Anne Howe attended the University when the Quad was a vast field of grass lined with dirt paths. The few cars on campus traveled down unpaved roads. Incoming male freshmen were required to shave their heads. And a scholarship then could only purchase a movie ticket today.”I remember how cheap tuition was then,” Howe said. “It was $32 a semester, and I had a $10 scholarship.”Howe — who attended the University during the Great Depression — said Americans today live in paradise compared to those in the Dust Bowl days when society was dirt poor and poverty was rampant.Some consider the current recession the worst economic downturn since the Great          Depression, and as unemployment rates continue to soar, some question whether the economy is entering a second Great Depression.Robert Outland, history professor, said despite how scary the economy is now, it was much worse in the ’30s.”There’s so much uncertainty now, and it seems to be getting worse,” Outland said. “But the economy was just savaged during the Great Depression.”Historians often mark Oct. 29, 1929 — or Black Tuesday — as the beginning of the Depression. But the economy had gradually declined beforehand, Outland said.The Great Depression reached its depth in 1933 and continued to affect American’s lives well through the late 1930s and into the early 1940s.Today, more than 4.4 million Americans have lost their jobs since the recession began in December 2007, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In February alone, 651,000 people lost their jobs, and the national unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent — the highest since 1983.But while Americans today are facing tough times, the U.S. saw a 25 percent unemployment rate at the climax of the Great Depression.”I don’t think people now could imagine what it would be like to have 25 percent unemployment,” Outland said. “And people who were employed were working for drastically low wages. It was just terrible.”Very few people prospered during the ’30s, he said. Few houses were built, and few automobiles were bought. The ravaged economy forced Americans to go back to the basics.CAMPUS LIFEHowe, a 1941 English alumna, said her father lost his job during the Great Depression, forcing her mother to find work to support their family. Howe’s mother found an on-campus job, and a year later, her father landed a job working at the LSU Agricultural Center.Howe is the 88-year-old granddaughter of Thomas Boyd, who served as the University president until 1927. Howe and her family lived with Boyd in a large house near the LSU Lakes during the ’30s. Howe’s father drove Howe and her mother to campus every day in their family car.Today, she spends the occasional afternoon riding around campus with her daughter, noting how campus has progressed since her days spent at the University. Howe said the number of cars on campus is the biggest change from the 1930s.”Very few cars were on the campus,” Howe said. “We walked, and we got a lot of exercise. I never did get fat.”Smiley Raborn, a 1939 engineering alumnus, said campus was mainly pedestrian-friendly in the ’30s. Today, thousands of students park their cars on campus, but Raborn knew only five students who owned cars in his four years at the University.In the 1930s, the University’s enrollment hovered near 5,000 compared to nearly 30,000 students and 5,000 faculty and staff today.”[College] was not as common as it is now,” Outland said. “Most people didn’t go to college before the second world war. Plenty of people went to college, but it wasn’t the typical thing to do.”Today, many students spend their weekends at the bars in Tigerland, but Howe said students in the 1930s spent most of their spare time dancing.”We had wonderful fraternity and sorority dances,” she said. “We had some great dances in the Old Gym. I loved to dance. I can’t anymore since I’m 88 years old, but I miss it.”Howe spent her leisure time between classes in the Huey P. Long Field House playing bridge and drinking coffee with other students. The Field House was the original Student Union — complete with a ballroom, soda fountain, post office, beauty parlor, barbershop and a swimming pool that was the largest in the country at the time.”And I remember I used to sit on the Indian Mounds and watch people walk by,” she said. “I just had a wonderful time.”UNIVERSITY GROWTHAs the economy crumbled, the University saw a time of growth and expansion, building new facilities and increasing enrollment.Many historic campus buildings were built during the ’30s including Himes Hall, Nicholson Hall, Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex, Grace King Hall, Annie Boyd Hall, Evangeline Hall, Highland Hall, Louise Garig Hall, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, the Faculty Club, Student Health Center and the Music and Dramatic Arts Building, according to Emmett David, Facility Services director.”They were built with federal money,” Outland said. “And the Quad area was built with New Deal money.”As campus grew and buildings popped up, the legendary landscape architect Steele Burden planted most of the campus’ signature oak trees during the 1930s, according to the 1937 edition of the Gumbo yearbook.In the late ’30s, the Great Depression forced a zoo in Little Rock to close from bankruptcy. The zoo sold off its animals, including a $2,000 royal Bengal tiger cub who would soon become Mike I.Athletic trainer Mike Chambers collected 25 cents from each student to bring Mike the Tiger to campus, according to Mike the Tiger’s Web site.On the dawn of Nov. 21, 1936, students organized a strike against classes to catch the first glimpse of Mike and greet him with the University’s hospitality.He arrived by train, and the cub was mobbed by students and carried to Tiger Stadium as the band blared Tiger Rag, according to the 1937 Gumbo.The University president declared it “Tiger Day” and gave students the afternoon off. They expressed their appreciation and danced around bonfires late into the night.The state Legislature approved a $4,000 grant in the late ’30s to build a house for Mike that was on the same spot as today, only much smaller.Tiger Stadium also lacked end zones, but that didn’t stop thousands of fans from flooding in every weekend during football season.”We’d get dressed up to go,” Howe said. “We wore stockings and heels, and we never could even wear slacks to school. There was a great deal of difference between when I was there and now.”——Contact Leslie Presnall at [email protected]