grew up in Chicago in the 1920s.)
He said it affected his family not at all. !!!!!
In another conversation he blasé-ly mentioned that he was in a fraternity in his Chicago public high school.
Now this guy had many repugnant qualities, snottiness and arrogance being chief among them, but he was not a liar. He also didn’t come from a rich family. Could they have been untouched by the Great Depression?
Were there fraternities in any public high schools in Chicago?
Needless to say, these two factoids make me despise him all the more.
Now this guy had many repugnant qualities, snottiness and arrogance being chief among them, but he was not a liar. He also didn’t come from a rich family. Could they have been untouched by the Great Depression?
Were there fraternities in any public high schools in Chicago?
Needless to say, these two factoids make me despise him all the more.
Yeah, rich people and high school fraternities founded in Chicago are both real things.
posted by sagc at 7:59 AM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by sagc at 7:59 AM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
In short, yes, there were fraternities in Chicago high schools. Chicago has a number of fairly elite public secondary schools (much like NYC), which students can qualify for via testing. There are also some public schools in the Chicagoland area (though not part of CPS currently) that are very well-off due to their location/local funding. So "public" does not foreclose "fancy."
From a quick google, Delta Sigma and Kappa Alpha Phi were two active Chicago secondary school fraternities. Anecdotally, my grandfather also belonged to some kind of (non-Greek system) Jewish fraternity during his high school years in Chicago as well.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:59 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
From a quick google, Delta Sigma and Kappa Alpha Phi were two active Chicago secondary school fraternities. Anecdotally, my grandfather also belonged to some kind of (non-Greek system) Jewish fraternity during his high school years in Chicago as well.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:59 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
The Depression, just like COVID (a modern example!) did not hit all families equally. It's very likely that it didn't hurt his family much, and it might have been a mostly positive experience.
The top unemployment rate was about 23-25%, so that means the majority of families kept their jobs.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:59 AM on April 18, 2022 [14 favorites]
The top unemployment rate was about 23-25%, so that means the majority of families kept their jobs.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:59 AM on April 18, 2022 [14 favorites]
It also depends on the age and profession of the person. Someone born in 1910 would potentially have been in college in 1929, and then in their entry-level professional job for the next few years. Their parents would be in their 40s and, depending on their profession, well-established. For example, a plumber who owned their business would probably have continued to work through the Depression. If you look up your father-in-law in the censuses of 1930 and 1940, it could prove interesting to see what he was doing and what his father's profession was. My f-i-l was living at home with his family and a servant in 1930. In 1940 he was married, and he and his wife were both working.
posted by xo at 8:36 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by xo at 8:36 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
FWIW, there was a fraternity and a system of several major and many minor sororities at my US Southern high school in the late nineties. They held parties and made logo shirts and hazed each other and did some charitable work. This is a local/regional phenomenon, but it's not some weird lost to history thing.
posted by momus_window at 9:02 AM on April 18, 2022
posted by momus_window at 9:02 AM on April 18, 2022
It's also possible his family did have some difficulty, but the adults didn't share that with their children. This was definitely the case for one branch of my family during the Depression.
I was talking to my younger son recently. He's been in lockdown, virtual school, had to wear masks, hasn't had a birthday party with more than his immediate family, had camps and classes cancelled...etc. He said at least Covid's never done anything to our family. That's his perspective, because he has a friend whose father died, and a friend whose family lost their home due to losing work. In comparison, we truly are fine. I did not try to talk him out of this viewpoint; I just listened. We may or may not circle back to it later.
Once he's in his 80s I'm not sure what his perspective may be. Hopefully climate change doesn't make Covid seem mild in comparison but I think that's possible, and for a generation which then had WWII I think that's possible as well.
I'm sure you're reading your father correctly but I don't find either of his statements on their own terrible -- if he was implying no one really had trouble in the Depression that's one thing, but making a statement about his lived experience seems possible.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:06 AM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
I was talking to my younger son recently. He's been in lockdown, virtual school, had to wear masks, hasn't had a birthday party with more than his immediate family, had camps and classes cancelled...etc. He said at least Covid's never done anything to our family. That's his perspective, because he has a friend whose father died, and a friend whose family lost their home due to losing work. In comparison, we truly are fine. I did not try to talk him out of this viewpoint; I just listened. We may or may not circle back to it later.
