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

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

Regardless of the glum eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion, the Pinero fam­i­ly used a brown paper bag to fash­ion an inex­pen­sive hol­i­day greet­ing card. They penned a intelligent rhyme and added some allure­ing line draw­ings of Mother, Dad, and the children with the mes­sage: “Oh, nicely—despite all of it—right here’s a Mer­ry Christ­mas from the Pineros.” On Decem­ber 19, 1933, they mailed it from Chica­go to mates in Mass­a­chu­setts, utilizing a one-and-a-half-cent stamp. For a min­i­mal out­lay of money, they have been capable of keep up a correspondence with mates and com­ment on their lowered cir­cum­stances with wit and humor.

This hand-let­tered poem is a delight­ful examination­ple of sunshine verse, a whim­si­cal type of poet­ry intend­ed to enter­tain or amuse, even when deal with­ing a seri­ous sub­ject in a humor­ous man­ner. Within the poem, the Pineros sug­gest that they’d 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 may­did about their sit­u­a­tion.

Like many fam­i­lies, the Pineros prob­a­bly had numerous payments for neces­si­ties includ­ing hire, gro­ceries, util­i­ties, milk, and ice. As a result of not each fam­i­ly had elec­tric refrig­er­a­tion in 1933, many relied on reg­u­lar deliv­er­ies of ice to maintain their per­ish­in a position meals chilly. These payments for milk and ice have 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 Man and the Milk Man would cometh, so long as they have been paid!

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

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