History of Women in the United States: Volume 5/2 The Intersection of Work and Family Life [Reprint 2012 ed.] 9783110969467, 9783598414763

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Historical Articles on Women's Lives and Activities

Edited by Nancy F. Cott Series ISBN 3-598-41454-4 1.

Theory and Method in Women's History ISBN 3-598-41455-2 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41477-3 Part 2

2.

Household Constitution and Family Relationships ISBN 3-598-41456-0

3.

4.

Domestic Relations and Law ISBN 3-598-41457-9 Domestic Ideology and Domestic Work ISBN 3-598-41458-7 P a r t i ISBN 3-598-41475-7 Part 2

11. Women's Bodies: Health and Childbirth ISBN 3-598-41465-X 12. Education ISBN 3-598-41466-8 13. Religion ISBN 3-598-41467-6 14. Intercultural and Interracial Relations ISBN 3-598-41468-4 15. Women and War ISBN 3-598-41469-2

5.

The Intersection of Work and Family Life ISBN 3-598-41459-5 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41476-5 Part 2

6.

Working on the Land ISBN 3-598-41460-9

17. Social and Moral Reform ISBN 3-598-41471-4 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41695-4 Part 2

7.

Industrial Wage Work ISBN 3-598-41461-7 P a r t i ISBN 3-598-41693-8 Part 2

18. Women and Politics ISBN 3-598-41472-2 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41697-0 Part 2

8.

Professional and White-Collar Employments ISBN 3-598-41462-5 Part 1 ISBN 3-598-41694-6 Part 2

19. Woman Suffrage ISBN 3-598-41473-0 P a r t i ISBN 3-598-41696-2 Part 2

9.

Prostitution ISBN 3-598-41463-3

10. Sexuality and Sexual Behavior ISBN 3-598-41464-1

16. Women Together: Organizational Life ISBN 3-598-41470-6

20. Feminist Struggles for Sex Equality ISBN 3-598-41474-9

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Historical Articles on Women's Lives and Activities

5

•

The Intersection of Work and Family Life

PART 2

Edited with an Introduction by

Nancy F. Cott Yale University

K G · Saur Munich · London · New York · Paris 1992

Publisher's Note The articles and chapters which comprise this collection originally appeared in a wide variety of publications and are reproduced here in facsimile from the highest quality offprints and photocopies available. The reader will notice some occasional marginal shading and text-curl common to photocopying from tightly bound volumes. Every attempt has been made to correct or minimize this effect Copyright information for articles reproduced in this collection appears at the end of this volume. Library of Congress Cataioging-in-Pubiication Data History of women in the United States : historical articles on women's lives and activities / edited with an introduction by Nancy F. Cott. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. Contents: 1. Theory and method in women's history — 2. Household constitution and family relationships -- 3. Domestic relations and law - 4. Domestic ideology and domestic work ~ 5. The intersection of work and family life - 6. Working on the land -- 7. Industrial wage work - 8. Professional and white-collar employments 9. Prostitution ~ 10. Sexuality and sexual behavior - 11. Women's bodies - 12. Education — 13. Religion - 14. Intercultural and interracial relations - 15. Women and war - 16. Women together ~ 17. Social and moral reform - 18. Women and politics 19. Women suffrage -- 20. Feminist struggles for sex equality. ISBN 3-598-41454-4 (set) 1. Women-United States-History. 2. Women-United States-Social conditions. I. Cott, Nancy F. HQ1410.H57 1992 305.4'0973~dc20 92-16765 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP - Einheitsaufnahme History of women in the United States: historical articles on women's lives and activities / ed. with an introd. by Nancy F. Cott. - Munich ; London ; New York ; Paris : Saur. ISBN 3-598-41454-4 NE: Cott, Nancy F. (Hrsg.) Vol. 5. The intersection of work and family life. Pt. 2. - (1992) ISBN 3-598-41476-5 © Printed on acid-free paper/Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier All Rights Strictly Reserved/Alle Rechte vorbehalten K.G.Saur Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Munich 1992 A Reed Reference Publishing Company Printed in the United States of America Printed/Bound by Edwards Brothers Incorporated, Ann Arbor ISBN 3-598-41476-5 (vol. 5/part 2) ISBN 3-598-41454-4 (series)

Contents Series Preface

ix

Introduction

xi Part 1

Economic Organization and the Position of Women among the Iroquois JUDITH K. BROWN

3

Economic Development and Native American Women in the Early Nineteenth Century MARY C. WRIGHT

20

The Lady and the Mill Girl: Changes in the Status of Women in the Age of Jackson GERDA LERNER

32

Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves ANGELA DA VIS

44

"My Mother was Much of a Woman": Black Women, Work, and the Family under Slavery JACQUELINE JONES

58

Free Black Women and the Question of Matriarchy: Petersburg, Virginia, 1784-1820 SUZANNE LEBSOCK 93 Two Worlds in One: Work and Family ELIZABETH H. PLECK

115

The Life Cycles and Household Structure of American Ethnic Groups: Irish, Germans, and Native-bom Whites in Buffalo, New York, 1855 LAURENCE A. GLASCO 133 Fertility and Marriage in a Nineteenth-Century Industrial City: Philadelphia, 1850-1880 MICHAEL R. HAINES

159

Reconceptualizing Family, Work and Labor Organizing: Working Women in Troy, 1860-1890 CAROLE TURBIN

167

Working-Class Women in the Gilded Age: Factory, Community and Family Life among Cohoes, New York, Cotton Workers DANIEL J. WALKOWITZ

183

Homesteading in Northeastern Colorado, 1873-1920: Sex Roles and Women's Experience KATHERINE HARRIS

210

The Chicana in American History: The Mexican Women of El Paso, 1880-1920—A Case Study MARIO T. GARCIA

224

Work and the Family in Black Atlanta, 1880 WILLIAM HARRIS

247

Family Time and Industrial Time: Family and Work in a Planned Corporation Town, 1900-1924 TAMARA Κ. HAREVEN

259

Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek, 1894-1904 ELIZABETH JAMESON

284

A Flexible Tradition: South Italian Immigrants Confront a New Work Experience VIRGINIA YANS-McLAUGHLIN

313

New Immigrant Women at Work: Italians and Jews in New York City, 1880-1905 THOMAS KESSNER and BETTY BOYD CAROLI

330

Beyond the Stereotype: A New Look at the Immigrant Woman, 1880-1924 MAXINE S. SELLER