Once he's in his 80s I'm not sure what his perspective may be. Hopefully climate change doesn't make Covid seem mild in comparison but I think that's possible, and for a generation which then had WWII I think that's possible as well.
I'm sure you're reading your father correctly but I don't find either of his statements on their own terrible -- if he was implying no one really had trouble in the Depression that's one thing, but making a statement about his lived experience seems possible.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:06 AM on April 18, 2022 [7 favorites]
I have relatives that were in Jewish fraternities/sororities in high school in the Chicago area in the 1950s/1960s - and they were not rich/fancy, just "middle suburban"-ish. The way they described it, these were like social clubs that did mixers with other high schools - not, like, Animal House or Harvard dining clubs or whatever.
As far as the depression - it's interesting because plenty of rich people were wiped out in the stock market crash and bank failures. I have a great grandfather who was a builder and was apparently very well off before the depression, but he lost it all in the depression according to family lore. So, if you're saying that the FIL was not from a rich family, that may mean that they did not have significant bank/stock market assets to lose in the bust, which might lead to the "not affected at all" idea. I.e., if they primarily lived off of a salary/income, without much investments or savings, and if the breadwinner stayed employed during the depression, then it would make some sense that they were "not affected."
posted by Mid at 9:11 AM on April 18, 2022
As far as the depression - it's interesting because plenty of rich people were wiped out in the stock market crash and bank failures. I have a great grandfather who was a builder and was apparently very well off before the depression, but he lost it all in the depression according to family lore. So, if you're saying that the FIL was not from a rich family, that may mean that they did not have significant bank/stock market assets to lose in the bust, which might lead to the "not affected at all" idea. I.e., if they primarily lived off of a salary/income, without much investments or savings, and if the breadwinner stayed employed during the depression, then it would make some sense that they were "not affected."
posted by Mid at 9:11 AM on April 18, 2022
Best answer: My dad's family (farmers) suffered a lot during the Depression. My mom (child of small-town grocery store owners) said she never felt it. My mom was very young, so that may have had an influence on her memory. Her parents both grew up in dire poverty, so it's possible that their lives during the Depression, after they had saved to buy the store, were still better than what they had experienced earlier. They were also very frugal people, so what would seem like poverty to me may have seemed like normal life to them.
Needless to say, these two factoids make me despise him all the more.
This gave me pause, as it doesn't seem "needless to say" at all. Seems like you're at bitch eating crackers with this guy, which may be coloring your doubt of his memories. You say yourself he wasn't a liar.
posted by FencingGal at 9:35 AM on April 18, 2022 [13 favorites]
Needless to say, these two factoids make me despise him all the more.
This gave me pause, as it doesn't seem "needless to say" at all. Seems like you're at bitch eating crackers with this guy, which may be coloring your doubt of his memories. You say yourself he wasn't a liar.
posted by FencingGal at 9:35 AM on April 18, 2022 [13 favorites]
There were a few fraternities & sororities in my Chicago-area high school in the 60s. I believe their main mission was to hang out together, and I did feel bad for not belonging. I still wonder what I could have done to be cooler. But they were nice kids and I don't hate them like "needless to say" the OP would have. Ah well, TMI, ciao.
posted by JimN2TAW at 9:57 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by JimN2TAW at 9:57 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Like any other large historical event the horrible parts of the Great Depression get played up while the places where life just went on are ignored. "Half the banks in the U.S. failed" sounds exciting until you find out that they were far and away small banks in agricultural communities. There was a lot of unemployment in manufacturing but at the same time the Dust Bowl was causing a mass migration out of the Midwest.
A lot of people were hit hard and those are the stories you hear, but it was not the sort of everyone-gets-hit-equally event you might be thinking of.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:05 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
A lot of people were hit hard and those are the stories you hear, but it was not the sort of everyone-gets-hit-equally event you might be thinking of.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:05 AM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
One of my grandfathers told me once that if you had debt going into the Depression you probably lost everything, if you owned a farm clear you could at worst be a subsistence farmer and buy almost nothing for the duration - like, no shoes for growing kids, this was a tough life - if you kept a small job you were probably poor but OK, and if you had money life was easier because you could buy everyone else’s stuff for cheap.
