Word: jacksons
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Jackson (pop. 60,000) has never been a rich town. In the best times, most of its people make less than $3,500 a year. Its chief industries are automobile parts and railroading. There have been layoffs at the machine shops, some of them seasonal, some of them not. Then the New York Central laid off 450 all at one crack, part of 8,100 furloughed all along the line. Chewing on an old pipe, retired farmer "Granpa" Burkett declared: "That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Up to that point, people were saying that things...
Layoffs & Lectures. From the red brick railroad station to Oppenheims, Jackson's big modernistic department store, Main Street was feeling a pinch. The stores were bustling with people, but less than one out of ten customers walked out with a package. Last week 60 clerks who had been laid off reported for unemployment compensation. At the weekly meeting, the manager of the Sears, Roebuck store lectured his employees: "This week we dropped another $11,000 from our previous week ... I must ask you to watch every penny, be it in the cash register or in the electric bill...
...manager who was installing a septic tank at his new home outside of town said: "A couple of days ago three fellows came out and asked if they could have the job. I told them they could do the digging at a dollar an hour. They took it. Why, Jackson hasn't seen such prices in the building business since before...
...Could Be Worse. Oldsters talked darkly of "bad times ahead," and the coming of "a real depression." But there were no breadlines in Jackson, the banks were safe, and most people's hardships were cushioned to some extent by the state, by union welfare funds, by stored-up savings...
...Jackson, like the nation, was probably hollering more than it hurt. One cab driver wailed, "I'm slowly starving to death"-but he was making $45 a week. One shopkeeper summed it up: "Business is only fair, but it could be a lot worse." And out on Falihee Road, a gear-cutting company was building a new $4,000,000 plant. That meant 400 new jobs, when it was completed...