343

Urbanization without Breakdown: Italian, Jewish, and Slavic Immigrant Women in Pittsburgh, 1900-1945 CORINNE AZEN KRAUSE 355

Part 2 The Historical Problem of the Family Wage: The Ford Motor Company and the Five Dollar Day MARTHA MAY

371

Rural Push and Urban Pull: Work and Family Experiences of Older Black Women in Southern Cities, 1880-1900 JANICE L. REIFF, MICHEL R. DAHLIN, and DANIEL SCOTT SMITH

397

Our Own Kind: Family and Community Networks JUDITH E.SMITH

407

The "Good Managers": Married Working Class Women and Family Budget Studies, 1895-1915 MARTHA MAY

429

The Female Life Cycle and the Measure of Jewish Social Change: Portland, Oregon, 1880-1930 WILLIAM TOLL

451

The Women's March: Miners, Family, and Community in Pittsburg, Kansas, 1921-1922 ANNSCHOFIELD

475

Cotton Mill People: Work, Community, and Protest in the Textile South, 1880-1940 JACQUELYN DOWD HALL, ROBERT KORSTAD, and JAMES LELOUDIS

497

Beyond the Family Economy: Black and White Working-Class Women during the Great Depression LOIS RITA HELMBOLD

539

The Economics of Middle-Income Family Life: Working Women during the Great Depression WINIFRED D. WANDERSEE BOLIN

566

Working after Childbearing in Modem America MARY E. COOKINGHAM

581

A Promise Fulfilled: Mexican Cannery Workers in Southern California VICKIL. RUIZ The Impact of "Sun Belt Industrialization" on Chicanas PATRICIA ZAVELLA

601 625

Copyright Information

639

Index

645

Series Preface In the space of one generation, women's history has become the fastest-growing area of scholarship in U.S. history. Since the resurgence of feminism in the late 1960s and 1970s, insistent questions about the historical meanings of "woman's place" have sowed and reaped a garden of scholarship. Where scholarly works used to be bare of mention of women, academic enterprise has now produced a vigorous growth of books and articles, bringing to light diverse women of every region, race, class and age. This research is marked by a renovating intent that refuses to accept as "human" history a history of mai. Interest is lively and debate is stimulating and sought after: attendance at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women rivals the size of the annual convention of the American Historical Association. While books in women's history are daily increasing in numbers and strength, as in any fast-developing field the scholarly literature in the form of articles is most expansive and up-to-the-minute. All the history journals now publish articles on women's work, domestic settings, family relations, household matters, female politics and organizations and so forth, and new journals have sprung into being to concentrate on such topics. Women's historians publish in numerous regional and thematic history journals as well as in feminist outlets and in journals of other social science disciplines. This series brings together a collection of outstanding articles from the field, almost all written in the past twenty years and more than half published during the 1980s. It brings together, in volumes organized by topic, essays otherwise widely dispersed. These volumes reprint only articles that originally appeared in journals, not chapters of books; review articles are not included. Articles have been chosen for overall quality and for range. Each one was chosen for one or more of the following reasons: because it is the standard authority on its subject matter; represents an important statement on a topic by a recognized scholar; presages an important book to come; provides a first look at new evidence or new methods; or opens an untapped area or new controversy. Older articles have been reprinted if their data or interpretation have not been surpassed or if they marked an important stage in the historiography, even if since superseded. The historical coverage of the series extends from the Revolutionary era to the 1960s. The articles themselves are dated from the 1940s through 1988. Volumes are organized by topic rather than time period. Within each volume, the ix

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SERIES PREFACE

anieles are ordered chronologically (with respect to substance), so that the whole can be read as an historical overview. The only exception to this ordering principle is volume 1, on Theory and Method, in which the contents are arranged in order of publication. Within each volume there is an attempt to include articles on as diverse kinds of women as possible. None of the volume topics is regionally or racially defined; rather, all volumes are topically designed so as to afford views of women's work, family lives, and public activities which cut across races and regions. Any volume in the series stands on its own, supplying as full a treatment of a designated subject mauer as the scholarly literature will provide. Several groupings of volumes also make sense; that is, volumes 2 through 5 all center around domestic and family matters; volumes 5 through 9 consider other varieties of women's work; volumes 9 through 11 concern uses and abuses of women's bodies; volumes 12 through 14 look at major aspects of socialization; and volumes 15 through 20 include organizational and political efforts of many sorts. As a whole, the series displays in all its range the vitality of the field of women's history. Aside from imbuing U.S. history with new vision, scholarship in this area has informed, and should continue to inform, current public debate on issues from parental leave to the nuclear freeze. By bringing historical articles together under topical headings, these volumes both represent accurately the shape of historical controversy (or consensus) on given issues and make historians' findings most conveniently available for current reference.

Introduction T o d a y , with the majority of adult women in the paid labor force, the issue of w o m e n ' s combination of work and family l i f e - w o r k and motherhood, in particular-is much in the news, as though it were an unprecedented phenomenon. Historians o f women have shown, however, that w o m e n ' s combination o f productive economic activity and childrearing has been more the norm than the exception in past time; only a small stratum of prosperous women, for a relatively short period of years in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, were ever able to devote themselves wholly to child care and housekeeping. What is unprecedented in our own time is the extent to which women perform their work outside of the household rather than in or around it, for a w a g e or salary rather than for barter or "in-kind" services. The articles in this volume detail how women of various ethnic and racial groups have managed the necessary combination of economic and familial tasks, in both rural and urban settings. In rural society the intersection o f w o m e n ' s w o r k with their family responsibilities was taken for granted. In the agricultural setting, both women's and men's work revolved around the household and Fields; childrearing did not separate itself out as a separate task. Examples from Native American women to black slaves in the Old South to homesteading families in late nineteenth century Colorado make that clear. O f course for slaves, circumstances were much harsher and not under their own control: whether a woman had family members with her was a matter of the master's ability to buy and sell her and her kindred. On plantations where slave families were intact, however, a w o m a n ' s work was of two sorts: for the master, and for her o w n kin. Many narratives relate slave w o m e n ' s bringing their nursing babies to the cotton fields with them, but slave children once old enough to do useful work were put to use b y the master. It was in the latter kind of w o r k - c o o k i n g , mending, quilting, nursing in the slave quaiters-that black women's interweaving of family responsibility with necessary labor was most visible, on the general model o f rural w o m e n ' s work that black women would also manifest after emancipation. Not only agricultural production but most crafts were, in the era before industrialization, organized around the household: there, in the large hall or perhaps in an adjoining shop the master craftsman, journeymen and apprentices worked, women and children nearby or participating in part. The sense of separation of " w o r k " from " h o m e " did not come about until, in fact, towns and

