This excerpt from Hard Times, the late Studs Terkel’s oral history of the Great Depression remembers the last time the U.S. economy was actually worse than it is now. The following passage comes from an interview Terkel conducted with Hiram “Chub” Sherman, a Federal Theatre stage actor making his home in New York City at the beginning of the ’30s.

“It was rock bottom living in New York then. It really was. Cats were left on the streets. There were no signs about restricted parking. (Laughs.) If somebody had a jalopy–a few friends you know would have some old car–it would sit there for months on end neither molested nor disturbed. It would just fall apart from old age. You didn’t count your possessions in terms of money in the bank. You counted on the fact that you had a row of empty milk bottles. Because those were cash. They could be turned in for a nickel deposit, and that would get you on the subway. Two bottles: one could get you uptown, one could get you back.”

ALSO:

The official Studs Terkel site.
Hear recordings of interviews that Terkel conducted for Hard Times.
Studs Terkel on NPR.
Learn more about the Federal Theatre Project.