The Great Depression; Interview with Frank Angelo. Part 2; Interview with Paul Charette. Part 1

JON ELSE:

So, please tell me about taking your mom to the World's Fair.

FRANK ANGELO:

Well, I think what I'd like to do, is, is, is to, you know, to emphasize the, how much my mother meant to me and, and the courage that she demonstrated, particularly in this period we were talking about. And, the—she had come to Detroit in 1912 and married my father. And, in 1934, she had never left Detroit from that point on, and, in 1934 when I was graduated from Wayne State University, I'll never forget walking outside of the Masonic temple auditorium, and she was waiting on the steps, and handed me a watch. And it was a, I knew that this came from very meager savings. It was a great moment. And, and, and I always, I guess, always felt I wanted to do something special for her, and in 1939 finally came the opportunity. The New York World's Fair was on. And my, my mother's sister lived in New York, and I thought this would be a great time to, to, to take her to New York and she could see her sister, and she'll see the World's Fair and the Italian pavilion, because that meant a lot to her, too. And we did. And, and we drove to New York and we did all these things, and it was the first time, you know, since 1912, she had left the city. And, and it meant a lot to her. And, and, of course, quite a bit to me, also. Well, it was, it was, it was kind of a gesture for me to demonstrate, I guess, some filial kindness to her for some of, much of the kindness she'd done for us, you know. I was only, you know, I was working at the news, I wasn't making very much money at the time. I had bought my mother a house, and I was at, I had four sisters, and I had brought them up, and, and I remember buying my house, my mother a house for $4000, for example. That was her house, you know, I bought it for her. And, and this was, you know, this was just, something very special. Getting her out of, you know, the fact that she could get out of Detroit and see her sister, see the World's Fair. And, and, and I remember how the, how terribly proud and excited she was when we walked into the Italian pavilion. I mean, that was a, for her, a very sort of moving moment. She was back home, you kno w.

JON ELSE:

One more question. Was the 1939 World's Fair especially attractive to people? Was there something special about that fair?

FRANK ANGELO:

Well, as I recall it, you know, the, the, the last previous fair I think had been in Chicago. Was it Chicago in '32? It was at a time when the people, people were not, not much in the mood for World's Fairs. And that, in '39, the, the New York World's Fair was sort of a, a, a, a, a milestone time for, for America. We were coming out of the Depression, and, and people were talking about television, the first television pictures were, were going to be shown at the fair. And, and there was a certain amount of, of excitement that, that the New York Fair was kind of a major milestone in, in American history. And I think that probably also helped me to decide that this would be a great time for me to take Mother to New York and see the Fair.

JON ELSE:

Great, we're done.

[End of Angelo interview; beginning of Charette interview]

ERIC NEUDEL:

All right, Paul. The, in the first years of the Depression, the country was experiencing, obviously, a big economic crash. What effect did that have in the Ford Motor Company, specifically in the year 1931? What was happening for the Ford Motor Company at that period of time?

PAUL CHARETTE:

Well, that was the first year that really hit, hit Mr. Henry Ford very hard. This is, he lost from 40% of the market down to 28%, and his production had dropped to maybe 700,000 units, cars and trucks. He had to stop making the four-cylinder engine. He laid off a lot of people. He lost, it was very discouraging for Mr. Ford, because he had had such good years, '30, 1930 was still a very good year for him, perhaps the happiest year of his life was 1929. In 1929, he had regathered the number one place. In 1929, he sold over 1,800,000 cars. His payroll was, well, I think his payroll was about $733,000,000. His employees in the Rouge Plant alone were over 98,000 people. But by, by 1931, it hit him very hard, and he had laid off a lot of people. Well, in 1931, I think he only had 30,000 people working. So it was a very bad year, 1931, for Mr. Ford.

ERIC NEUDEL:

So was there fear that people are saying, \"You've got to help us, Henry. You've got to, you laying off all these people. You have to help us.\" What could he do?

PAUL CHARETTE:

Well now who was saying, \"You have to help us\"?

ERIC NEUDEL:

Well, a lot of the unemployed workers were grumbling about this.

PAUL CHARETTE:

Well, it was bad. And it was bad for Mr. Ford, too. He gave a lot of money, he loaned a lot of money to his employees with the idea that when they come back to work, they would pay it back. He had opened food stores, and at that time there were 50,000 people living in Dearborn, and he fed most of Dearborn. He set up, in 1931, he set up a grocery-type store in Inkster, Michigan and doled out food. He himself doled out the food with his son Edsel. So, yes, I can imagine some people would say, \"Mr. Ford help us,\" but he was helping a lot of people.

ERIC NEUDEL:

How miserable was it?

INTERVIEWEE:

Well, it was very common to see people going behind the stores. Now, they didn't have super, supermarkets like you have today, but the Kroger store, the C.F. Smith, on Saturday morning, when the produce would come in trucks, the people that did have a job, that worked at, say, C.F. Smith, which was really a small store, the produce guy, when they were trimming the head lettuce for display, they were discarding the trimmings and people were there just grabbing it. And those who weren't there at the time went into the garbage cans to pull it out. They used to have bananas that were by the bushel. They were small, and they, they were not green, some of them were already ripe. People were taking them right out of the garbage cans, I saw that. I also saw many homes that were closed, and people's furniture were on the sidewalk. I don't know if you know that, but many people were out of their homes. These were probably homes they rented. Some that had bought their homes couldn't make their payments and when it comes a time, they were thrown out. Detroit was in bad shape. Now there were some people in Detroit who had goats at that time, and they had cows, and within the city boundary. I don't know if that answers your question, but things were bad.

ERIC NEUDEL:

inaudible

That was great.

inaudible

great. How did, specifically, did Henry Ford try to help the city of Detroit in 1931?

INTERVIEWEE:

Well, you're asking a question that, Henry Ford was, had his own problems, himself. And he was 68 years old. He ran the plant almost by himself. He had Mr. Sorensen and P.E. Martin helping him, but it didn't have an organization like they have today. The men, I think the only people who were prepared to do anything were his craftsmen that had a trade, that knew how to do something. But it, this wasn't going to help him out of the problem that he had, the problem of trying to feed a city. He, he didn't have the money himself, to tell you the truth. They money went into investments. At that time, Mr. Ford had started a plant in Dagenham, England. It was to be the largest plant in Europe. And this was on the Thames River, it's still there. He had a plan in construction in Edgewater, New Jersey.

INTERVIEWEE:

He had a plant in Chester, Pennsylvania in construction.