IT WAS REALLY JUST A SALE, but what a sale. From Lake to Congress, 124 State Street stores were offering thousands of items for the nice, round, tantalizing price of $1 FOR ONE DAY ONLY. Of course this was THE DEPRESSION and a dollar already bought a lot. But with the average steelworker making less than $450 a year (and the clerks in those Loop stores making as little as 5 cents an hour), it had to. Here’s what you could get for a dollar that day: one of 7,900 pairs of white women’s shoes (“$3.30 quality”), a lamp, a raincoat, a cotton dress, “a camera that will really take pictures,” a set of ruffled curtains, a Panama hat or a dozen reconditioned golf balls. No wonder the turnout was such that merchants DECLARED THE EVENT A “HUGE SUCCESS.” Perhaps it helped that the State Street boosters had warned that these bargains probably could not be equaled for years to come. The next Dollar Day? Six months later.
– U.S. unemployment rate in 1933: 25 PERCENT.
– Components of a dollar bill: 75 PERCENT COTTON AND 25 PERCENT LINEN, PLUS SYNTHETIC FIBERS.
– Number of tickets $1 would buy for the Century of Progress exposition in 1933: 2.
– Average lifespan of a $1 bill: 22 MONTHS. Of a $100 bill: 60 MONTHS.
Sources: Tribune archives, U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” by Milton Meltzer, “This Fabulous Century, 1930-1940” (Time-Life Books).
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“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”
–WOODY ALLEN
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nwatkins@tribune.com
