Slang from the Great Depression

A little about slang from the 1930s, care of the University of Virginia...

The early 1930s were chaotic years in the United States. The Wall Street stock-market crash of 1929 precipitated the Great Depression, the worst economic downturn in the history of the United States. The depression had devastating effects on the country. The stock market was in shambles. Many banks couldn't continue to operate. Farmers fell into bankruptcy. A quarter of the working force, or 13 million people, were unemployed in 1932, and this was only the beginning. The depression lasted over a decade, with hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their jobs, businesses failing, and financial institutions collapsing.

Much slang from the era comes out as a response to the Great Depression: from words referring to President Herbert Hoover, to Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl, to Apple Annies trying to make ends meet. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1932, Americans talked of a New Deal and its slew of programs, known by their initials.