What were living conditions like for white Americans in the 1930's?

Well, Nobody had very much money. In the Depression years, If your father had a job, you had a good family. We considered ourselves a "good" family, but we were land poor. We owned a great deal of land but it wasn't bringing in any income in the thirties. There was just no cash flow. On the other hand, there was not much tax on land. I think "good" families were differentiated by a certain accent, too. It was the way people talked. It was the pronunciation of "I." Didn't say "niiice" and "whiiite," dragging the "I" sound out. That's true. Yes, I think so. My father was of the old school. integrity was the byWord. They looked down very much on those who cheated and stole, especially from the poor. And I remember him talking about one well-off family who did just that and became very prominent later. It was an attitude. You never cheated anybody, and especially anybody lesser than you. And you never said a cross Word or spoke badly to someone who couldn't speak back to you. My husband always said it was the Civil War. They just went back to the dirt. And they had fought in the Civil War even though they never owned slaves. Many of these men died in the Civil War. There were lots of widows left with absolutely nothing except a houseful of children to rear. And do you know it was the blacks who took care of these poor white families. They cut wood for them and shared with them and looked in on them. I had experience with another class of poor white people in the thirties in that we lived so close to the railroad station. I remember seeing the bums coming up the street from the railroad station. And I remember seeing our backyard filled with these poor men, eating what my grandmother had given them. They never asked for a handout. They would only ask for work - if they could chop wood, for example.