Reply #35: Poverty was different back then.. [View All]

[SoCalDem]

If you eliminated the coastal urban centers, you would see that most towns were separated by housing quality. The higher the income, the newer/better the house..or if the town was big enough, the OLD money ensured a palatial existence , in old-money houses near the country club..far removed from the "townspeople"..

Towns had ONE shopping area (the downtown) so everyone "mingled" there. Schools were neighborhood schools, so kids went to school with kids in their own financial strata. There were still many neighborhood grocers.. People did not have more than one car, in many families, so Mom (who were at home mostly) shopped often and a lot of the time..on foot. (almost European-style)..grocers lived above of behind their stores and even delivered gorceries to old people in the neighborhood...or to harried Moms. Pharmacies even delivered..

Neighbohoods were encapsulated... kids stayed IN there to play or go to school..Dads left each day to go to work, but most did not go that far... A sales job in a downtown store WOULD support a family back then. Lots of Dads of friends of mine worked in men's clothing stores, bookstores, printing companies, office supply places, etc..

Kids went away to college, so inter-marrying between the classes was not all that common. The ones who married right out of high school usually married within their own strata. The smart ones who were poor, still got a decent shot at college and once there, they set their sights pretty high, and usually did not return to the local home hown..

The bosses of locally owned companies who hired the poorer folks, also LIVED in the community, and may have even grown up there. Bosses drove better cars and took out-of town shopping trips to Kansas City or Wichita, but they were NOT super-rich, nor were they all that "uppity"..

People who were poor, mostly associated with others just like themselves, so they didn't FEEL poor..

ADVERTISING and TV that came along with a vengeance from the 60's on, made them feel poor....

Consolidated school districts made the kids feel poor, since they were now lumped together with the "rich kids".
Mergers and buyouts of companies, and the layoffs that always follow, made them poorer..
Suburban sprawl made them poorer.. Town people who had done just fine for a hundred years with their small stores, local grocers, and a vigorous downtown, did not have the money to join the "sprawl", and they were just left behind...jobless, poorer than ever, and forgotten..