yesterwire.comBack to search

On the date

Sunday, December 1, 1929

From the day

Perspective: The Future Historian · Sight

The skyline blurs behind a veil of relentless frost, turning the wool-clad silhouettes of the breadline into ghost-gray statues against the iron-cold pavement. I see a lone driver fumbling with silver coins for **$0.30** at the pump, his breath a thick cloud as he desperately tries to warm a car radio that only crackles with news of the lethal blizzard. Despite the biting eleven-degree wind, a girl scurries past in a vibrant cloche hat, looking like the absolute cat's pajamas against the bleak, ice-coated masonry of a city beginning to freeze in more ways than one. It is a fragile, neon-lit moment of defiance before the shivering masses are buried under the coming economic winter.

Memories from that day

No memories yet. Add yours if you remember this day.

The Headlines

BITTER COLD SWEEPS COUNTRY, KILLING 20; 11 ABOVE ZERO HERE; Icy Wind Brings City Coldest Day of Season, Snarling Transit and Causing Suffering.HEAVY SNOWS UP-STATE Dance Party of 40 Marooned24 Hours Near Watertown-- Blizzard on St. Lawrence.CHICAGO IS HIT HARDESTMercury at Zero There--Great Lakes Shipping Disrupted-- Warmer Weather Today. Cold Here, but Not a Record. Twenty Deaths Are Reported. BITTER COLD SWEEPS COUNTRY, KILLING 20 Chicago Suffers Most. Disastrous Fires in Boston. Record Lows in the South. 4 Below Zero at St. Paul. Liners Arrive Ice-Coated.

Read in The New York Times →

Best-selling Sheet Music

Singin' in the Rain

Nacio Herb Brown

The must-have

Duncan Yo-Yo

Slang

Slang of the decade

General

applesaucebaloneycheaterscrush

Flapper

bee's kneescat's pajamasgiggle watershebahotsy-totsy

Gangster

big cheesebump offstool pigeongatfall guy

Catchphrases of 1929

  • Wall Street Lays an Egg

Tech Check

Car Radio, Sunglasses (Mass Produced) & Coaxial Cable.

Cost of Living (1920)

Loaf of Bread

$0.11

Gallon of Gas

$0.30

Average Home

$6,296

New Car

$575

Meanwhile

  • The Great DepressionGDP fell 30%; triggered by Black Tuesday (1929-10-29).

Time Elapsed

35,250 days ago

(96 years, 210 days)