xi

xii

INTRODUCTION

cities were numerous enough and commercial development sufficient to create worksites separate from homes, where numerous employees worked. This reorganization of work, occurring gradually over a long period of time, and scattered in location, was transformative enough to create a very great awareness of change among those forwarding it, participants in urbanization and commercialization. One major way that individuals understood, rationalized and accepted the change was in terms of gender roles: the separation of work from home was seen as appropriate if the home was understood as woman's place, the world of work man's. This ideological construction of the differences between "work" and "home," a construction abuilding since the 1820s, arose in part from realistic observation among prosperous middle-class men and women, in whose families one male earner in business or profession sufficed to support the rest of the family. But it was a realistic observation for only a small portion of the population when it began, and for a century or more afterward. It is ironic, and more than ironic, that in the same decade when publicists first championed the home as a haven from the world of work and loudly glorified the woman at home as mankind's moral savior, large numbers of girls and young women were drawn out of their domestic occupations by American industrialists to work in textile factories. The rhetorical separation of "work" from "home" and identification of the one with men and the other with women undermined societal respect and even the self-respect of women who worked outside of the home. It also, just as invidiously, hid the work that still went on at home, the extent to which the home was still, and would continue to be, for women a workplace, even when it served as a respite from work for men. What women accomplished in the home was not only the unpaid work of domestic service, but often work that was income-producing and essential to family economic survival or advancement. If the modern conflict between mothers' wage-earning and childrearing seems to be new, that is not because mothers in the past did not contribute to family income but because they took industry into their households, or took laundry into their households, or took boarders or lodgers in, to create cash value. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, rural women not only sold their butter, cheese and eggs but also braided straw hats or baskets at home or sold surplus cloth to the local store. In cities, manufacturers of ready-made clothing found their most exploitable labor force among poor and often widowed women who "finished" piles- of shirts or pants at home, with miles of stitches, so that they could watch their children and earn money-meager as it was-at the same time. By the end of the century this manufacturing system of "given-out" work operated on a mass scale, employing thousands of immigrant women in their tenement homes, making mass-produced jewelry, trimming hats, and other similar tasks, as well as sewing. Black women

INTRODUCTION

xiii

found one alternative to domestic service in white families' homes by taking other people's washing into their own homes. During the mass immigration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many women increased their own domestic burdens but made cash by giving space to a lodger or feeding a boarder. Thus in many ways wives and mothers added to family income, stretching their strength perhaps to the breaking point, but without even appearing on the census takers' rolls as "in the labor force." Not until the 1920s and 1930s—by which time most Americans lived in urban places, and state regulation had foreclosed much "given-out" industry, and compulsory school laws kept children at school rather than earning wages for the family, and federal restriction of immigration greatly reduced the flow of transient lodgersdid wives and mothers in any large proportions enter the recorded labor force. At that point the problem of child care for working mothers, and the conflict between work and home, was perceived to be pressing, as these have ever since. The coverage in this volume, from Native American and slave women in the early nineteenth century, through pioneers and immigrants, to modern college graduates in the mid-twentieth century, gives a compelling overview of the persistent weightiness and consequence of wives' and mothers' economic roles.

WORK A N D FAMILY LIFE

371

THE HISTORICAL PROBLEM OF THE FAMILY WAGE: THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY AND THE FIVE DOLLAR DAY

MARTHA MAY For feminists, the concept of the family as a social relationship presents particularly important challenges in theoretical and historical investigation. One aspect of working-class family life that has been examined by theorists and historians in the past decade may be especially useful in analyzing the processes of reproduction and gender divisions within the family: the family wage. The ideology of the male-earned family wage, many suggest, became a powerful argument for women's domestic role and position as secondary wage earner in the labor force. At first glance, the notion of the family wage seems like little more than a nasty example of patriarchy, a simplistic argument for women's subordination. Careful examination by feminist scholars has revealed it may be something more complex. The wage operates as an inferface, or mediating agent, between production and the reproduction of labor power. The family wage focuses our attention on the relationships among women, men, and children as they struggle to secure the means to survive. By analyzing the ideology of the family wage, its actual achievement by segments of the working class, and its impact on gender roles, we can begin to demystify the hidden relationships between sex, gender, and class. Domestic labor and waged labor are something more than a mystical meeting of paycheck and use values, or of women's household labor versus male waged labor. The family wage allows us a vehicle to investigate what Elizabeth Pieck called the "two worlds in one": the relationship between production and social reproduction, and the role that sex distinctions have played historically in the creation and recreation of these processes. Feminist Studies 8, no. 2 (Summer 1982). © 1982 by Feminist Studies, Inc.

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The family wage as an ideology presented a particular arrangement of family work roles as socially desirable, articulating both demands for subsistence and survival of the working-class family as a unit, and the notion of a dependent home-bound wife and children. The connection between these two elements of the family wage ideology has raised many questions for feminist scholars. Was the purpose of this wage form working-class survival, female subordination, or still other factors that had to do with capitalist control over the workplace? Or were these different aspeas of class and gender conflict interconnected within the ideology and the reality of the family wage? In this essay, I argue that in at least one case, that of the Ford Motor Company's Five Dollar Day, the family wage originated from the political conflicts between workers and their employer, not over wages or female subordination, but over the labor process. The Five Dollar Day operated to turn a family wage into a subtle form of social control exercised by management over workers and the work process. At the same time, the rhetoric and practice of the Ford family wage was used to the advantage of both classes while it also reinforced gender divisions and a subordinate female role. To place the family wage at Ford in a historical context, I will first examine the development of the family wage ideology in America. The theoretical assessments of this wage form are reviewed as they shape our understanding of the family wage as a historical phenomenon. Finally, I examine the family wage at the Ford Motor Company as an example of how ideology in this instance became an actual achievement reflecting complex issues of class as well as gender. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEOLOGY The idea of the family wage appeared in America as early as the 1820s and 1830s, and developed most clearly through the nineteenth century in the rhetoric of trade unionists and other agencies of the working class.1 For its working-class advocates, the family wage promised one solution to inadequate wages and marginal subsistence. The first premise of demands for a family wage was survival: supporters of this wage form sought an increased standard of living above what a single worker could achieve under existing wage rates. Although they varied substantially among skilled and unskilled laborers, most wages were sufficient only for the subsistence of one person. Families depended

