Room full of shoes

This room, filled with donated shoes, shows the desperate need of many women in poverty during

A room full of shoes to be given to the wives of unemployed men during
the Depression. Unknown photographer (1932)  source

the Depression  –  and also the generosity of women. Charity was high profile during the inter-war Depression years, and women were generous contributors of goods and time. The collection and distribution of food and clothing, and the provision of social services were activities largely coordinated by women, even though men, like ‘Uncle Scrim’, tended to be the figureheads and spokespeople for charitable organisations.

The women who needed these shoes may well have been workers themselves, rather than just the ‘wives of unemployed men’.  Working women who lost their jobs were not captured in the national statistics, not recognised as unemployed and not entitled to a benefit. A husband was expected to support them. Just as in this picture, they were invisible, and out of the frame. But even those who did not have a paid job in a factory or shop were contributing to the economy. Taking in laundry, swapping backyard produce, making clothes and child-minding: providing services to other women at home, and to working sisters, daughters and neighbours who could not have worked paid jobs without their support.

The shoes are, to modern eyes, very stylish, reflecting the boom in fashion and consumer goods that followed the Great War in a relative time of plenty. Although New Zealand’s culture didn’t develop to the extremes of self-indulgence and consumerism seen in countries like America, still there was an explosion of new fashion and entertainment in the 1920s. Many of the shoe styles seen here date from this decade, when people were buying more goods – including shoes – than they needed; more than they had been able to afford for a long, grim time. And when the Great Depression hit hard, many who had more than they needed were willing to share.

The photo illustrates the scale of poverty and need in New Zealand during the Great Depression in a very intimate way. Each pair of shoes gives a sense of the personality of the woman who donated them, and the desperate situation that the woman who needs them is in.  At a time when a struggling woman probably went without to ensure her family had more, the gift of a pair of shoes that were only for her must have meant a lot.  New shoes addressed a practical, everyday need for women in poverty, but also gave a message that each recipient was deserving, and important in herself.

It’s difficult to look at this photo without thinking of photos of other rooms full of shoes, taken at the end of the Second World War. But in 1932, before World War II and before those images became an unforgettable part of our history, this image illustrates a time when poverty was being recognised as an effect of capitalism rather than a moral failing, and communities were helping their disadvantaged members to meet the challenges of the Great Depression as part of an interlinked, supportive society.

Romance

Fairytale romance: hold me back.

A frog, the Beast, a necrophiliac,

a foot fetishist

who can’t even remember what you look like.

A hair puller,

a prince who doesn’t believe you’re a princess

and makes you prove it,

with your bruises.

The dance partner who doesn’t notice that your feet are bleeding

let alone that you’ve traded in your tail,

a series of dodgy woodcutters

who keep turning up to help when you’re in danger -

because they’re stalkers.

The man who breaks and enters through the bramble patch

wakes you up early, ruins the garden,

and, Bluebeard. 
Seriously:

not much of a catch.

Trouble

Friday. I knew I shouldn't, but I knew it was too late. I’d woken up with rocks in my head, an ache in my liver and a sandpit in my throat. It felt like I hadn't slept at all, and I was all out of ideas. I reached for the drawer under my desk where I keep the emergency aspirin, and that was when I saw her: a shadow on the frosted glass of my office door, behind the black letters of my name. I held my breath, and she knocked.

Source

It was too late to pretend I wasn't in, too late to pretend I wasn't a sore loser, in yesterday's clothes and barely awake, in a seedy office on the wrong side of town: stinking like an ashtray and looking like hell. I let her in.

She was tall and expensive, with a face that didn’t move. She breezed in on a cloud of Arpège and looked me up and down like a hawk on high heels. She said, you look like you need motivation to reach your health and fitness goals by tracking your activity, exercise, sleep, weight and more.

I offered her a drink, but her blue eyes stared me down.

The phone hadn't rung for weeks and I had bills to pay. I knew I shouldn’t. But I bought one. She said, only Fitbit gives you the freedom to get fit your way. I bought two. She was beautiful when she sneered.

Ten minutes later we were nearly friends but before I could get her name she was gone, leaving only a breath of jasmine and the memory of her lips in Velvet Venom on a half-smoked cigarette, going limp in the dregs of yesterday’s coffee.

I put on my Fitbit. 

By lunchtime I had walked ten thousand steps, pacing up and down beside my desk, while my coffee cooled and the traffic snarled outside.

At two it started to rain, a miserable drizzle that couldn’t make up its mind. I stopped pacing and picked up the phone. I had bills to pay.

Saturday. A fly was buzzing in the window and I woke up on the floor. I hadn’t slept so good in twenty years but something was needling me. I’d been dreaming in Cinemascope, all car chases and smashing glass, and I was tired like always. But for once I hadn’t woken up at 3am, going over conversations in my head while the neon sign outside flashed yellow through the blinds.

Things were looking up.

I went downstairs for coffee, and while I waited I checked my Fitbit. It said I hadn’t slept at all.

Source

Eight thousand steps last night, and my heart racing like a greyhound, on and off. I thought about that. I thought about it some more when I got back up to my office and noticed the bloodstains on my door, and the bottle. The bottle. It should have been in the drawer, with the aspirin. I was having trouble with my health and fitness goals. What the hell was going on?

I calculated the cholesterol in my cheeseburger while I stared out the window, chewing. I was starting to feel like I didn’t know myself at all. There was a knock at the door, but I wasn’t in the mood.

I needed a nap.

I looked out the window at the fire escape, and the fire escape looked back. Fifty-seven steps down to the sidewalk and a hundred more to my car. I put on my hat.

Source

But it was too late to pretend I wasn’t in - a cop with a face like a damp tomato sandwich busted through the door and I knew I’d reached the finish line. He said, we’ve downloaded your data. You’re under arrest.