What was school like in 1930s?

School. 1930s: School was considered a luxury for low- and middle-income children. Schools were overpopulated, underfunded, and an estimated 20,000 schools in America closed. Transportation was an issue—there were no buses or cars so children had to walk often long distances.

What were the subjects in school in 1930?

Education was more enriching before the Great Depression, with classes such as science, history, and art, but students were now only taught reading, writing, and math. Because all students were in the same room, students sat in rows according to their grade.

What was it like to be a kid in the 1930s?

Economically, many children worked both inside and outside the home; girls babysat or cleaned house, boys hustled papers or shined shoes, and both ran errands and picked crops. Yet the scarcity of jobs led record numbers of children to remain in school longer.

What was it like to be a teacher in the 1930s?

Teachers gained more control over their work through unions and new laws aimed at standardizing education. Teachers had to be better qualified, and their performance was monitored, but laws were brought in to give them "tenure," protecting them from dismissal.

Did girls go to school in the 1930s?

The Depression era prompted increasing numbers of women to pursue new avenues of education that had previously been unavailable, and had seemed unlikely and unpopular for their gender.

Back to SCHOOL: Did You Know? Now and Then | British Pathé

Was there homework in the 1930s?

1930: Homework as Child Labor

In 1930, an organization known as the American Child Health Association declared that homework was a type of child labor. Since laws against child labor had recently been passed, this proclamation reflected a less-than-favorable view of homework as an acceptable educational practice.

What age did kids start school in the 1930s?

I went to school during the depression years when times were hard and money scarce. I had one Sunday dress and a pair of shoes and two dresses for school and an everyday pair of shoes. I did not begin school until I was almost eight years old as no one began until their seventh birthday.

How did kids get to school in the 1930s?

School. 1930s: School was considered a luxury for low- and middle-income children. Schools were overpopulated, underfunded, and an estimated 20,000 schools in America closed. Transportation was an issue—there were no buses or cars so children had to walk often long distances.

Why was life hard in the 1930s?

The Great Depression began in 1929 when, in a period of ten weeks, stocks on the New York Stock Exchange lost 50 percent of their value. As stocks continued to fall during the early 1930s, businesses failed, and unemployment rose dramatically. By 1932, one of every four workers was unemployed.

What did kids do in the 30s?

Most children played in the streets as there were not many cars. Marbles, hopscotch, skipping and football were popular games. In summer, cricket was played in the streets or on village greens.

Was school free in the 1930s?

During the Depression, the problems of American education rose to the surface. Although public education was free to all, the quality of schooling available in different parts of the country varied drastically. In some areas, such as the rural South, the public school system was starved for money.

Was life hard in the 1930s?

Times were difficult for many families who did everything to make ends meet as unemployment was extremely high. Because clothing was expensive, many women began creating clothes for their families out of cotton flour sacks.

Did kids still go to school during the Great Depression?

Many rural schools were already underfunded during the 1920s. During the Depression these schools found it necessary to sometimes cut teachers' salaries, stop purchasing supplies, or to simply close their doors when money ran out. By 1930 over three million children between seven and 17 years of age were out of school.

Did they have high school in the 1930s?

Teens who could not find employment enrolled in high school, changing high school enrollment numbers increased from 11,546 in 1930 to 19,638 by the end of the decade. While high school enrollment increased, funding did not.

Was school mandatory in the 1930s?

Compulsory laws

Thirty states with compulsory schooling laws required attendance until age 14 (or higher). As a result, by 1910, 72 percent of American children attended school. Half the nation's children attended one-room schools. By 1930, every state required students to complete elementary school.

Did people go to college in the 1930s?

Explosive growth in the number of colleges occurred in bursts, especially in 1900–1930 and in 1950–1970. State universities grew from small institutions of fewer than 1000 students to campuses with 40,000 more students, as well as a network of regional campuses around the state.

What was bad in the 1930s?

The Great Depression was the worst economic crisis in modern history, lasting from 1929 until the beginning of World War II in 1939. The causes of the Great Depression included slowing consumer demand, mounting consumer debt, decreased industrial production and the rapid and reckless expansion of the U.S. stock market.

Who got rich during the Great Depression?

Not everyone, however, lost money during the worst economic downturn in American history. Business titans such as William Boeing and Walter Chrysler actually grew their fortunes during the Great Depression.

What was the nickname for the 1930s?

The Dust Bowl in the United States (which led to the nickname the "Dirty Thirties") exacerbated the scarcity of wealth.

When did kids get forced to go to school?

United States. In 1852, Massachusetts was the first U.S. state to pass a compulsory universal public education law. In particular, the Massachusetts General Court required every town to create and operate a grammar school.

What age did kids go to work in the Great Depression?

In Philadelphia in September, October and November 1932 over sixteen hundred general employment certificates were issued for fourteen- and fifteen-year-old children, more than eleven hundred of them for children taking their first jobs.

Did girls go to school in the 1920s?

The 1920s is the time that women were fighting for the right to vote, which also paved the way for women to attend higher education. Fighting for their independence branched off into coeducation because the women felt like they deserved the same schooling as their male counterparts.

What was child labor like during the Great Depression?

In the census of 1930, two million children aged 10-18 still worked and 700,000 were under the age of 15. Most worked in the agricultural sector during summer vacation (Feld, 4). Federal surveys said children worked twelve hour shifts on tobacco, beet and, cotton plantations, all over the country (Feld, 3).

How did families survive the Great Depression?

To save money, families neglected medical and dental care. Many families sought to cope by planting gardens, canning food, buying used bread, and using cardboard and cotton for shoe soles. Despite a steep decline in food prices, many families did without milk or meat.

What was the Great Depression for kids?

The Great Depression was the longest and most serious economic crisis in modern history. It began in the United States in 1929 but spread quickly throughout the world, lasting for about 10 years. The Depression caused sharp declines in economic production and severe unemployment in almost every country.