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upon the income contributions of children and women to supplement male wages at different stages in the family life cycle.2 A family wage, it was hoped, would eliminate periods of hardship while insuring a decent standard of living. Less directly, the ideology of a family wage also confronted nineteenth-century concepts of class and work. The common difficulty in making ends meet brought workers face to face with the dominant ideologies of work and wealth, which attributed poverty to individual causes, such as shiftlessness, idleness, intemperance, and the lack of moral, virtuous character. Charitable agencies might respond to need, but the ideology of work based on a laissez-faire notion of industrial order held that the fault for indigence or unemployment lay with the working man. } The family wage challenged the ideology of working-class poverty, invoking social justice and high wages in the name of the family. The second premise of the family wage was that a male should be the family breadwinner. Early demands for the family wage suggested that only women, and not children, be withdrawn from the labor force. In 1836, for example, the National Trades Union condemned female labor on the grounds that the parent, the husband, or the brother is deprived of a sufficient subsistence to support himself and family, when without the auxiliary aid of the female, by his own labor alone he might have supported himself and family in decency and kept his wife or relative at home.4

The Ten Hours Advocate supported a family wage in 1846 with a similar argument, editorializing that "we hope the day is not distant when the husband will be able to provide for his wife and family, without sending the former to endure the drudgery of a cotton mill."5 In the latter half of the nineteenth century, demands for a family wage began to include support for children. As an increasingly prevalent goal of trade unions, the family wage took shape as an adult male prerogative. Workers predicated their notion of an adequate living wage upon a sum that would support an entire family: to meet emergency expenses, to have savings, to buy a home or rent sanitary living quarters, and to allow children access to education. Many working-class families relying on children's labor to improve their standard of living resented the necessity that forced their children to labor. One writer from Lynn, Massachusetts, complained in 1860 to shoemakers that "the parent finds the expenses of his household constantly increasing,

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while the wages of his labor are steadily diminishing," making him dependent upon his children's work. 6 A Maryland coal miner spoke in the 1890s against child labor and for a family wage by saying the labor of young boys was ' 'a detriment to all men who have a family to support and have no boys . . . . Not that I am opposed to boys working in the mines, provided they are of suitable age and can read their own name . . . . I am in favor of compulsory education." 7 The labor of women and children might allow the family to survive, but some members of the working class perceived a high cost paid for this survival, the domestic welfare of the family and the future of children. The inability of workers to provide necessities for their families throughout the family life cycle led to repeated and intensified arguments for a supporting "living wage." 8 By the turn of the century, the demand was commonplace. Samuel Gompers, debating in 1898, claimed for labor a minimum wage — a living wage — which when expended in an economic manner shall be sufficient to maintain an average-sized family in a manner consistent with whatever the contemporary local civilization recognizes as indispensable to physical and mental health, as required by the rational selfrespect of human beings.9

The Cripple Creek (Colorado) Daily Press in 1902 expressed the similar opinion that male wages should allow the worker to "keep his wife and children out of competition with himself and give them the same opportunities for improvement and intellectual and moral training and comfortable living as are enjoyed by those who do not labor."10 Workers should earn decent wages, according to the prevailing arguments, to allow their families to live in decency. The Shoe Workers' Journal proposed in 1905 that a living wage should be "sufficient to maintain life for the worker and those dependent upon him . . . . Everything necessary to the life of a normal man must be included in the living wage: the right to marriage, the right to have children, and to educate them."11 Thus the underlying premises of the family wage made a dependent family essential to a preferred standard and to the notion of "normal manhood." The ideology had special implications for women; the family "living wage" for male workers assumed that all women would, sooner or later, become wives, and thus it was legitimate to argue for the exclusion of women from the labor force. Working women were believed to devalue wages, making a "living wage" difficult to achieve and upsetting a

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natural sexual order. Alice Kessler-Harris has documented the contradictory position of the American Federation of Labor toward female labor force participation; the union contended, "the man should be provided with a fair wage in order to keep his female relatives from going to work. The man is the provider and should receive enough for his labor to give his family a respectable living." 12 In calling for subsistence and a dependent family, the family wage ideology linked concepts of class, poverty, generational reproduction, and domesticity. The response of more privileged classes to the family wage is less clear, and to a large extent commingled with the ideas of domesticity described by historians as the "cult of true w o m a n h o o d " and later as " v i r t u o u s womanhood." 13 The separate spheres bought by the family wage paralleled those urged by a Utica, New York, author, "the husband to go out into the world — the wife to superintend the domestic affairs of the household." 1 4 Women, by virtue of their character, belonged outside the labor force and in the household performing proper feminine tasks. Both the ideology of the family wage and middle-class ideals of virtuous womanhood placed women in a privatized home sphere. Yet the two ideologies, while drawing upon the same concepts of an innate feminine predisposition for household life and labor, were not entirely identical. In the middle classes and among the bourgeoisie, there was no need for a companion demand for subsistence, and this difference suggests a critical divergence in class response to domesticity. Domesticity in the family wage arguments of the working class was tied to subsistence and an improved standard of living. Without the latter, female virtue had to be reflected in arduous domestic labor and, for a few married women, in waged work. The family wage argument, then, was composed of interrelated elements, and while domesticity was a central theme, it was not the sole determining definition of the struggle for a family wage. Family dependency, including children as well as women, held an even larger place in the family wage ideology, a distinction that resulted from class position and the need for subsistence. The role of the dependent family in the ideology of the family wage gave this wage demand added acceptability outside the working class. By the turn of the century, the idea of the family wage extended far beyond union rhetoric. It became a central feature of analysis in the assessment of poverty and standards of

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living by Progressive reformers, and part of the works of sociologists, economists, and charity workers of the developing social survey movement." Between 1890 and 1920, scientific examination of income and standards of living intensified; nearly three thousand surveys of individual and family budgets were completed by the 1930s.16 These studies gradually changed from an investigation of the economic contribution of all family members to an emphasis on wages alone. Accompanying this concentration on wages was a special interest in the family wage.17 Unpaid domestic labor played an important role in the family's survival, according to early budget analysts. In the Hull House Maps and Papers of 1895, for example, settlement workers concluded that "the theory that 'every man supports his own family' is as idle in a district like this as the fiction that 'everyone can get work if he wants it.'" 18 The Hull House investigators noted the importance of a family earning, recording not only the wages of working women and children, but also the domestic contributions of family members. Similarly, Louise More's Wage Earners' Budgets considered the domestic labor of housewives the determining factor in assessing the family's standard of living.19 But as budget studies became more quantified, an emphasis on wage contributions obscured the domestic role in a family's survival. Many budget analysts such as Scott Nearing, Frank Streighthoff, and Robert C. Chapín predicated a standard of living of "health and decency" for a family on a male worker's family wages. This "living wage" would make secondary income from women and children unnecessary. The majority of reformers agreed with Florence Kelley, who said in 1912: "It is the American tradition that men support their families, the wives throughout life, and the children at least until the fourteenth birthday." 20 The "living wage" advocated by these economists and social critics, like that of organized labor, criticized the labor force participation of married women and supported the notion of a dependent family. If working mothers gave their families an extra edge toward physical survival, they did so at the price of their family's psychological welfare and comfort. Working mothers' neglect of the duties of nurturing and properly socializing their children was viewed as detrimental to the future of the human race, a social problem that could be addressed by adequate male wages.21 This assessment of the dangers inherent in female labor force participation and of the superiority of male family wages also

