In 1938, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" topped the charts, The Adventures of Robin Hood packed theaters, a stamp cost 3¢, the average home went for about $3,200.
🎵 Top songs of 1938
"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" — Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb & His Orchestra
"Begin the Beguine" — Artie Shaw & His Orchestra
"Thanks for the Memory" — Bob Hope & Shirley Ross
🎬 In theaters
The Adventures of Robin Hood
You Can't Take It with You
Boys Town
What things cost in 1938
$0.20
Gallon of gas
3¢
Postage stamp
$0.25
Movie ticket
$0.50
Gallon of milk
$3,200
Average home
$720
New car
$1,230
Household income
A $0.20 gallon of gas in 1938 carries the buying power of roughly $4.75 today, while the quarter movie ticket converts to nearly $6.00. Milk at 50 cents a gallon equals close to $12 in modern dollars.
The biggest moments of 1938
Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast on Halloween eve famously startled listeners across the country.
Seabiscuit beat War Admiral in the match race of the century at Pimlico.
Howard Hughes flew around the world in a record three days and nineteen hours.
Douglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan took off from New York for California and landed in Ireland, cheerfully insisting his compass was to blame; America adored him.
Joe Louis avenged his only defeat by knocking out Max Schmeling in just 124 seconds at Yankee Stadium.
The new Fair Labor Standards Act established the federal minimum wage of 25 cents an hour and set the stage for the 40-hour work week.
Toys, TV & trends of 1938
Superman debuted in Action Comics #1, and kids traded the brand-new superhero comic on every block.
The swing craze was in full roar as teenagers jitterbugged to Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.
The quiz show Information Please debuted, and kids mailed in cereal box tops for radio premium prizes.
At the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, Ruth Wakefield's chopped-chocolate experiment gave the world the chocolate chip cookie.
Kate Smith sang a song Irving Berlin had kept in his trunk for 20 years, 'God Bless America,' on her Armistice Day broadcast, and it became a second national anthem.
A DuPont chemist accidentally discovered a slippery white substance called Teflon while experimenting with refrigerant gases.
The music scene
On January 16, 1938, swing formally conquered high culture: Benny Goodman's band played Carnegie Hall, the temple of classical music, and when Gene Krupa's drums ignited 'Sing, Sing, Sing,' the sold-out crowd roared like a football stadium. Ella Fitzgerald, just 21, co-wrote her nursery-rhyme hit herself while recovering from an illness, turning a children's game into the number-one record in America. And a trombonist named Glenn Miller, whose first band had flopped, quietly reorganized a new orchestra in 1938 around a clarinet-led reed sound that was about to change everything.
At the movies
Frank Capra collected his third Best Director Oscar in just five years, an unmatched hot streak. The year also brought the famous 'box office poison' trade ad, in which theater owners publicly griped that stars like Katharine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich no longer sold tickets; Hepburn answered by leaving for Broadway, where a little play called The Philadelphia Story would soon launch one of history's great comebacks. Bette Davis, meanwhile, reigned in Jezebel as a Southern belle in a scandalous red gown, a role that would bring her a second Oscar.
Cartoons kids loved
Disney's Ferdinand the Bull won the Oscar for best cartoon
An early prototype of Bugs Bunny hopped into Porky's Hare Hunt
Donald Duck's temper made him nearly as popular as Mickey Mouse
Snow White's general release in 1938 made it the top-grossing film in history to that point, and Walt Disney poured the profits straight into building a gleaming new studio in Burbank. The following February, Shirley Temple presented him with the most charming Oscar ever made: one full-size statuette accompanied by seven miniature ones, stair-stepped down the base. Animation was no longer a curtain-raiser; it was now a business that could bankroll an empire.
The world in 1938
World population: about 2.2 billion
U.S. President: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast became the most famous radio program of all time.
At Munich, Britain's Neville Chamberlain returned from meeting Hitler promising 'peace for our time,' words history would soon undo.
Scientists in Berlin split the uranium atom in December, discovering nuclear fission on the eve of the war that would harness it.
A South African museum curator identified a coelacanth in a fishing catch, a 'living fossil' fish thought extinct for 65 million years.
1938 birthday questions
How old is someone born in 1938?
Someone born in 1938 turns 88 in 2026 (87 if their birthday has not come round yet).
What was the number one song in 1938?
"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" by Ella Fitzgerald with Chick Webb & His Orchestra was among the biggest hits of 1938.
What movie came out in 1938?
The Adventures of Robin Hood was one of the films packing theaters in 1938.
How much did gas cost in 1938?
A gallon of gas ran about $0.20 in 1938, and a postage stamp cost 3¢.
How much did a house cost in 1938?
The average home went for roughly $3,200 in 1938, against a typical household income of about $1,230.