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The stigma of charity

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
Staff member
SUPER Site Supporter
Once upon a time it was considered wrong to have to accept charity.

Can we bring that back? People need to stop expecting charity and hand outs and start working to avoiding them.

http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=134&category=life

Detroit's killer heat wave of 1936

[FONT=ARIAL,HELVETICA]By George Cantor / The Detroit News

</B>[FONT=ARIAL,HELVETICA] When Detroiters began to die on the first day, the list was easily contained on the front page of the paper. Dora Brady, 89, in her home on Sanford. Nathan Derby, 97, in his home on West Philadelphia. A worker at Dodge Main, collapsing on the line. A man working in a laundry, another in a restaurant downtown. A night watchman found dead when the office was opened. An elderly man found in a field at Telegraph and Ann Arbor Trail. Another beneath the street sign at Burlingame and 14th.
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Edison Fountain in Grand Circus Park was a popular cooling off spot for city youngsters.


There were 10 in all on the first day. No one could have known that it was only the beginning of one of the greatest and deadliest disasters in the history of Detroit.
Sixty years ago, the most terrible heat wave ever recorded fell upon the city. At its end, one week later, hundreds were dead and the daily lists started on the front page and filled an entire column inside the paper.
Healthy men and women would start off for work in the morning and never come home, falling in the streets or at work when they were overcome by the sun and heat. Weeping relatives besieged Receiving Hospital and the morgue, where the dead were lined up in corridors since no space remained on the slabs. Doctors and nurses collapsed at their stations, overcome by heat and fatigue. "It's as if Detroit has been attacked by a plague out of the Middle Ages," one observer wrote.
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And yet this disaster of 1936 is almost forgotten. Ask Detroiters who lived through it and they probably could not recall the dates or even the year. Those too young to have firsthand recollection very likely have never heard of the July when the summer turned killer. There was no great destruction of property, no visible aftermath, as is the case with most disasters with a death toll that high. Heat depends upon a cumulative impact to make an impression, not one quick and terrible strike that is seared into the memory. After it has passed, it blends in with all the other hot spells of a lifetime.
This one was different, though, not only in the number it killed but in the very intensity of the heat. Records for high temperatures set during that summer still stand in 15 states, including Michigan. In Kansas and North Dakota, it reached 121 degrees, marks surpassed in this country only in the deserts of the Southwest. In Mio, Mich., the mercury leveled out at 112. In Duluth, Minn., which had never topped 100 degrees before, stifling, incredulous residents camped out on the Lake Superior shore. Detroit had counted only seven days of 100-degree readings in the 63 previous years since the U.S. weather station started official readings here. That mark would be equalled in the space of seven days.
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It was a Detroit tradition to camp out on Belle Isle when oppressive heat moved in. But on the weekend July 10-12, 1936, the island looked like a massive gypsy camp, with hundreds of thousands of families sleeping out in the open. Police reported traffic was backed up from the bridge along East Grand Boulevard all the way to Kercheval.

In many regards, it was the last terrible blast of the climatic conditions that created the Dust Bowl of the Depression. The '30s are generally remembered as a time of heat and drought in the Midwest, as if the weather itself had malignantly altered along with the economy.
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A mounted policeman refreshes his horse with a bucket of water in Detroit. On Wednesday, July 8, 1936, the temperature registered 104.4 degrees. It would stay in the 100s for seven consecutive days.

In the summer of 1936, as Franklin D. Roosevelt prepared to run for his second term against Gov. Alf Landon of Kansas, there were indicators that the Depression was nearing its end. The July Fourth holiday was described by the New York Times as "the most freespending since the Crash." Long-vacant hotel rooms filled up in resorts throughout the country. The Ambassador Bridge reported record crowds going into Canada. Finally, it was a holiday of the heart as well as the calendar.
The Fourth fell on a Saturday and it was perfect weather across most of the country, warm and clear. That in itself was unusual because 1936 had already made its mark as a year of violent, unpredictable weather.
February brought record snow levels. After the snow came the cold. In North Dakota, the temperature never rose above zero for 18 consecutive days. The month's mean temperature was 11 below. In St. Louis, it was only 12. The Arkansas River froze at Little Rock for the first time in memory.
When the thaw came, it was alarmingly quick. A mild March sent snow-swollen rivers raging out of control. Every tributary of the Ohio overflowed and by month's end there were 171 dead and 430,000 homeless.
Then came the tornadoes. On a muggy April 5, a band of twisters careened through Tupelo, Miss., rural Alabama and Gainesville, Ga., killing 419. No tornado system since has taken such a death toll.
Unwelcome winds were also blowing farther west. The soil began to move on the Plains for the fourth consecutive year, destroying farms, blotting out the midday sun, ending a way of life for an entire section of the country. In the spring of 1936, from Oklahoma to the Dakotas, many Dust Bowl farmers who had tried to hold on decided they could stand no more and left the land for good. There are dozens of counties in these states that have never regained the population level of the 1930 Census.
A certain anxiety accompanied all this, as if the turbulence of the weather mocked the hopes for better times. Yes, the politicians quoted statistics and things seemed better. But could anyone be sure? The Depression had shattered so many certainties. Was everything really back in place or was something else about to happen? This strange uneasiness pervaded America, and much of it focused on the weather.
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The fountains a Belle Isle got a workout in the summer of '36. Home air-conditioning was still a pleasure of the very rich. Only a few department stores and movie theaters were air-conditioned.

Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace spoke of establishing a fireline at the 98th meridian to protect farmland to the east. Another New Dealer, Rex Tugwell, predicted that if deterioration continued, "St. Louis will become the capital of a new American desert." Sermons and editorials drew parallels between America and the vanished civilizations of the ancient Middle East. One analyst wrote that the greatest task facing Americans was to "make this a permanent land."
Finally, in July, came the heat, rolling up slowly from the Southwest, as if the door to the Mojave furnace had swung open. A massive high pressure system off the Pacific coast pumped the hot air into the nation's midsection. On July Fourth, as crowds frolicked on the beaches in Chicago and New York, it was already 98 degrees in North Dakota. Two days later, it would reach 121 in the town of Steele. The temperature swing of 182 degrees, from the Feb. 15 mark of 60 below, would be unprecedented in U.S. Weather Bureau annals.
"I was driving home that morning and there was some work going on along the road," retired farmer Ed Williams recalled years later. "You had to take a detour to the south. I got to the top of the first rise and the wind just stopped me. It felt like a blast from a furnace. I thought I'd felt hot weather before, but this was just awful hot, awful hot."
On Wednesday, July 8, the heat reached Detroit. By 4:50 p.m., the mercury registered 104.4 degrees. And the dying began. The health department published some tips: Add a pinch of salt to each glass of cold water. Avoid over-exertion in direct sunlight. Eat lightly and avoid fats. Don't swim after excessive perspiration.
The old-timers wore a cabbage leaf under their hats, but some golfers, more modern in outlook, used a cold towel under theirs.
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For those without refrigerators, keeping the ice box well supplied was vital to keep food from spoiling.

Beyond that, what else could you do? Air-conditioning was still a pleasure of the very rich. Hudson's had become one of the first department stores in America to install such a system and Crowley's followed a few years later. But even their crowds were down, because few people wanted to brave the heat to get there. Many movie theaters were air-conditioned and ran ads that showed shavings of ice clinging to a sign that said, "It's cool inside." Some stayed open all night and people slept inside. The sleeping cars on many railroads also featured air. But home units were almost unknown.
"The rest of us," intoned The News editorially, "like Joe Louis from the fourth round on must stay in there and take it." Many homeowners went down to their basements, spending the days in the cooler confines there.
On Thursday, July 9, it was 102. A man was caught stealing an electric fan from Kinsel's downtown and demanded that it accompany him to his jail cell. The judge declined.
On McNichols and Livernois, the pavement buckled and formed a concrete mound, four feet high, stopping traffic in all directions. The wrestling show was canceled at the Naval Armory and 22 were dead in the city.
Friday was the first time in history that three consecutive 100 degree days had been recorded in Detroit. It reached 101. As the weekend began, crowds began to throng to Belle Isle. It was a Detroit tradition to camp out on the island when oppressive heat moved in. But never in such numbers. Police reported that there was not a parking space to be found on the island and traffic was backed up from the bridge along East Grand Boulevard all the way to Kercheval. The island looked like a massive gypsy camp, with hundreds of thousands of families sleeping out in the open, wherever there was an open piece of grass. The scene was duplicated in neighborhoods across the city as people took bedrolls out on their lawns to spend the night.
By now, the heat wave had reached the East. In New York, the Olympic trials were being held and athletes were rushed to nearby hospitals after collapsing. All the bridges over the East and Harlem rivers stuck in the open position when the metal joints expanded, trapping thousands of motorists on Manhattan. Heat records fell in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, in West Virginia, Wisconsin and Indiana.
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Pets' lives also were endangered by the heat, but this one had the problem licked.

