New York City Has an Orgy of Saving
The huge-spending New Yorker Jay Gatsby made his literary debut in 1925, but a 1925 New York Times Magazine article said New York City was actually experiencing a period of people saving money.
The journalist Bertram Reinitz wrote:
Between July 1 and Jan. 1, 1924, New Yorkers gave $100,000,000 more to the receiving tellers than they withdrew from the paying teller... In the last five years, the savings bank deposits in New York City have increased one billion dollars.
Keep in mind, this was four years before the Great Depression hit.
I was also curious about the word "orgy" in the headline, used non-sexually in a way it rarely is now.
Google Books Ngram Viewer data reveals that the word's usage in books peaked in the 1920s and early 1930s, with 1932 the exact peak year. Then it declined and remained at a lower level for decades and decades, rising once again in the 2000s, the same decade high-speed internet became prevalent. Not a coincidence, surely.
New York City Has an Orgy of Saving: Thrift Has Become Fashionable Here as Bank Deposits Show
Published: Sunday, May 3, 1925