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resulted in arguments for different minimum wage levels for women and men. Male minimum wages were based on the possibility of a dependent family at some point in the male wage earner's life cycle. Catholic economist John A. Ryan argued that unless they were guaranteed family wages, "married men would be at a disadvantage in the job market, and single men have no means to prepare for a family." 22 Studies of minimum wages for working women did not base minimum subsistence needs upon the possible presence of a family and rarely assumed women would be the financial heads of households. For example, Louise Bos worth's 1911 study of women workers in Boston found that $500 a year comprised a "living wage" for women. 23 In contrast, Robert C. Chapín's estimate for a family living wage in the New York City of 1909 had concluded that "an income under >800 is not enough to permit the maintenance of a normal standard." 24 Ironically, poverty studies completed in the same period revealed that an overwhelming proportion of destitute families were headed by women. The response to this seeming inequality was to propose charitable aid for women and children, not higher wages, thus perpetuating female dependency and poverty. One charity worker observed in 1909 that relief should never be used as a substitute for fair wages. Ordinarily when a family contains an able-bodied man, on whom the responsibilities of its support should fall, philanthropy should not assume the b u r d e n . . . . When, however, a family is without male support, and consequently in want, this objection does not hold, and frequently relief extending through a period of years is the only proper solution of the difficulty. 2 '

By the 1920s, standardized income levels were "absolutely necessary. . . for the guidance of the wage adjuster. . . and of domestic economists in suggesting changes in the consumption of families," said Royal Meeker, Commissioner of Labor Statistics.26 For both trade unionists and economists in private agencies and the state, the family wage had become a standard convention. THEORETICAL ASSESSMENTS OF THE FAMILY WAGE The potency of the family wage ideology in history raises the theoretical questions of how it operated as a restraint upon women and how it articulated a relationship between gender, work roles, and subsistence.27 The latter question has been the subject of important feminist debate — a debate that promises to illuminate connections between class and gender, production and

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reproduction. Two major perspectives emerge from this literature, one emphasizing the role of patriarchy in the creation of family wages and the other identifying working-class resistance and family structure as the core of the demand. Heidi Hartmann first examined the male-earned family wage and related this wage form, both as an ideology and as an actual achievement, to the creation of women's work roles. Hartmann claimed this wage form represented the patriarchal control of "men as men and men as capitalists" over women's paid labor, insuring women's secondary role in the family's economy and lower wages in the work force. 28 This conclusion places gender at the heart of the family wage ideology, determining the struggle for subsistence through female subordination and linking patriarchal forces in the creation of the family wage with existing conditions of capitalist social relations. In this perspective, the family wage ideology appears as an intersection of these interrelated, yet autonomous, social systems. Hartmann claims throughout her work that the family wage came to be a "norm" for "stable working-class families" at the turn of the century.29 A significant ambiguity about ideology versus the actual achievement of the family wage results from this analysis, which may have important consequences for our theoretical understanding of the family wage. The implications of the family wage as an ideological construction are quite different depending upon whether the family wage was received by many or by few American working-class families. Had the American working class won a family wage? To answer this, we must first distinguish between a maleearned wage which supports a family at a certain standard of living, allowing for their reproduction, and any male-earned wage. The former is a family wage, the key to its definition resting in a standard of living that allows for dependent women and children. The second formulation is not necessarily a family wage. If the male-earned wage will not purchase necessities, and the family compensates for this by sending other family members into the labor force, or by living in poverty or receiving charity, the family's economy is not based on a family wage. }0 We cannot say that simply because a male earns a wage which is a family's sole income it is a family wage. In the same manner, a family that receives a family wage may still choose to have more than one laborer in the work force.31 This proposition directs our attention to wage rates rather than

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to family structure in determining the presence of family wages as ¡η achievement. Only in the skilled and unionized sectors of the labor force is there any convincing evidence of what may be family wages in the period under consideration. For example, masons received up to five dollars per day prior to 1900, at what was obviously a family wage level. Plumbers, plasterers, and stonecutters fared as well in some regions.32 It seems likely that the family vage was won in some industries by a segment of male workers. But even for those workers who gained a family wage, the family standard was subject to many fluctuations over time. In the Ford Motor Company (FMC), for example, the Five Dollar Day that became a family wage in 1914 could not provide the same family standard of living by 1919-}J Changing costs of living required the high wage to be continually defended during general economic downturns and readjusted periodically. This readjustment depended upon such factors as the workers' level of organization, the employer's ability and desire to provide the wage, and the possibility of state intervention. Thus the family wage probably appeared, disappeared, and reappeared in certain periods in specific industries. Such speculation about the family wage as an actual achievement must be verified with further investigations examining the presence of that wage form in specific industries and localities. But, based on research to date in several fields, it seems clear that the family wage was an isolated, rather than a national, achievement for male workers.* If it is true that family wages were never received by the majority of male workers, we must then ask why the ideology of the family wage was so dominant in the United States in this period. A second major interpretation of the ideology provides some answer. Jane Humphries' work on English working-class demands in a somewhat earlier period suggests the ideology was strong because the working class advanced it in an attempt to raise wages. Humphries argues that the family wage was not simply a patriarchal tool, but may be seen as a material interest of the working class, allowing for the maintenance of supportive family structures in the absence of welfare agencies. The demand for the family wage was one moment of resistance to the initiatives of industrial capitalism. In the struggle to improve living conditions and meet reproductive needs, the working class sought to fulfill its requirements through a traditional social arrangement of kin, the family. Humphries argues that members of the English working class believed the presence of all family members in the labor

