The 1934 Glomerata was published during some lean times. Auburn was hit hard by the Great Depression. Bradford Knapp had just left the president's mansion after five tough years. Enrollment fell, state funds plummeted.

This year began badly. The board of trustees were deadlocked on an interim president. The truly pressing problem was pay. In early 1933 the university owed $160,000, about $3.4 million in 2024 money, for supplies and expenses. Almost twice that amount had been placed in the building fund for Knapp's expansion plan, which never materialized. There were thousands due in unpaid loan interest, and the warchest was dry. The committee examining the books had to borrow money to buy stamps to do their work.

Worse still, people weren't being paid. Faculty and staff got IOU certificates for ten months. After that, they were told no one could be assured of a job after July 1, 1933.

There wasn't an actual push to register students for future terms.

By September 30, 1933, the end of the fiscal year, Auburn had paid 45 percent of budgeted salaries. The next year, the bonds were called in to pay down debts. By July 1934, after this yearbook came out, the faculty were receiving 60 percent of their budgeted salaries.

Duncan was a finance man, a statewide operator, a power player, and all of this helped figure into his ultimately getting the job. By the end of the 1930s, with Duncan (still somewhat controversial, but ultimately a powerful advocate for the university) at the helm, API had recovered from the Depression, But that's later, all of this hardscrabble stuff is now.

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