Santa Fe escaped the worst and most immediate effects of the Great Depression because of its relative isolation, its lack of industry and its continued popularity with wealthy people.

As the economic downturn wore on for more than a decade, it ground down New Mexico's Hispanic majority, especially those in the agricultural villages, many of whom were forced to move into cities to find work.

But in the capital city, especially among its wealthy Anglos, creative artists and a privileged Hispanic elite, life after "Black Thursday" continued as it had throughout the Roaring Twenties — a time of glitzy parties, bathtub gin and intellectual pursuits.

By the time Santa Fe began to feel the pinch, it was benefiting from the New Deal programs that built the Santa Fe River Park, the Supreme Court building, Hyde Memorial State Park, the National Parks Service building on Old Santa Fe Trail and Bandelier National Monument.

Kermit Hill, a retired history teacher whose parents grew up in New Mexico during the 1920s and '30s, said the Depression caused his grandfather's insurance business in Santa Fe to fail. But Hill's father managed to win an athletic scholarship that led to a $62-a-month job teaching in Stanley. "I don't think he himself ever went hungry," Hill said, "but he saw kids in the winter without jackets, kids coming to school with nothing to eat except popcorn and lard."

Hill said rural New Mexico had been depressed since the close of World War I, so few people were affected by the stock market crash of 1929. As for Santa Fe, "It didn't change that dramatically," he said. "Even before all the New Deal programs, it already had a built-in buffer with all the government jobs, so that softened it."

Depression misses Santa Fe

Contemporary accounts of Santa Fe during the Depression confirm Hill's impressions that the city avoided the worst effects. You will not find local photographs of bread lines, soup kitchens or unemployment lines — all icons of the Depression in other parts of the country.

If you had lived in Santa Fe on Oct. 24, 1929, you would have most likely learned of the crash from that Thursday afternoon's edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican. "Stock Market Cracks Open; Heaviest Day," read the headline of the one-column article on the far right of page one — the position of the day's most important news story. "A stock market panic appeared to have been checked early this afternoon as lending bankers issued reassurances, and the prices of various stocks, after declining $10 to $40 a share, rebounded sharply," began The Associated Press story, datelined New York City.

The next week, as stock prices continued to plummet, the focus shifted to Washington, D.C., where Republicans and Democrats began to trade charges. The Republican administration predicted a quick recovery with no long-term effects. The Democratic floor leader of the U.S. Senate responded by blaming the Republicans for their "unduly and repeated optimistic statements to the creation of enthusiastic if not frenzied ventures in stocks."

On Nov. 2, the New Mexican published its first local story on the national crisis — interviewing Wall Street broker J.M. Williams, who was in town to visit his niece, Mrs. J. Ashby Davis. The losses were especially hard on New York, Williams said, where "every typist, manicurist, shoe polisher" and other "small salaried person" speculated in stocks.

All through November, the stock market see-sawed wildly — up one day, down another. Political recriminations continued. One front-page story reported that investigators were looking into senators attending a "Wall Street booze party" during Prohibition.

On Nov. 23 came the first story revealing human tragedy behind the monetary losses — a St. Louis broker had killed himself by swallowing a lethal dose of poison weeks after he had paid $478,000 for a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. The La Luz column, written anonymously in an informal, lower-case style, noted that "a new yorker who bucked the stock market has taken his last plunge ... it was out a seventh story window."

In December, the stock-market crisis disappeared from the front page. Not until Dec. 28 did the paper finally use the word depression — but only in an appeal to "keep before the people of this state that there is no depression and that the prosperity of the American nation is ever-increasing."

Falling off the front pages

Throughout the first three years of the Depression, the New Mexican remained a six- to eight-page broadsheet, sometimes expanding to 10 pages with occasional special sections, published Monday through Saturday afternoons. Photography became more common on its pages. Advertising remained strong for automobiles, groceries, cigarettes and clothes.

The "Wall Street crisis" was hardly the biggest story, even in the days after the crash. The discovery of a headless corpse presumed to be that of Taos land baron Arthur Manby, aviation records, feats and crashes, and frequent busts of Prohibition bootleggers got far more coverage. But as 1930 began, news of the financial crisis became even scarcer. The only hint of the subject in January was a state Department of Agriculture report warning that the demand for farm products would not be as strong in 1930 as in 1929.

In February, the New Mexican's longtime editor, Dana Johnson, joined other state businessmen and politicians on a trip to Mexico City for the inauguration of the new Mexican president. Johnson reported that most members of the New Mexico delegation lost their wardrobes when their valises were "abducted" by a Mexican taxi driver.

