November 3, 1936

Asimov, age 16, had reason to be interested in politics. Although he was an atheist, he came of Jewish stock and could not help but read about what was happening in Germany with abhorrence.

He writes in his autobiography (pg 167)
The last notable event that took place during our sojourn on Decatur Street (before his family moved to Windsor Place) was the 1936 Presidential election on November 3. I had spent a miserable few months following the Literary Digest poll, which predicted a Republican landslide. It seemed to show that the Republican cadidate, Alfred M. Landom, would carry every state outside the Solid South and the border states. There seemed no reason to disbelieve this, since The Literary Digest had polled an immense number of people whom it had drawn out of telephione directories and automobile registration lists.

On November 3, I took a nap in the afternoon because it was my intention to stay up and listen as long as Roosevelt had any chance at all of being re-elected. It is an indication of how old I was getting that my mother was willing to let me do this.

Od course, as it turned out (and I couldn't believe my ears), Roosevelt won everywhere. Landon carried only Maine and Vermont, and I stayed up all night just glorying in the gathering figures. Naturally I had made up an elaborate state-by-state checkerboard of my own. I recorded the electoral votes and then went on to record the figures and award the states this way or that once I considered a plurality to be insurmountable. I remember hesitating over New Hampshire.

Then, after we arrived at Windsor Place, the first world event of note was the capture and imprisonment of Chang Kai-Shek of China by the Young Marshall, Chang Hsueh-liang, a competing warlord, on December 12, 1936. This started a train of events that led to a renewed war between China and Japan in 1937. (Japan had begun its invasion of Cinia in 1931, while GReat Britain and the United States confined themselves to speaking loudly and doing nothing.)


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1936

Seth Low had been in existence for ten years, but it closed after Asimov's first year there. "Columbia University simply put an end to it. Why I don't know, but I'm not paranoid enough to think it was on account of me."

In his second year he, and the boys who attended Seth Low, were moved to the main campus at Morningside Heights in Manhattan.

In June 1936, Asimov, 16 years old, was given a summer job (requested by his father of one of his candy store customers) to work as unskilled labor, "pulling out lengths of rubberized fabric from a huge roll suspended on hooks at one end of a long, measured-off table, cut fixed lengths of it, pile one length on top of another, put down a length of slicked paper every ten lengths, then fold them up ten lengths at a time."

It was very dull work, but earned Asimov $15 a week ("a full fifteen dollars, for there were no payroll deductions in those days - no wittholing tax, no social security.")

He also had to continue to work, for no pay but of course room and board, at the candy store.

He had the job for ten weeks, which earned him enough tuition for his next year (sophomore) of college.



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