My Look Back: 1930

Mother photographing her son in the snow in Switzerland, 1930
Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt from LIFE Photo Archive

Now I know I'm talking about the Great Depression here with 1930 and all, but I don't want to focus on the negative and instead I'd like to take a look back at positive things that happened in 1930, because amongst tragedy, you can usually find some beauty.

• In Los Angeles the Blakely Bros. (an interior decorating and painting contractor) took discarded toys and furniture items, restored them and then distributed them to needy families for Christmas. 
• The first heat sealed tea bag (resembling more of a pouch) was invented by William Hermanson of the Technical Papers Corporation of Boston, he sold the patent to the Salada Tea Company in 1930. 
• The planet Pluto was discovered. 
• Cellophane or "sticky tape" was invented by Dick Drew, a 3M researcher.
• Did you know you could buy a parade?  Well apparently you can. In the early 1930's D. Earl Comb bought a Christmas parade, including all of the props, animals and costumes for a hefty $1,800 dollars.  He then exhibited the parade throughout the Midwest and Southeast of the United States.  
• The first analog computer, called a differential analyzer, was invented by Harold Locke Hazen and Vannevar Bush at MIT.
• By a very fortunate accident, Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie. She was the proprietor of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts (where Toll House Cookies come from).  And guess what? She sold her recipe to Nestlé for a lifetime supply of chocolate (well, in exchange for Nestlé printing her recipe on their semi-sweet chocolate bars, she received a lifetime of chocolate).  Pretty sweet deal I must say, pun intended. And she worked as a dietician at one point.
• Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel Babbitt (1922). He was the first American to win this prize.  
• The first jet engine patent was submitted for approval by Air Commodore, Sir Frank Whittle. 
• The first ever World Cup was held in Uruguay in July of 1930 and Uruguay won.

So thank you Mrs. Wakefield for giving us the Toll House Cookie, a sweet treat that has withstood the test of time and two great depressions.