As the recession continues, with statewide unemployment rates comparable to nationwide rates in 1932, some local residents are reviving thrifty Depression-era practices. Local Facebook updates this week include a request for half-pint canning jars, a report on canning tomatoes, a description of drying a winter’s worth of apples in a food dehydrator, and, on this site, a description of buying and using a darning egg to darn socks. Ypsilantians are using ingenuity and hard work to combat the grim economic climate.

A survey of the newspaper stories in the latter part of September, 1932, offers a means of comparing our time to that of our grandparents.

“Baptist Women Preserve Food,” says a headline in the September 20, 1932 Ypsilanti Daily Press. Under the supervision of Ypsilanti social worker Inez Graves, the women canned local produce at their church for distribution to the poor. “Other groups are also planning to aid this week,” said the paper. “Wednesday morning the women of the Catholic Church will can at Ypsilanti High School [now Cross Street Village] and Friday and Saturday members of the Teachers’ Club will make use of facilities at the same place. . . [The women] are asking that donations of fruit, vegetables, or [canning jars] be left at the High School lunch room,” noted the paper.

For those who could afford it, Summit Market at 908 Congress St. (Michigan Avenue) was selling 4 pounds of lard for 29 cents and a dozen jelly canning jars for 39 cents. Sinkule’s meat market at 32-34 Cross Street in Depot Town delivered sausage, roasts, and chickens directly to your kitchen table—just call 931.

In an era without federal welfare programs, the city created its own. The Sept. 20 Press noted that Mayor Matthew Max appointed a Welfare Committee to oversee the distribution of relief for the poor in the coming winter. The City Council also sought to limit the work week of city employees to 5 days, instead of 6—so as to give work to more men.

Meanwhile, the Ann Arbor City Council passed an ordinance that only “pasteurized and certified” milk could be sold in the city, and Mayor H. Wirt Newkirk protested the excess of sooty coal smoke in the city. “I know from personal experience [that the smoke] is destructive to house paint, to curtains, rugs, and interior decorations. This sooty deposit ruins rainwater and forming as it does into small nodules of sticky greasy soot is tracked into the house, and ruins rugs and carpets.”

In Ypsilanti, coal offered a benefit, as the city experimented with thrifty ways of paving roads. “A road dressing of coal tar has been applied to Catherine Street between Huron and Washington,” noted the Press. “This tar that was used is a byproduct of the City Gas Company. It has also been applied to Adams Street from Woodward to Catherine Street as a dust layer.” In other transportation-related items, Paul Rice was charged in court with speeding at 43 miles an hour on Washtenaw Avenue, and the cartoon “High Pressure Pete” featured two boys “bumming” a ride to town on a train.

In advertisements, Uhlman’s at 13 N. Washington offered stylish fall dresses for $5.88, but not all could afford them. “Requisition for government cotton cloth for use in Ypsilanti was placed with the county chapter of the Red Cross,” noted the paper. “Twenty yards of cloth per family on the welfare list is the allotment. There are between 150 and 175 families on the welfare lists in the city, and material for dresses, shirts, and underwear will be made available within a short time for their needs.”

Entertainment included the radio and movies. The Family Radio Shoppe at 10 S. Washington offered a 6-tube “Sparton” cabinet-style radio for only $49.50 (normally $141). For an escape, the Martha Washington movie theater [now Déjà vu] was screening the barnstorming action picture “Helldivers,” starring Clark Gable and Dorothy Jordan. On Michigan Avenue, the Wuerth theater was screening “Devil and the Deep,” starring Tallulah Bankhead and Gary Cooper. The ad says, “Desert Stars, the Warm Perfume of the Tropical Night, the Sensuous Notes of an Oriental Love Song. . .”

For the city’s socialites, card parties were popular, with pedro, euchre, and bridge as the favorite games, in homes decorated with fall asters and zinnias.

But most residents just tried to keep up their spirits and pull through. Edson R. Waite in his September [23] “Loyalty to Ypsilanti” column quoted Samuel Kahn, president of San Francisco’s market Street Railway Company: “Fat times make sloth, and sloth brings trouble to the social structure. Lean times sharpen the senses, and appetites. It is from the sharpened senses and appetites of society that the next peak of prosperity. . . will rise. It is in the making now.”

Laura Bien is the author of "Stud Bunnies and the Underwear Club: Tales from the Ypsilanti Archives," to be published this winter. She may be reached at ypsidixit@gmail.com.

"Cold Off the Presses" is published every Wednesday on AnnArbor.com.