Benjamin Roth's chilling chronicle of hard times.

The Chicago Tribune announces that 100 theaters in Chicago and vicinity will close up. This is because of the tremendous overbuilding of theaters during the last 5 years of the boom. Each producer built his own chain of theaters and bought the real estate at fancy prices. Now they are going broke. In Youngstown movie admissions have dropped from 60 cents to 35 cents.

[Subsequent annotation dated July 10, 1970: Admission charges to a good movie theater are $2.50.]

Aug. 9, 1931. Professional men have been hard hit by the depression. This is particularly true of doctors and dentists. Their overhead is high and collections are impossible. One doctor smoothed a dollar bill out on his desk the other day and said that this was all the money he had taken in for a week. Lawyers are almost as badly off and most of them are not taking in enough to pay. We have been helped a little by foreclosure work which followed in the wake of the depression but most of it does not pay because the assets are worthless. Most professional men for past two years have been living on money borrowed on insurance policies etc. The only work that comes in now are impossible collections on a contingent fee basis. Everybody is digging up old claims and trying to realize on them. Tempers are short and people are distrustful and suspicious. There is nothing to do but work hard for less money and to cut expenses to the bone.

Some samples of Benjamin's diary pages: