During the early 1930s, the United States and the rest of the industrialized world experienced an
Pismo Beach, California, 1 Dollar, 1933 (clamshell)
Grade Range: K-12
Resource Type(s): Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
11/4/2008
When the Depression and resulting banking crisis hit their community, the residents of the coastal town of Pismo Beach, California picked an unusual but logical medium of exchange. Perhaps with tongue in cheek, the merchants and officials of Pismo Beach decided to make the best of a bad situation, and to make the humble clam shell into an object of trade.
National Standards
United States History Standards (Grades 5-12)
Era 8: The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
2: How the New Deal addressed the Great Depression, transformed American federalism, and initiated the welfare state
3: The causes and course of World War II, the character of the war at home and abroad, and its reshaping of the U.S. role in world affairs