The early thirties marked the beginning of a challenging era. The Great Depression began to take its toll, and by 1932 approximately one in three Americans were unemployed. At the beginning of the decade, there were more than 200 students attending Miss Hewitt's Classes, and nearly a quarter belonged to a coeducational kindergarten and first grade. Miss Hewitt likely sought to enlarge these primary classes to keep up with mortgage payments and other expenses. Despite the robust younger grades, the size of the upper school and graduating classes of the early thirties were strikingly small. The graduating class of 1930 consisted of merely four students. With the crash, many students either dropped out of higher classes, either opting for marriage or deciding that it was no longer economically practical to finance a woman’s education. Due to small upper-class sizes, the administration urged all students to follow their request for full-time attendance during the school year. There were fewer exceptions were made for absent students. Miss Hewitt's 1932 letter "To the Patrons" leaves no ambiguity about school rules:

 

May I again repeat the rule of the school that students are not permitted to attend moving pictures or theatres during the week. Finally, we are doing our best to prevent the girls from using make-up. Unless you help us we cannot be completely successful. May I beg that you give me your wholehearted assistance in controlling this… Please remember that I am at home with the Staff on Thursday afternoon after four o'clock, and shall be very happy to see you whenever you can come in. ​ 

 

In addition to more balanced economic requirements, the school implemented more after school activities. Athletics were a central program in the updated curriculum. There are accounts of basketball competitions against schools such as Dalton and Nightingale. Fencing became an increasingly popular weekly activity. The "physical culture" program oversaw recess, which took place outside of the school, inside a low cement wall that fenced off the public sidewalk. There younger students played hopscotch and jump rope. In 1932, Miss Hewitt announced a new requirement for "two activities a week, one indoor and one outdoor." She wanted her girls to be "profitably employed in the school every afternoon." Former student Elizabeth Lee Cutler-Bissell remembered being invited to Miss Hewitt's sitting room for readings: "We would be periodically summoned in groups to hear Miss Hew read Shakespeare or Keats, and to this day I can still hear her voice bringing Macbeth or Hamlet to life as no Broadway actor has ever done (at least to me)." Despite the severe economic downturn during the Great Depression, the thirties proved to be a profitable decade for Miss Hewitt and her classes.

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