What were the best selling products during the Great Depression?
When the stock market crashed everything changed in America, wealthy people became poor and poor people were struck by how much lower the economy can throw them down. The harsh period lasted for almost a decade, and it was known as the Great Depression. You will be surprised by how much you can learn about this historic period just by the popular products people used during the time.
We’ll try to do our best not to leave you depressed after reading the article so we have one trick up our sleeve you could try. For all our readers who get sad just by thinking of the Great Depression, we recommend you to read our list of 15 Best- Selling Baby Products of All Time. The hard times of the 1930s heavily influenced the cultural life in America. It was the time when people sought escapism in the movies, radio, novels, dramas, etc. because those moments provided people with a chance to forget about the depression. The impact of Hollywood during the Great Depression was of an important significance because the Hollywood and the movies offered comfort and consolation to the people of America.
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In order to make the list of best selling products during the Great Depression we did a lot of reading and a lot of investigation in our history books. The Great Depression was so severe that millions of people lost their jobs and with jobs people lost their homes. So it comes of no surprise that many shanty towns were made out of cardboard boxes and other items. These shanty towns made by homeless people were known as ‘Hooverville’, the name was inspired by the president of the time Herbert Hoover, who was widely blamed for the Great Depression. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president in 1933 he promised a ‘New Deal’ for Americans. The New Deal included a number of federal organizations with a purpose to get people back to work and improve the economic situation. When Roosevelt became president many shanty towns were destroyed, however, the struggle remained.
You can find a lot about the Great Depression subtly hidden in literature, for example, Langston Hughes wrote a lot about the ‘numbers game’ which was in a way an illegal lottery that was played a lot in Harlem and other poor neighborhoods in America during the period. People would invest every penny in the numbers game just for the hope of gaining something. Hope was an important ingredient for Americans during the Great Depression, as due to the job recession during the Depression, people needed every bit of hope so they could live another day without pessimism.
Because of the stressful period caused by the Great Depression, many gangsters emerged to the surface, some of them are well known even today, Baby Face, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie and Clyde, etc. After reading so many books about American history for my MA thesis I learned a lot of interesting facts about the Great Depression. Even though it is impossible to know the exact line-up of best selling products during the Great Depression, these 9 products on our list definitely caught my attention. With the help of Gambling in America: An Encyclopedia of History, Issues, and Society by William Norman Thompson, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women , Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline Jones, Chicago in the Great Depression by James R. Schonauer and Kathleen G. Schonauer, The Great Depression in America: A Cultural Encyclopedia, Volume 2 by William H. Young, Nancy K. Young I came up with the following list:
9. Beauty products
Even though the Roaring Twenties were followed by the Great Depression, aside from the incredible gap between the periods there were some waves such as fashion and beauty products that continued to live in the harsh period. As we said in the introduction, people sought escapism in the Hollywood movies, women particularly were enchanted by the beauty of actresses of the time and they tried to recreate the lush looks from the movies with so little they had at home. Beauty products such as eyeliner and lipstick were still used but in much less quantity so it can last much longer.
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8. Alcohol
We are continuing our list of best selling products during the Great Depression with alcohol that was among the most popular products in the period of the Great Depression, which sounds so appropriate given the harsh period. Alcohol was forbidden during the period and therefore demand for it was incredibly high. Anti-Prohibition activists thought the tax revenue from the alcohol was too valuable just to ignore it in the times of financial trouble so they tried their best in their call for repeal, needless to say, the decision was supported by many Americans. Fun fact, Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) was established during the Great Depression, in 1935 to be exact. Four years later, Alcoholic Anonymous book was published, also known as the Big Book because of the thickness of the paper. It is interesting to notice that even though alcohol was forbidden for some time, people were in desperate need for some hope and they were determined to find it.
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7. Lottery tickets
Believe it or not, during the Great Depression, Americans bought lottery tickets as crazy because they lived in such a gloomy period of nothingness and just the notion of winning at something gave them hope that they will soon live a better life. Americans would try to guess three digits that would be pulled up randomly the next day. If you like reading drama, you should read Little Ham by Langston Hughes, he perfectly portrayed the life of people in Harlem during the Great Depression.
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6. Soaps
Soaps were among the top best selling products during the Great Depression and the brand Palmolive that we still use today was one of the brands that offered soaps for low prices. However, there were a lot of households that made soaps at home because they tried to save money or they didn’t have an option to buy no matter how low the price was.
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5. Zippers
No wonder fashion changed during one of the worst economic crises, small changes were made regarding clothes. You probably didn’t see this one coming, but yes, people used zippers during the Great Depression more than ever because the buttons were so expensive. The sellers used to portray zippers as a simple device that can be used for purses, jackets, sweaters and other clothing items. In the 1920s zippers were widely used in men clothing but rarely in women’s clothing just because they were considered to be rude because of their simplicity to unzip. However, the zippers were quite popular for children because of their simplicity to use. With the onset of the Great Depression the fashion changes, women started using zippers in their clothing with one minor difference, since the zippers were considered rude for women they covered the zipper with a fabric. Now you know why the zippers are mostly hidden on dresses even today.
4. Comic Strips
Everything that could make you laugh during the Great Depression could sell. People were willing to buy anything that would pull them out of reality. Comic strips that rank 4th in our list of best selling products during the Great Depression were often referred to as a comedic relief and this comes of no surprise since this was one of the cheapest yet great entertainment among children during the Great Depression. It was during this historic period when a first comic book was published (1933) and it was called Famous on Parade. Famous on Parade had 8 large pages that could be folded down and when it was first published it was given away for free, however after realizing the popularity of the comic books, the following year the cost of the comic book named Famous Funnies was 10 cents. The first issue of Superman appeared on newsstands in 1938 and we dare to say the Golden Age of Comic history started. Children were mesmerized by the adventures they could read in Superman, Batman, Detective Dan, etc.
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3. Board Games
Board games rank third in our list of best selling products during the Great Depression. They were just another way to escape from the gloomy reality of the Great Depression. Monopoly was among the popular board games during the period because it gave people what they needed the most: entertainment and money (fake money, though). Finally, the game that would give you an illusion that you’re rich and able to buy buildings. Some people couldn’t afford going out often so by purchasing the games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Ladders, The Game of Life, etc. they got to have fun at home as much as they wanted. The reason why Monopoly was among the best-selling board games is because it was and it is suitable for every age, which was precious notion during the Depression because the grown-ups were in desperate need for entertainment just as children were.
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2. Campbell’s soup
Up next in our list of best selling products during the Great Depression is Campbell’s soup, that is probably one of the most recognizable brands in the world, and it must be because of its endurance during most important historical changes in the world. According to The Washington Times “The Camden, N.J., soup maker has survived 28 recessions, two world wars and the Great Depression over its 139-year existence. “Historically, Campbell’s soup sales have done well during tough economic times as consumers look for value,” said spokesman Anthony Sanzio. One of the reasons why the Campbell’s soup was presented as the official meal in those desperate days is because of its price and quality, it was more profitable to buy the Campbell’s soup than to buy all necessary ingredients for making the soup.
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1. Movie tickets
As we said in the introduction, the harsh times of the 1930s heavily influenced the world of movies since it represented number one solution when trying to escape from gloomy reality. Almost 80 million Americans went to the movies every week in order to forget the economic crises. Some of the popular movies and cartoons during the Great Depression were: Tom Sawyer, Frankenstein, King Kong, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, etc. Needless to say, we save the number one spot for the movie tickets for our list of best selling products during the Great Depression.
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