This short column refers to the growth of the U.S. deficit that was bloated during the Hoover Administration (1929 - 1933) - which up to that time was the largest ever incurred during peace time. When FDR assumed the mantel of the Presidency, it would grow considerably larger.
Click here to read an article about 1930s government spending.
Yet, despite the growing deficits, the United States was still an enormously wealthy nation...
"Some people have maintained that doctors weren't hit so hard by the economic slump. The claim was that people couldn't help getting sick and their misfortune was the doctor's gravy. But the Committee on the Cost of Medical Care, a non-governmental committee, of which Secretary Wilbur is chairman, reports a rapid decline in the income of doctors during the Depression... In 1930, the first [full] year of the Depression, physician's incomes decreased 17% and they have been decreasing ever since."
The author also included some other elements gleaned by the committee - such as the average sum paid by the families in their study, the approximate cost of the nation's medical bills and an approximation concerning the number of medical professionals at work in 1931.
During the Depression, many doctors and nurses worked entirely for free; to read about that, click here...
"There is sharply divided sentiment on [the subject of education]. One faction holds that a costly 'overproduction of brains' has contributed to our [economic] plight, while the opposition reasons that any curtailment in educational expenditure would be 'false economy' and that only from the best minds will come our economic salvation". "Men's attire was more sensitive to depression than women's, for even the most elemental sense of chivalry recognized the superior importance of fashion for wife and daughter."
More articles on 1930s fashion can be read here...
This magazine article from 1935 documented the Federal aid that was made available for America's poorest children. The malnutrition visited upon the boys of America's indigent would render some of them unfit for military service in World War II.
"With nearly one-sixth of the nation's child population in families dependent upon emergency relief, welfare agencies call for a solution of their grave problem." "The problem was laid before the recent National Conference on the 1935 Needs of Children held under the auspices of The Parent's Magazine in New York City. Before them Katherine F. Lenroot, Chief of the United States Children's Bureau, made one of her first public appearances since taking office:"
"...These children have a right to expect that Federal, State, and community relief policies of 1935 will provide more adequately for essential items in the family budget."
Another article about children of the Great Depression can be read here...
"Along with the host of other forgotten items in this historic age of trouble, to be classed with Sumner's forgotten man and Uncle Sam's forgotten Constitution, is the forgotten dollar."
- so saith Edwin Myers of NEW OUTLOOK MAGAZINE. His gripe was typical of most Americans who struggled to get by during the Great Depression - but FDR was not neglectful of the dollar; one of his first acts was to make American exports more attractive abroad - and he devalued the dollar to this end. Much to his credit, exports did indeed increase - but the decreased purchasing power of the dollar domestically contributed to the misery of the American consumer. | 
