The Great Depression in Cartoons, Part 5:
Business Conditions

Posted on Sunday, February 1, 2009, at 10:12 am, by Cadwalader Crabtree.

One frequent focus of Life’s cartoons during the early years of the Great Depression was the dismal state of American business. Once again, most of these cartoons should be self-explanatory.

This by C. W. Anderson was published on December 12, 1930.

This one by Ralph Fuller appeared in the same issue.

And this one by Ed Graham is from January 16, 1931.

This unsigned cartoon appeared on February 6, 1931. Judging from the style, I suspect it was drawn by G. B. Inwood.

This cartoon by Frank Hanley was published on September 11, 1931.

This cartoon by Robert “Bo” Brown appeared on November 13, 1931. It is one of several from the summer and fall of 1931 that suggest people thought the economy might be showing signs of improvement. In fact, business conditions continued to deteriorate steadily.

This cartoon by Ralph Lane recalls the boom times of 1928 from the bitter perspective of December 1931.

Bank failures brought the Great Depression home to many middle-class Americans, for in the days before deposit insurance the collapse of the local bank could easily wipe out a family’s life savings. Oddly Life ran very few cartoons about the banks. This one, by Chester Garde, appeared on January 30, 1931.

This one by Ralph Fuller dates from February 27, 1931.

The catastrophic wall chart is a motif that appears repeatedly in the background of business cartoons from this period (see, for example, “Directors’ Meeting – 1931,” above). This cartoon by G. B. Inwood, from July 3, 1931, takes the idea further than most. (Note also that the boss appears to have been playing solitaire when his subordinate came in.)

In this cartoon from October 23, 1931, Gluyas Williams makes the wall chart a central part of the gag . . .

. . . while in this cartoon from January 1932, Al Frueh makes a joke out of the wall chart itself.

Well, that should be enough cartoons for today’s entry. But please don’t overlook the other parts of this exciting series! And there’s much more to come!

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Humiliation of the Jobless Father | The Blog for H241 wrote on November 21, 2011, at 3:46 pm:

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