news-record.com

Thanksgiving, 1929, in Greensboro wasn't as sweet as a slice of pumpkin pie, but it wasn't sour either. Heads were bowed and blessings counted. After all, turkeys were 10 to 20 cents a pound cheaper than the previous year.

Yet, between bites, a sense of fear nagged that a long stretch of prosperity here and elsewhere may be ending.

Nearly a month before, on "Black Tuesday," Oct. 29, 1929, the stock market crashed.

Still, Greensboro residents had jobs and money in the bank. Some owed the corner grocer, but credit cards weren't maxed out (there were none) and banks didn't allow easy credit. The now-standard 401(k) plan didn't exist. Few people owned stocks.

Those at Thanksgiving tables that year couldn't have fathomed that the Great Depression loomed and would last nearly 10 years. The Depression caused even the city's richest residents to lose homes. Bank failures wiped out savings of the rich and middle class. Credit disappeared. People lost jobs. For some, three square meals a day became iffy.

The difference now - as stock markets plunge, banks falter and General Motors nears bankruptcy - is public awareness of just how bad the economy has become. Bad news saturates the front page, 24-hour cable channels and National Public Radio.

Such gloominess was frowned on in late 1929. Newspapers gave bad news a positive spin. The state labor commissioner talked of a "labor surplus" in the state's big cities. He refused to say "unemployed."

Newspapers tended to quote business people with rosy outlooks or who could easily pinpoint blame. Local business leader Pierce Rucker castigated Wall Street "financiers." They had "exploited" the market by recommending risky stocks in Northern companies while ignoring strong Southern outfits.

Rucker said such area stocks as Vick's Chemical and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco had showed "no decline of consequences" during the crash; Vick's even offered to buy back recently purchased stock from nervous investors.

In his 1929 Thanksgiving message, Gov. O. Max Gardner stressed that only a few Tar Heels "are in actual want. ... The industries of the state ... are undoubtedly on a sound financial basis and signs of returning prosperity are already beginning to make their appearance."

Life seemed unchanged in many ways. Wealthy locals returned from autumn trips to Europe. The social scene appeared to thrive. "Mrs. S.B. Woody Complements Trio with Lovely Tea today" a society page headline read.

A big crowd turned out to hear the U.S. Marine Corps Band at Aycock Auditorium. Many ate Thanksgiving dinner early so they could board a special train to the UNC-Virginia football game in Chapel Hill.

Greensboro residents took guests for rides to show off the city's newest building projects completed between 1927 and 1929. These included Greensboro Senior High School on Westover Terrace, the state's first school to cost $1 million; Dudley High on Lincoln Street; the ornate Carolina Theatre; the block-long Southern Railway Depot; the 13-story King Cotton Hotel; the new Central Fire Station; and, out in the boondocks, the Pilot Life Insurance Co. headquarters.

Pilot Life Insurance President A.W. McAlister, among a trio who had developed Irving Park in 1909, urged people to invest in real estate, declaring, "You can't lose it if you have paid for it."

McAlister soon learned that land could be taken if property taxes weren't paid. Sedgefield entered bankruptcy in 1931. The subdivision was later completed, minus one of the two planned golf courses.

McAlister's fellow partner in Irving Park, A.M. Scales, bought more than 1,000 acres to develop Hamilton Lakes. Scales lost the land at foreclosure, including his mansion overlooking Lake Hamilton. Ed Benjamin, who would later develop Friendly Center, finished the project as two subdivisions, Hamilton Lakes and Starmount Forest.

Those paying attention that Thanksgiving could discern worry among national leaders. President Herbert Hoover met with national business leaders almost daily. The president talked of cutting taxes and raising government spending to stimulate the economy. (Sound familiar?)

In Greensboro, advertisements for pre-Christmas sales crowded the morning Daily News and afternoon Record newspapers. Merchants normally waited until after Christmas to conduct sales. Offering bargains before the holiday signaled a fear that consumers needed coaxing to spend.

Another distress sign that autumn came when the Greensboro Community Chest (now United Way) switched from paid field workers to volunteers to seek donations. Even so, the Chest raised only $80,000 of its $90,000 goal. Chest beneficiaries, such as the Salvation Army, had to cut budgets just as the need for services grew. Mayor R.R. King Jr. said he had never seen worse conditions for a charity drive.

In 1930, two-thirds of the banks in the state failed. Those here struggled to stay open but all eventually failed in 1933, the year unemployment hit 30 percent nationally. Falling tax revenues caused salary cuts at city hall and in the school system. Textiles, however, remained strong, with such mills as Cone and Blue Bell continuing to hire, says historian Gayle Fripp in her book, "Greensboro: A Chosen Center."

By 1934 and 1935, Franklin Roosevelt's Work Progress Administration and other make-work agencies opened offices in the Guilford Building downtown. The WPA hired the unemployed to build such projects as the Preyer Federal Building downtown and to complete Greensboro Country Park.

Time proved John D. Rockefeller right - and maybe it will again. He bought more shares of his own oil company in the belief that better days would arrive. "In the 93 years of my life," he said, "depressions have come and gone. Prosperity has always returned and it will again."

By 1935, Burlington Industries had built a new headquarters here. A school bond was approved. The Jaycees started the Greater Greensboro Open in 1938. New banks opened. Hard times were behind us.

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net