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force would lower the wages of each, reduce the family's ability to provide networks of support, and fail to meet the reproductive needs of each family member and succeeding generations.35 The absence of socially guaranteed reproduction formed one crucial aspect of the struggle for the family wage, the attempt to improve material conditions.' 6 Without other means to guarantee a minimum standard of living, and without any widespread socialized forms of reproduction, the family was one of the few agencies that met these essential needs of its members. Yet this function of the family changed significantly as social welfare agencies developed to provide subsistence for some segments of the working class. Why did American trade unions nevertheless continue to support a family wage ideology during the Progressive Era expansion of social services? Humphries's analysis cannot answer this question, for she ignores the obvious component of the family wage demand that has to do with maintaining gender divisions and keeping married working-class women in the home. From both these theoretical treatments of historically specific moments in the family wage ideology spring new historical questions that refocus our attention on the relationship between gender and class components in that ideology. Hartmann and Humphries each develop an analysis of the family wage which is partial and reductive. For Hartmann, the patriarchal elements of capitalism shape the family wage demand, so that female subordination in both the family and the work force becomes the central issue. In Humphries's view, the working-class response to new social relations of production used traditional gender roles to gain wages in the interest of the entire class, which included the interest of women. The case of the FMC, however, provides us with another, more complicated reality. The Ford Five Dollar Day temporarily helped to resolve the political conflict between workers and their bosses. In the inauguration of Ford wage policies and through Ford rhetoric, we see that issues of class and of social control dominated the Ford decision to award unusually high wages. The Ford example suggests that, in at least one instance, the actual achievement of a family wage occurred as the result of class conflict over the labor process and worker control, not initially as a working-class demand for either subsistence or female subordination. Yet both subsistence and female subordination were part of the objective consequences.

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FORD a n d t h e f a m i l y w a g e Henry Ford announced the profit-sharing plan for FMC workers at his Highland Park, Michigan, plant in 1914. The plan was to insure each male worker of the possibility of earning a minimum of five dollars per day. The self-congratulatory text of the Ford announcement said: Our company has now doubled wages . . Our firm belief is that the division of earning between capital and labor is not fair, and that labor is entitled to a greater share. We desire to express our belief in some practical way, and we therefore adopted this plan. . . . it means in substance that no man over twentytwo years of age will receive less than five dollars for eight hours work. Others will be compensated in relation to their value, using the five dollar per day as a minimum.57

This profit-sharing plan was unique, not because it presented the FMC as sharing profits with workers, but because of the large payment to be made.*8 Closer examination of why the company chose to award this extraordinary sum to its workers, when the average daily pay for an unskilled male auto worker in Detroit was around two dollars and forty cents, reveals the plan as an inventive means of furthering the company's edge over its competitors in production and marketing, and of maintaining an open shop.59 Ford's Five Dollar Day was an extension of his new methods of production, and a response to labor struggles in Detroit. As Ford himself would later say, he was "not a reformer," and the Five Dollar Day was not motivated by purely humanitarian impulses.40 An astute capitalist whose actions were frequently eccentric, Ford saw the Five Dollar Day as a means to deal with high labor turnover, union organizing efforts of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and most importantly, production changes in the FMC Highland Park plant .41 Ford attempted to link the lives of the workers in the factory with their lives at home, with a specific form of family structure. Ford was an important representative of a new awareness among some capitalists of the relationship between production and forms of social reproduction, and the Five Dollar Day as a family wage suggests that changes in the industrial structure of the United States at the turn of the century had significant impact upon family structures and family relationships. The Ford Five Dollar Day illustrates a crucial link between women's domestic role and class antagonism. The high Ford wage resulted from conflict between Ford workers and their employer, in unionizing attempts and in shop floor practices. The Five Dollar Day was ob-

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viously in the material interest of Ford workers and their families, yet the plan was also a useful tool in managerial terms, in keeping with Ford's productivity. Ford management attempted to manipulate the wage in the interest of the company, and did so through rhetoric and practice that linked workers in the shop with their families at home. Ford's business strategy centered on producing an automobile that could be purchased by a large market through lowered production costs. This would in turn insure high profits, which would recapitalize production, maintain profits, and according to Ford, increase wages. In an industry with a failure rate of almost 74 percent, this bold concept enabled Ford to expand his share of the automobile market from 19.9 percent i n l 9 1 1 t o 5 5 . 7 percent in 1921.42 By 1913, the company had grown from the small operation of 1903 at the Mack Avenue plant to the large Highland Park plant, with branch profit of S28 million and dividends of S1 $ million."' By 1913, according to Ford's production supervisor Charles Sorenson, "the company was firmly established financially. Its problems were exclusively those of production and its expansion, of manufacturing and of supply."44 The production problems included difficulties with labor. High turnover rates plagued the entire automobile industry; the average turnover was over 100 percent in the largest Detroit plants in 1914. In this depression year, turnover percentages ran as high as 300 percent for some employers; at the FMC in December 1912, 48 percent of the work force quit or were fired. Fifty-two thousand men were hired to fill thirteen thousand jobs at Highland Park in 1913·45 John R. Lee, assigned by Ford in 1912 to stabilize employment, claimed: "We used to hire from forty of sixty per cent of our labor force each month to maintain it. In the year 1913 between 50,000 and 60,000 people passed through our employment office." 46 The instability of the work force reduced efficiency in production. Unless an employer acted to lower this turnover rate, it remained high. Ford moved to solve his turnover problems in the Highland Park plant through implementing a reform program in 1913 which rationalized the labor process and simplified the management of labor. Lee, head of the employment office, introduced a three-pronged program that began by centralizing personnel decisions in one office and stripping shop foremen of their power to hire and fire new workers. Instead, workers at the Highland Park plant would be "moved" until they were placed in a job they