During his absence, Willard "Spud" Johnson, no kin to Dana Johnson, was hired to handle editorial chores. The former New Yorker writer began a column called The Perambulator that mixed local and celebrity gossip — a la today's Mitote column — documenting Santa Fe's popularity with writers, artists and international cultural figures. Although the column was a hit among Santa Fe's literati, who urged the New Mexican to keep it, it was discontinued in March. Spud Johnson returned to Taos and other journalistic endeavors.

For the New Mexican, the Depression remained a national, not a local story. In Chicago, hundreds of unemployed demonstrators were dispersed by mounted police who charged the group, clubbing some and arresting others "to keep the leaders from haranguing the mob." But in Santa Fe, business continued uninterrupted. In late March 1930, Nathan Salmon announced plans to build New Mexico's largest movie theater at the corner of Burro Alley and San Francisco Street — what became the Lensic.

Editorials emphasized the "psychological" reasons for the Depression and predicted "the tourist business or rather the summer colony business" would return with warmer weather. "More rich people are coming here and predictions are that they will continue to arrive in Santa Fe, build expensive homes and spend money all of the year or part of the year," one editorial stated.

Even when the news ignored the Depression, advertisers mentioned it. Grocers urged customers to take advantage of their specials during the hard times. The Ford Motor Co. ran full-page ads, announcing reductions in prices of all its vehicles and urging people to remain optimistic: "Every indication is that general business conditions will remain prosperous."

A group representing local businesses urged residents to shop locally to "crush the Chain Store Beast." That apparently prompted a visit from the president of one of the nation's leading chain stores, J.C. Penney, who told the Chamber of Commerce, "Both the chain store and the independent have a legitimate place in distribution."

Tax assessments rose sharply in April, prompting a storm of protest from property owners. The New Mexican published a chart that indicated nine new businesses opened during the first four months of 1930 — a grocery, a dry-goods store, two tire shops, two curio shops and three new restaurants, including the Plaza Cafe. A number of major highway projects were under way in Northern New Mexico. The Laboratory of Anthropology was Santa Fe's biggest construction project.

The 1930 Census found some 11,000 people living in the city and almost 20,000 in the county. The New Mexican reported the rental market was no longer "gloomy," with four-room furnished houses renting for $45 to $50 a month. Construction permits held steady, but real-estate prices were flat. A full-page ad listed more than 100 properties for sale, most between $4,000 and $7,000. The cheapest was a four-room, all-adobe dwelling for $1,700; the most expensive was a brick store with basement for $40,000.

Prices for most commodities dropped sharply during the Depression, according to ads. At Kaune's, a pound of butter sold for 42 cents in the fall of 1929, 36 cents a year later, and only 27 cents three years later. A pound of sliced bacon slid from 49 cents to 35 cents to 15 cents. A Kuppenheimer men's suit from Moore's on the Plaza was priced at $50 at the onset of the Depression; by 1932, it was $17.90. A pair of women's silk hose slipped from $3.50 to 35 cents.

New Mexico goes Democrat

The Great Depression that began 79 years ago and today's financial crisis both resulted in voters swinging from Republican to Democrat. But there are differences. The crisis that began Sept. 15, 2008, came in the midst of a presidential campaign that ended with the election of Barack Obama this month. It took three years of Depression before voters elected Franklin Roosevelt.

By the spring of 1930, the New Mexican speculated that the economic downturn would upset the Republican dominance of the state. The GOP managed to hang on in March's municipal races, although by substantially reduced margins. But bonds proposed to finance a new civic center were "snowed under." When city revenues slumped in August, Mayor J.C. McConvery pledged to cut the city budget by reducing the library and welfare funds, abolishing milk testing and firing two policemen and the dog catcher so as to "let the burros roam unchecked."

As November approached, New Mexico Democrats aimed to put the fault for the Depression squarely in the lap of the Republicans. "Are you satisfied with conditions?" asked a Democratic political ad that reported taxes were up 40 percent while state expenditures were up 60 percent. "Your business conditions are depressed," it said. "Your prices for products have gone down."

The Democrats swept New Mexico and most other states in the 1930 election. Even Republican-dominated Rio Arriba County turned Democrat. Dennis Chavez, who would become the most influential Hispanic politician in the country, easily won New Mexico's single congressional seat. For governor, voters turned to Arthur Seligman, the only Jew ever to serve in that position. Democrat Sam Bratton was re-elected to the U.S. Senate by an overwhelming margin. "Even Mrs. E.A. Perault for secretary of state on the Republican ticket, who was believed to be a good bet to win, appears to have been swept out of office in the semi-landslide," the New Mexican reported.

The landslide left Bronson Cutting, the owner of the New Mexican, elected to the U.S. Senate in 1928, as the state's most powerful Republican. By 1932, he broke with his party to support Democrat Roosevelt for president, leading to New Mexico becoming one of the primary beneficiaries of federal programs aimed at lifting the country out of the Depression.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.