A brief history of the economic impact of the squirrel during the Great Depression

[jack_babalon]

Most folks don't talk about it much now, but in the early years of the Great Depression, the once proud citizens of a thriving nation found themselves having to resort to surviving off of a squirrel based economy. Keep in mind that these were dire times for the 'Greatest Generation'. Work was scarce. Money rare. Farms devastated by a radical drop in crop prices were quickly terraformed into rudimentary baseball stadiums. Banks were reduced to renting out their vaults (long empty of any currency)as Hobo Hotels. The office catacombs of Wall Street became a No Mans Land, a killing field where tribes of stockbroker suicide cults battled street gangs for supremacy. It was under these conditions that America found itself turning to the Squirrel.

An underground squirrel market quickly sprang up in early 1930, at first primarily in the rural south, then quickly spreading northward where it flourished in decimated urban zones before rippling out westward across the dust bowl and settling in the Pacific states. Squirrel meat fed the rumbling bellies of men too tired to stand in soup lines. Squirrel hides were made into blankets, coats, socks, ear muffs and dresses. Stuffed squirrels were turned into lamps, ashtrays, bookends and, when properly filled with lead, made into rudimentary clubs. There are even reports of squirrels given tiny gloves and made to box each other or dressed in minature football uniforms to compete for crowds too poor to pay for actual sporting events. The squirrel market took off. A single live squirrel could buy a man a loaf of bread, a quart of milk, a side of bacon and a few candy bars to boot. Ten live squirrels could pay your rent for a month or even put you up for the night in a swank hotel (by which I don't mean some empty bank vault either!). Squirrel Wrangling became the fastest growing industry followed by squirrel hunting and squirrel boxing manager.

Finally in April 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102 prohibiting citizens of the U.S. from owning other-than-token amounts of gold and from using gold as money. Citizens were forced to sell all gold holdings (apart from jewelry) to the federal government at a price of $20.67 per ounce. But a little known provision in EO 6102 was the additional prohibition of using a squirrel as any form of currency. Posession of a live squirrel was a federal offense and was punishable by fines, imprisonment or forced labor in the Work Progress Administration.

Still remnants of this era can be found in old magazine ads, the occasional squirrel lamp found in an antique store or even that dusty old squirrel hide coat tucked away in grandma's attic.

Comments

[redsalt.livejournal.com]

But how much would the "man-eating black squirrel of Calcutta, Georgia" get ya?

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

The Man-Eating Black Squirrel of Calcutta, Georgia wasn't introduced here in the states until the early 1970's. This was done in the hope that the Felidae-Sciuridae, once introduced to southeastern ecosystem would live off the kudzu. Instead it developed an unsatiable thirst for human beings.

Though I would speculate the The MESoCG would have fetched about ten dollars apiece if alive and four dollars for just the hide (a substantial sum at the time). I would love to see someone make a lamp out of one though.

[re-animating.livejournal.com]

Yeek! Ok, as sad as that story is, I can't help but have a good laugh over that squirrel lamp ad. I don't even want to think about where the electrical cord might come out on that thing!

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Laugh if you will but the squirrel lamp is going to make a come back, especially when combined with Clapper Technology ("Clap on - Clap off"). Even now i'm thinking of liquidating my 401K and investing in Squirrel Commodities.