Ad Says, $6,500 Per Year.  That Was A Good Salary?

It Was.

When?

Bad Timing, Just a Few Months Before the The Crash Of 1929

This ad appeared in the 1929 World Almanac

Here is the snappy, convincing text form the ad.

I used to know him when he was a kid—we went to grammar school together. Then his father died and he had to go to work, Got a job with Brooks & Co., but couldn’t seem to get ahead. Then something seemed to wake him up. We could all see that he was doing better work.

“Then Old Man Brooks became interested—wanted to know how Ned happened to know so much about the business, Ned told him he’d been studying through the International Correspondence Schools. ‘H’m,’ said Mr. Brooks, ‘I’ll remember that.’ .

“We did too. Put Ned out on the road as a salesman for a year or so and then brought him into the main office as sales manager.

“He’s getting $6500 a year now and everybody calls him ‘the new Ned Tyson.’ I’ve never seen such a change in a man in my life.”

An International Correspondence Schools course will help you just as it helped Ned Tyson. It will help you to have the happy home—the bigger salary—the comforts you’d like to have.
At least find out how before the priceless years go by and it is too late.

Mail the coupon for the free booklet.

$6,500.

In 1929 it was a grand salary.

This advertisement is similar to what online colleges do today. Just take courses through a correspondence school. The inference is that you too could be making $6,500 per year. That may not sound like a lot of money now. Adjusted for inflation by the consumer price index that’s the equivalent of $97,464 in 2019 dollars.

The problem with Ned’s job and millions like it, is the stock market crash would occur just months after this ad ran. The crash would kick off the Great Depression. Millions of jobs were wiped out.  People lost  their homes and life savings over the next decade. By 1932 a man earning $6.500 would be a rarity. Many skilled workers made their living selling apples in the street. Three for a nickel.

Maybe there were some jobs that were Depression-proof. If so you could train for them at International Correspondence Schools. A small sample of the dozens of courses offered. Which one’s provided job security through the next decade? Certainly not a salesman.