Research: 1930's Miscellanea

Researching for Rise of Sirius

Photo by Kit Suman on Unsplash

Through all the researching I’ve been doing on the 1930’s for the upcoming serial, Rise of Sirius, I’ve been coming across random facts of interest, and also realizing that my my knowledge of history tends to be tunnel-visioned - I associate the 1930’s with the Great Depression in America, but not much else. In cross-referencing the decade with other happenings around the world, I get a more cemented feel for the time, and I thought you might all enjoy some of the research. Most of these are fun and ultra-small scale!

• The men who conceived of the Empire State Building were both Catholics. Despite the issues of the Depression, it was a successful project in so far as it was built in less than a year and provided many new jobs during that time.

• Traffic lights, especially fully automated traffic lights, were only just becoming popular (sometime in the 30’s, anyway - sources aren’t particularly specific.) They often disagreed on color arrangements and on exactly what defined “stop” and “go", and could be a source of confusion in traveling from one area to another!

• Our standard, highly-visible crosswalks didn’t come into being until 1951, and quickly became known as zebra crossings. I’m wondering now if there’s an image of a zebra crossing a zebra crossing. Before then, something such as studs on the road might have counted as a crosswalk, except drivers couldn’t really see them. In studying some photos of New York from the time, I did see some crosswalks at intersections, but they were massively wide and only designated by narrow white stripes forming a frame.

• Alphabet soup, already around since the 1860’s, became even more popular in the 30’s as a cheap edible, possibly assisted by the colloquially called “alphabet soup” of the new agencies created by FDR.

• Kraft invented packaged mac and cheese, powdered cheese and all, and it became popular due to its low price tag and ease.

• Due in large part to a specific dress from the silver screen, massive shoulders and sleeves became firmly entrenched in 1930’s ladies’ fashion: the “Letty Lynton dress”, worn by Joan Crawford, also started moving fashion away from the sheath towards the coming silhouettes of the 40’s.

• Thanks to rising import taxes, Paris lost its place as the guiding star for American fashionistas, and American fashion designers rose in prominence.

• Some popular singers included Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, and Louis Armstrong. There were many others, such as the Andrew Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, and Glenn Miller, but their hits tended to be towards the latter end of the decade and outside of the early-mid 30’s I’m writing about.

• Food in the 1930’s - for obvious reasons, my favorite subject to be researching! Pasta and soup (like alphabet soup) were among the cheapest foods, alongside new products, such as peanut butter (hard to imagine life before peanut butter, but I digress). Pizza? What’s pizza? While pizzerias had been popping up since the beginning of the century, it was generally only eaten by Italians. I guess Americans didn’t know what they were missing, or how inexpensive pizza was? They were, on the other hand, apparently eating the peanut-butter-stuffed onions I mentioned previously. There’s also coffee soup, basically your typical cup of coffee but with bread added so it’s like a cereal. Economical ingredient alternatives became stars in such recipes as water pie and faux apple pie, the latter managing to sneakily replace the apple for ritz crackers. Rocky road ice cream was invented during this time, too.

Now for the most important fact of all.

• Chocolate chip cookies didn’t exist until the end of the decade. How did humanity survive for thousands of years without chocolate chips? Same way they did without smartphones and internet, but still. . . and since I’m writing in 1934, I can’t even have my characters try out the newfangled recipe!

Crossreferencing

Books - Laura Ingalls published Little House in the Big Woods in 1932; Murder on the Orient Express was written in our target year of 1934, and The Hobbit came out in 1937. A world without Middle-Earth would seem strange now!

Film - Dracula in 1931, The Mummy in 1932, Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes in 1934, A Tale of Two Cities in 1935, and my favorite, The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn, was in theaters in 1938.

Historical events- The feast of Christ the King was established in 1925, Pluto was discovered in 1930 (it’s a planet.) and KFC was founded. In 1931 we got our official National anthem. In the previous decade, King Tut’s tomb was discovered, starting off Egyptomania, a craze for the styles of Ancient Egypt, which was most prevalent in jewelry, architecture, and some fashions, which lasted to some extent through the 30’s.

Canonizations - St. Therese and St. John Vianney had been canonized in 1925, St. Bernadette was canonized in 1933, Sts. John Bosco and Louise de Marillac were canonized in 1934, and St. Thomas More was canonized in 1935.

Inventions - Yes, sliced bread was first sold in 1930. Radar didn’t exist until 1935, ballpoint pens didn’t exist until 1938. 1934 saw the first trampolines and first magnetic recording. It’s nice to know that parking meters didn’t become common until after 1935, so our heroes won’t have to worry about parking fees. . .

Recipes I will be trying:

• Goulash

• Spaghetti with bacon

• Noodles with peas

• Creamed tuna on toast

• Coffee soup

• Peanut butter bread

• Creamed chicken on biscuits

• Hot water cornbread

• Frozen fruit salad

• Wacky cake

• Sugar cream pie

• Apple pudding

• Water pie

• Faux Apple Pie

I expect there are many other Depression-era recipes I’ll be adding, so that may warrant another post at a later time, and I will duly review how they turn out. If I get enough comments telling me to try peanut butter stuffed onions, I might even try those. Posts on the costumes for each character will be coming as well! This will probably be around the time of the first chapter of Rise of Sirius, which should be in a couple of weeks.

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