The 1950 Censu$ and the Panic of '52

Recently made public, t

Sylvia's high-school yearbook photo, 1950

he 1950 U.S. census tells us more about the Plath household than I thought, slightly altering the overall picture.

Head of household Aurelia Plath, "associate professor" (although her title was assistant professor) stated she worked 25 hours a week, 36 weeks a year, for an annual income of $3,200.

Sylvia and Warren Plath, teenagers, were counted as students. Their live-in "Grampy," Frank Schober, Sr., 69, worked 48 hours a week at the Brookline Country Club, earning $3000 a year.

Those were modest salaries, but in 2023 terms, the five-member Plath household in 1950 earned a tidy $75,000. Yet the two breadwinners seem to have kept their money separate, or nearly. When Grampy retired around November 1952, Aurelia went into crisis mode and took on weekend jobs tutoring and babysitting (Sylvia to Aurelia, Nov. 5 and 11, 1952). Sylvia wrote Warren in May 1953 that financially their mother "was really down to rock bottom" and despite poor health intended to teach summer school. Sylvia wanted to write anything at all that might help her pay her own way and felt increasingly depressed that summer when she produced nothing.

In the 1950 census "Grammy," Aurelia's mother and Frank's wife, is not listed although she lived until 1956. In a much later letter (Jan. 16, 1960) Sylvia mentions Aurelia and Aurelia's sister, Aunt Dot, having clashed over "Grampy's money," suggesting that Grampy and his wife had saved some or all of his earnings for retirement: enough for their daughters to fight over.