“Oh, well—in spite of it all—here’s a Merry Christmas” A depression-era Christmas card created by the Pintero family in 1933, now in the collection at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

1933 was a difficult year. Stuck in the Great Depression, the New Deal programs launched when FDR took office that spring had not yet kicked in. Times were hard for many across the country, including for the Pineros.

The family fashioned a simple holiday greeting card from a brown paper bag, wrote a poem and added drawings of Mom, Dad and the kids worrying over unpaid bills. They mailed it from Chicago to friends in Attleboro, Massachusetts on December 19, 1933 using a one-and-a-half-cent stamp. 

The card is now in the collection at the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

To learn more about the New Deal, and to find a map of New Deal sites near you, visit livingnewdeal.org