His family was between subsistence and OK, my grandmother’s was between OK and luxurious. She eloped with him anyway.
posted by clew at 10:26 AM on April 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
His family was between subsistence and OK, my grandmother’s was between OK and luxurious. She eloped with him anyway.
posted by clew at 10:26 AM on April 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yes the degree to which your family was or wasn't devastated by the Great Depression is not purely a factor of virtue; it's mostly luck. Were you lucky enough to already work in a sector that wasn't as devastated, to already live in a region with more job opportunities, or to have already paid off your land. If your father in law did not come from money, then it doesn't seem like his family made it through by exploiting the situation or something; they just got a bit lucky.
If you hate him you hate him, whatever, it's not my business. But it seems like it would take a lot of energy to hate someone just because their dad (or their dad's dad?) didn't lose everything in an economic disaster almost a century ago.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:38 AM on April 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
If you hate him you hate him, whatever, it's not my business. But it seems like it would take a lot of energy to hate someone just because their dad (or their dad's dad?) didn't lose everything in an economic disaster almost a century ago.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 10:38 AM on April 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
I studied the Great Depression period in my history MA program. It’s been a decade so I don’t have sources very handy, but it’s one of the reasons I studied the era: a lot of intro-level narratives we learn in school stress how uniformly awful the era was to live through, while reality was much more complex.
For example, I focused especially on food and nutrition during the era. Some people absolutely did suffer major food insecurity, along the lines of soup kitchens and bread lines (especially in cities). Eleanor Roosevelt published a whole cookbook with bottom-dollar recipes. But US Department of Agriculture studies showed that per capita food consumption remained roughly equal across the decade… there was a sharp decline in meat consumption, but vegetable and especially citrus fruit consumption increased.
I interviewed a handful of people for my thesis, and I was surprised to hear most report that the Great Depression didn’t affect them at all. There’s so much complexity there like warriorqueen suggested: memories fade, kids maybe didn’t understand everything that was happening, and so on. But at least anecdotally, I spoke to several people who had similar recollections as your father in law.
posted by lilac girl at 10:42 AM on April 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
For example, I focused especially on food and nutrition during the era. Some people absolutely did suffer major food insecurity, along the lines of soup kitchens and bread lines (especially in cities). Eleanor Roosevelt published a whole cookbook with bottom-dollar recipes. But US Department of Agriculture studies showed that per capita food consumption remained roughly equal across the decade… there was a sharp decline in meat consumption, but vegetable and especially citrus fruit consumption increased.
I interviewed a handful of people for my thesis, and I was surprised to hear most report that the Great Depression didn’t affect them at all. There’s so much complexity there like warriorqueen suggested: memories fade, kids maybe didn’t understand everything that was happening, and so on. But at least anecdotally, I spoke to several people who had similar recollections as your father in law.
posted by lilac girl at 10:42 AM on April 18, 2022 [9 favorites]
My partner’s grandmother was well off during the Depression. She was in college at the time, got a new car each year so it’s possible people lived through it unscathed. The reason: her father was a liquidator and made a killing during the Depression.
posted by BAKERSFIELD! at 10:43 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by BAKERSFIELD! at 10:43 AM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was born in the early 1970s. If I told you that Watergate, the Vietnam War, and the energy crisis didn't impact my family at all, you should not fully believe me, because I am not a reliable narrator of what my family dealt with when I was little. (I would hope I wouldn't assert such a thing, but perhaps if I were arrogant, I would.)
You said he grew up in the 1920s, but what year was he born? To make another comparison, I can imagine a situation where a person born in 2017 or 2018--whose parents have been incredibly stressed and whose worlds have been flipped upside down by the pandemic--would, late in life, tell you that the pandemic didn't impact their family. Why, because, 1) they're too young to remember and 2) our childhoods seem "normal" to us and we don't see how things changed before our during. And maybe we have parents who do a decent job of shielding us.
Also, in regards to the fraternity: I think you need to consider that this word--which, to you, likely screams drunk college frat boys behaving terribly--has shifted to be something specific to you when it wasn't that. I think, in an early 20th century context, it meant a social club. Here's some info on a high school fraternity that started in the early 1900s in Chicago.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:42 PM on April 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
You said he grew up in the 1920s, but what year was he born? To make another comparison, I can imagine a situation where a person born in 2017 or 2018--whose parents have been incredibly stressed and whose worlds have been flipped upside down by the pandemic--would, late in life, tell you that the pandemic didn't impact their family. Why, because, 1) they're too young to remember and 2) our childhoods seem "normal" to us and we don't see how things changed before our during. And maybe we have parents who do a decent job of shielding us.