In Detroit, the death toll took a sudden jump as news came in from Eloise Hospital that 63 previously unreported victims had died during the weekend. Hospitals were not air-conditioned and heat-stroke victims brought in often found no relief. Heroic efforts were made to treat them as all rooms filled up. Doctors and nurses, working 18 hours without a break, administered treatment on cots or on benches in the waiting rooms. Hysterical relatives crowded the lobby, trying to find news of missing loved ones. Newborn infants died in the delivery room. Old people succumbed to heat-induced heart attacks. In a house on Magnolia, a mother and daughter died within 12 hours of each other. The morgue reported 90 deaths in the previous 24 hours.
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A girl leaves the Penny Ice Fund site at Canfield and 12th Street with several blocks of ice and her baby sister in tow.

Still, the heat held on. It was 101 both Saturday and Sunday and 100 on Monday. Rain was expected anytime, moving in from the west. "The city looked like a deserted village," reported the Detroit Times. Nothing moved on the downtown streets as offices closed down. A schedule of sandlot baseball games went on but played to empty stands.
Suddenly, on the seventh day, it ended in Detroit. The temperature reached 104 at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday, July 14, then started to slide. A massive thunderstorm swept across the city. Crowds on Belle Isle were drenched by the sudden deluge as they ran for buses and cars. By midnight it was below 70 for the first time in a week, and at 5:30 a.m. it bottomed out at 61. It was over.
There were 364 dead in Detroit, 570 dead in Michigan. Only Ohio had a higher death toll. Medical experts said the deaths were so numerous because the early summer had been mild and people hadn't had a chance to be gradually acclimated to the heat. Tourist officials used the death toll as an odd verification of Michigan's status as a summer resort. "People can't cope with heat because they're not used to it here."
Elsewhere, the heat lingered until August. The Dakotas finally found their rainmaker, in the person of FDR. While Republicans grumbled about "Roosevelt luck," the long-awaited presidential trip brought with it rain and cool to the parched heartland. The final national toll was 5,000 deaths.
The weather mechanics that produced the intense heat and drought of the '30s are still a puzzle to climatologists. There have been other such cycles since then, but never one so widespread or so intense. Or so deadly.
We are a far less vulnerable land now. This disaster led directly to the conservation and economic measures that have cushioned the impact of severe heat and drought. Air-conditioning has changed the suffering equation. When the South baked for weeks in 100-degree heat in 1980, the death toll was half of the 1936 figure. Soon the memory receded and blended in with other heat waves. Just as the memories and fears raised by the Depression receded to the back of the minds of those who went through it.
"It wasn't the best of everything," said Sam Phillips, a retired Detroit roofing contractor. "You ask about that record heat. Most people just wanted to get rid of it. We really didn't care about records. Those are good days to forget and I mean that."
This story appeared in The Detroit News on July 6, 1986.
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People were charged one penny for up to 50 pounds of ice so that they were purchasing the ice rather than receiving charity.

The Detroit News-Salvation Army Penny Ice Fund

By Becky Baulch / The Detroit News

After a series of dangerously hot summers, The Detroit News-Salvation Army Penny Fund was launched on May 15, 1938, to distribute ice to city residents.
The fund was created and administered by The News, and with it ice was purchased and distributed through the agencies of the Salvation Army at a price of one penny for blocks running up to 50 pounds. The penny charged for the ice was not an effort to add to the fund but to remove the stigma of charity and to allow the purchaser the feeling that he was a buyer rather than the recipient of a gift.
Babies were the chief sufferers in the summer from the lack of ice. Spoiled food was responsible for many deaths and illnessses. The elderly and sick suffered greatly from the lack of cool drinks and chilled foods. Health statistics in cities where penny ice funds had been established showed immediate beneficial results.
In 1940, The Commissioner of the Detroit Department of Health, Dr. Henry F. Vaughan, wrote a letter of thanks note to The News, saying, "We know that the great saving in infant lives made in Detroit during the last twenty years has in a large measure been due to the protection of children's food. Pasteurized milk and adequate refrigeration have prevented infant deaths. It is more than helpful when twenty-five pounds of ice may be obtained for one cent by those who would not be able to have this protection for food without your program."
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The commissioner of Detroit's Department of Health wrote this letter of thanks to The Detroit News for the Penny Ice Fund, citing its contribution in preventing infant deaths.

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