This
room, filled with donated shoes, shows the desperate need of many women in
poverty during
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.
 |
| A room full of shoes to be given to the wives of
unemployed men during the Depression. Unknown photographer (1932) source |
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.