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do efficiently.47 As Lee said, "it is a great deal cheaper for us to take (a worker) from one department and transfer him to another than it is to discharge him." 48 Lee reduced the number of job classifications from sixty-nine to eight, with corresponding wage rates for each job. The work day was reduced from ten to nine hours, and new industrial safety standards were introduced. According to Lee, the quality of labor output in 1912 made the labor force the weak link in production. He said later "we confess that up to this time we had believed that mechanism and material were of the larger importance and that somehow or other the human element or our men were taken care of automatically and needed little or no consideration." 49 Under Lee's guidance, and with Ford's sanction, the company began to recognize the link between the "human element" and increased production, creating labor management policies to simplify its means of control over its workers. As Lee rationalized the labor force, Ford instituted the rationalization of production. Beginning in 1912, he introduced the continuously moving assembly line at Highland Park. To function efficiently, the moving assembly ran at a rate that did not allow for "excess movements." Ford said, "the idea is that a man must not be hurried in his work — he must have every necessary second, but not a single unnecessary second."' 0 This process allowed Highland Park workers to produce one thousand Model T's per day in 1914. It also meant that the labor process allowed the workers no creativity, limiting the need for skill or thought. As one worker put it, "the speed up had reached the point where a worker almost did not have time to catch his breath."51 This led to a new labor problem for the Ford management. In March 1913, organizers for the I WW began an effort to unionize Detroit's auto workers. The IWW was quick to criticize the moving assembly, nicknaming Ford the "Speed-Up King," and organizers chose to concentrate on the Ford plant because of the discontent of Ford workers.52 By May, the Ford management had temporarily blocked the union, by barring employees from IWW rallies. The organizers turned their attention to Studebaker, and were partially rewarded by the extensive press coverage they received in a seven-day walkout by Studebaker workers. Although the Studebaker strike was ultimately unsuccessful, the organizers remained in Detroit, and again turned their attention to Ford. According to Philip Foner, by the winter of 1914, "it was common knowledge" that a strike at Ford was imminent. Then, could

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on January 6, 1914, Ford announced the Five Dollar Day.'J Ford was able to resort to this high-wage "profit-sharing" plan for several reasons: the dominant position of the firm within the automobile industry, its strong overall position economically, and its business structure. Ford had the profits to gamble with new methods to increase productivity and the capital to avoid labor conflicts by responding to possible union efforts on his own terms. Within the industry, the company was remarkably healthy and successful between 1908 and 1921, while its competitors were not so fortunate. 54 The state of Detroit's labor movement further lessened the chance that other automotive firms would try a Five Dollar Day. The labor movement in the auto industry was not strong enough to press any advantage it held in these years in more than a random and individualistic way. The Employers Association of Detroit successfully maintained an open shop in the city throughout the decade, and most auto manufacturers suffered through whatever labor unrest occurred, tolerating the high turnover rates endemic to American industry. Even the I W failed to consolidate any gains it made through 1913 and 1914 in Detroit, regardless of the fact that I WW activity had acted as a catalyst for the FMC Five Dollar Day by threatening both Ford's production strategy and Henry Ford's fiercely antiunion philosophy. 55 Although Ford was alone in Detroit in engaging in a welfare program, many other corporations initiated some form of welfare on a large scale — from stock-purchasing plans to company housing, schools, and stores. David Brody found that industrial relations departments, the administrative agencies of welfare in most firms, appeared in correlation to the size of the enterprise; over 50 percent of firms employing over two thousand workers had departments dealing with worker relations.' 6 Many large firms discovered it was far more profitable over the long term to spend on worker relations than to risk interruptions in production by strikes. A similar strategy was not practical for the small enterprise, which continued to practice the traditional methods of union busting. 57 Not all firms using welfare plans initiated high wages; some, like International Harvester, left wage rates essentially untouched. What all welfare plans did share was a common goal of both accommodating and controlling workers by providing some feature that appeared to. be beneficial. At FMC, this benefit came as a direct material gain, a wage high enough to support a dependent family without recourse to other source of income.

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By instituting a wage twice the amount available to unskilled workers in Detroit, Ford provided a strong stimulus for workers to tolerate the most stressful conditions in the factory. Although moving assembly processes and the rationalization of the labor force made working conditions in Highland Park monotonous and alienating, the high wages encouraged Ford workers to remain at their jobs and stifled overt demands for unionization. The Five Dollar Day reduced labor turnover rates dramatically. A contemporary magazine reponed that "surplus labor from other places had been rushing there as if to a vacuum. At Ford's plant, a mob scene is enacted daily; thousands apply and few are hired." By 1918, Ford had reduced its turnover rate to 46 percent, the lowest in Detroit.58 The Five Dollar Day also operated to create divisions among Ford workers. Although Lee had reduced the number of job classifications in 1912, the Five Dollar Day established a wage differential among workers based on compliance with company policy. Ford claimed in 1915 that over 80 percent of FMC workers were earning a Five Dollar Day; historian Keith Sward has argued that many unskilled Ford workers never received the higher wage.59 But even if the majority of Ford workers did earn the Five Dollar Day, differences between workers were created on the basis of pay, maintaining the ideal that good company men would one day merit the higher wage. The administration of the Five Dollar Day showed the company's desire that workers maintain a stable family life, and linked the needs of production with family structure. A worker was eligible for the Five Dollar Day only after he had been at Ford for six months, and had to fall into one of three categories: "All married men living with and taking good care of their families"; "all single men, over twenty-two years of age," of "proven thrifty habits"; and men under the age of twenty-two years of age, and women "who are the sole support of some next of kin or blood relative."60 Women were not initially included in the plan at all. Following Ford's announcement of the Five Dollar Day and his obvious exclusion of women workers, feminists such as Anna Howard Shaw and Jane Addams protested the discrimination.61 Ford changed the wage qualifications, but later admitted that only 10 percent of the women employed at FMC earned a shared profit wage.62 Moreover, Ford was explicit that the company did not hire married women "unless their husbands are unable to work." 6i As late as 1919, eighty-two women were discharged

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from Highland Park because it was discovered that their husbands were working.64 The Sociological Department at Ford policed the profit-sharing plan, and it was staffed by thirty to fifty male investigators whom Ford described as ' 'good judges of human nature, ' ' whose job was to "point men to life and make them discontented with a mere living."65 The investigator grouped employees applying for the plan into four categories: those "firmly established in the ways of thrift": those "who never had a chance but were willing to grasp the opportunity in the way every man should"; those "who qualified but we were in doubt as to the strength of their character"; and those who did not qualify.66 The Ford managers stipulated that "the man and his home had to come up to certain standards of cleanliness and citizenship."67 Ford declared that in order to receive the bonus married men should live with and take good care of their families. We had to break up the evil custom among foreign workers of taking in boarders — of regarding their homes as something to make money out of rather than as a place to live in.68

