Full Speed Ahead: My Journey with Kit

About Kit’s Time

Discusses what life would’ve been like for Kit and her family during the mid-1930s. Topics include:

• Although many families escaped the hard times of the Great Depression at first, over the years, it drove many businesses to shut down, putting millions of people out of work
  • Families who did not pay their mortgage could lose their home
  • Thousands of Americans who lost their homes wandered the country in search of work and a place to live—they were called hoboes or tramps
  • Many wanderers were teenagers or children
• Hoboes developed their own language of symbols that were marked on houses, fences, and sidewalks to tell others what they might find
  • They traveled mostly by foot, but when possible, they sneaked onto trains without a ticket
• Riding the rails was dangerous
  • Jumping on and off moving trains is dangerous, and railroad guards might use violence to discourage hoboes from riding the rails
• Some people treated hoboes with respect
  • Many gave them food or payment in exchange for chores, or handed down clothes
• In 1932, Americans elected a new president who they believed would pull them out of the Depression: Franklin Roosevelt
  • He pledged to deliver “a New Deal for the American people”
  • He launched a variety of new programs to put people back to work and pull the country out of its slump
  • Many Americans approved of President Roosevelt’s programs, and they ended up reelecting him three times
• Girls growing up in the 1930s learned to be thrifty
  • They worked hard to help their families and dreamed up creative solutions to make their own clothes and fun
  • Long before the word recycle became common, families were recyling almost everything
  • A popular motto was, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”
  • Everyone appreciated and treasured what money couldn’t buy: generosity and kindness of friends, family, and even strangers