Also, in regards to the fraternity: I think you need to consider that this word--which, to you, likely screams drunk college frat boys behaving terribly--has shifted to be something specific to you when it wasn't that. I think, in an early 20th century context, it meant a social club. Here's some info on a high school fraternity that started in the early 1900s in Chicago.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:42 PM on April 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
There is a huge difference between today's dependencies and those available in the 1920's. For example, in the 1920's, especially in big cities, you could easily not need a car, a telephone or a radio (mass entertainment). As long as you had a job, and income stream and your house was paid for, the Great Depression wouldn't affect you. People could still buy food, clothes, go to a movie, etc. That didn't mean your father's family was wealthy which makes it difficult to draw comparisons to life today.
posted by JJ86 at 12:54 PM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by JJ86 at 12:54 PM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
As a generic answer to 'how hard was Chicago hit during The Great Depression', per the Austin Contrarian looking at Sanborn Maps "Between 1932 and 1940 about 92 million cubic feet of commercial space, close to 10 percent of the total, was demolished in the Chicago Loop, most of it replaced by parking lots and one- or two-story garages. "
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:03 PM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:03 PM on April 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
One of my grandfathers told me once that if you had debt going into the Depression you probably lost everything, if you owned a farm clear you could at worst be a subsistence farmer and buy almost nothing for the duration - like, no shoes for growing kids, this was a tough life - if you kept a small job you were probably poor but OK, and if you had money life was easier because you could buy everyone else’s stuff for cheap.
My grandfather told me the same thing. His family was badly impacted by the Depression, but part of his memories were of how not everyone was equally hurt. Lots of people did basically ok, and a fair number of people profited from the situation.
Given the caveat that he was probably young and might not have known the details of the family situation, I don't see a need to doubt the essence of your father-in-law's story.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:24 PM on April 18, 2022
My grandfather told me the same thing. His family was badly impacted by the Depression, but part of his memories were of how not everyone was equally hurt. Lots of people did basically ok, and a fair number of people profited from the situation.
Given the caveat that he was probably young and might not have known the details of the family situation, I don't see a need to doubt the essence of your father-in-law's story.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:24 PM on April 18, 2022
I was born in the 80s; if you were to ask me how any major world event in the 90s affected me/my family, I would be at a loss. I mean, my parents worked in international finance, their jobs must have been impacted by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the EEC/EuroZone. I recently learned that their first mortgage (savings and loan crisis) was at like 10%. This only came up because I expressed concern that rates are currently going up, and my mom was like "did you know your dad and I had to pay 10% interest? And then when we needed to move, we couldn't sell. Why do you think we rented out the old house for so long?" But people don't tend to share their mortgage documents with their school aged kids, y know. (I genuinely thought my dad just liked doing maintenance; he's always puttering around fixing things.)
I guess the closest equivalent to the Depression would really be the 2008 financial crisis, which affected many (most) US families. But plenty of people went through it unscathed, and some actually came out ahead. Yes, that's privilege, but it's also the nature of what people deem appropriate conversation around kids/teens. My guess is that financial secrecy was an even bigger thing in the 30s than it is now, at least in middle class/aspirant families where talking about money is vulgar.
posted by basalganglia at 6:27 PM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I guess the closest equivalent to the Depression would really be the 2008 financial crisis, which affected many (most) US families. But plenty of people went through it unscathed, and some actually came out ahead. Yes, that's privilege, but it's also the nature of what people deem appropriate conversation around kids/teens. My guess is that financial secrecy was an even bigger thing in the 30s than it is now, at least in middle class/aspirant families where talking about money is vulgar.
posted by basalganglia at 6:27 PM on April 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I know of a family where their grandfather worked for public service (mechanic for the transit system) during the entire Depression, and just before everything hit the fan, a banker convinced a matriarch (can't remember if it was grandmother or great-grandmother) to accept rental property instead of money for something so they managed to do OK during the depression. The "Greatest Generation" sisters who grew up during that period seemed to not have been affected much; their mother _did_ however believe in helping others not as well off so they didn't have the "looking down on others" problem you seem to describe
posted by TimHare at 9:09 PM on April 18, 2022
posted by TimHare at 9:09 PM on April 18, 2022
One of the economic aspects of the depression was that prices fell; there was anti-inflation. This contributed to the observation that if you had a job, you were probably OK, without a job you were in a heap of trouble.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:22 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by SemiSalt at 5:22 AM on April 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
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