Was The Depression All That Depressing?

Australian historian, David Potts, has recently written about the myths that have surrounded the 1930s Depression.

He states that although the Depression was quite severe, there are many exaggerations as to the depth of the problems experienced at that time.

It is interesting to measure his findings against the current assessments of our economic crisis.

Potts has observed that during the Depression there was optimism and an element of cheeriness that has largely been ignored.  He bases this on an examination of interviews with over 2000 survivors of the great Depression.

His thesis titled ‘the myth of great Depression’ was written in the 1960s during his time at Melbourne University.  The interesting point that we can note from this is that survivors often commented that people were happier back then.

Even hospital reports and government statistics recorded improvements in infant mortality, death rates and malnutrition.

His research also surprisingly revealed that unemployment was in fact much lower than what was reported at the time.  Because of differing measurement methods, unemployment was stated to be 25% but by today’s standards would have been just 17%.

Finally, he points out that landlords and banks took a lenient view allowing people to stay and houses even when they could afford the payments.  In fact the vacancy rate at that time was only 4%.

In essence people wounded new truths about lifestyles and this is what stood them in good stead later in life.

Read more about this topic and home loans.

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