Ford believed that only a specific form of family relationship — one in which the husband provided for a non-income-earning wife — would insure the stability of his labor force. The Five Dollar Day would encourage this type of family, in which a male wage supported a dependent family, who would then have no need to use their homes to make money. Ford appeared to sanction only the most "middle-class" form of family life, or what seemed to be the middle-class form of life to him, where a husband earned enough to protect the home as a sanctuary and a refuge. The Ford management also wanted workers to own their own homes. Ford stated that "no man can bring up a family and hope to own a home on the ordinary rate of wages." In addition to raising wages for some workers, the company provided a lawyer to help workers secure credit and mortgages for new homes. As the result of the Five Dollar Day, Ford claimed "eight thousand families have changed their place of residence . . . . The migration has been from poor and squalid to healthy, sanitary quarters, with environment conducive to health, happiness, and comfort." 69 If this estimate was perhaps exaggerated, the FMC concern with family structure and family life remained apparent. Good, efficient, and happy workers, a stable work force and stable community, free from union threats and civil unrest, could only

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develop from a particular form of the family. And to insure that situation, the wage would have to be a family wage. By linking production, consumption, and family, the FMC under Henry Ford not only recognized the integral relationship between these elements, but also sought to manipulate them. Through the Sociological Department, the company promoted the belief that one wage, earned by a male worker, should be sufficient for the needs of an economically dependent family. According to Ford: optimal

If only the man himself were concerned, the cost of his maintenance, and the profit he ought to have would be a simple matter. But he is not just an individual . . . . How are you going to figure the contribution of the home to a day's work? . . . . The man does the work in the shop, but his wife does the work in the home. The shop must pay them both . . . . Otherwise we have the hideous prospect of little children and their mothers being forced out to work.70

The Five Dollar Day accomplished two important management objectives: it successfully reduced turnover rates, and it destroyed the active threat of unionization for a period. The link between thejfamily and factory, embodied in the form of a family wage, has a far greater importance for women's history. Not only were married women with working husbands directly excluded from employment, but the company provided both an economic and an ideological reinforcement for women's role in domestic labor. The company did so out of a primary motivation to increase its competitive advantages in production and marketing, and as a result of the increasing possibility of union activity. In other words, the Five Dollar Day was managerial strategy based on an understanding of inherent class conflict, a move to establish Ford's dominance within the automobile industry and control over Ford workers. 71 Yet it also embodied and reinforced a particular ideology — and social reality — of "family life" and gender division. Thus it functioned as a form of social control both "in the shop" and "in the home."

CONCLUSION

The family wage as an actual achievement represents a concrete interaction between the reproductive needs of workers and their families, and the conditions of production. The high wage allowed working-class families to secure subsistence and attain a standard of living of "health and decency." Yet at the FMC, this family wage did not come as the result of workers' militant demands

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that their employer meet their reproductive needs. Nor did Ford workers call for the exclusion of women workers from the shop for female laborers were already excluded. The main issue in workers' concerns appears to have been what is termed "workers' control," their ability to have input into the labor process" Workers responded to the mass assembly line, and to the efforts of the IWW in both organized and unorganized, individual forms The company reacted to worker discontent, reflected in turnover rates and incipient unionization, in a pragmatic manner it granted a concession, an abnormally high wage. Ford managen made the concession fit with managerial strategy for high profits and improved productivity, in a recognition of the long-term benefits of stability in their labor force. They tied that stability to a particular family structure — not by accident, hut because that structure was thought to be both stabilizing and profitable. Ford's version of the family wage actively attempted to reshape the family, in the interests of profit and production, recognizing the possible benefits of working-class family life to the employer. Ford's rhetoric was similar to that of Progressive budget analysts who supported a family wage, but it marked a significant philosophical change in the attitudes of capitalists toward their employees. His was not the laissez-faire notion that workers could only receive the lowest rate of pay to insure capitalist profits, a nineteenth-century commonplace. For Ford, productivity and, in turn, profits, came with a living wage offered as a family wage, with which male workers could earn better living conditions, a decent home life, and a dependent family. That family — or, more particularly, the wife at home — would provide for the worker, so the worker must provide for his family. And, in Ford's words, "the shop must pay them both." Ford's family wage implicitly recognized the contribution of women's domestic labor to a stable and secure family life. In all likelihood, Ford believed that women's contribution was greatest in their emotional, nurturing, and motherly roles. This emphasis on psychological rather than material comfort parallels the arguments of many Progressive reformers, who saw the female emotional, affective role as a necessary aspea of family life which should be supported by adequate wages. Ford's family wage accomplished what budget analysts proposed: it provided some means to keep "little children and their mothers" out of the work force. However, Ford's primary goal was not female exclusion. The FMC family wage was offered as an incentive for workers to

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assume a stable home life, and the relegation of women to the role of domestic laborer was a secondary consideration, not a guiding motivation. The Ford family wage illustrates that the creation of this wage form as practice and as ideology relied upon a complex cast of characters: workers, unions, managers, capitalists, and workers' families. The Ford family wage was not merely a case of men wanting to subordinate women, or of workers struggling only for subsistence needs, although both female subordination and adequate subsistence resulted from the family wage. I would argue that in this instance, the terms of the family wage were based on a political conflict between classes with substantially different interests. The political conflict at the FMC initiated the concession of a family wage; the interests of the employer for profits and productivity determined the framework of the awards. But gender categories played a role in this framework, in both its ideological aspects and in its immediate concrete goals. First, the family wage tied profits for the employer to a workers' family, in an indirect relationship based upon wage structure, which required a dependent female domestic laborer. Second, the ideology of the family wage used gender divisions to legitimate the benefit to the working class and the altruism of the employer. It was in the interests of society, according to the ideology, to keep women and children out of the labor force and at home where they belonged. Yet workers and employers brought different perspectives to this argument for the family wage. For the working class, the family wage, as Humphries suggests, operated as a real material benefit. The family wage provided one solution to the hard struggle for subsistence for many working-class families in a period in which poor working conditions and low wages predominated. Few married women, and probably many children, worked outside the home. In this context, it seems logical that both men and many women would argue that the wages of the adult male worker should support his family and allow children access to education. On these terms, subsistence was the primary goal of the family wage. To achieve this goal, the family wage ideology utilized and reinforced existing gender distinctions in work roles. For the employer, the family wage ideology may have presented a different phenomenon. The ideology legitimated low female wages; women worked for "pin money" and required less compensation than family-supporting men. But for those

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employers aware of the benefits of a stable work force, and capable of taking advantage of them, the family wage awarded to eligible workers could increase long-term profits. And, as at the FMC, public recognition of a firm's benevolent family wage policy could have worldwide publicity value, an added bonus in an expanding marketplace. In the first and probably most prevalent case, the ideology works to a useful advantage for employers. In the latter instance, the ideology is transformed into an achievement, but both uses of the family wage serve the employers' interests. What the Ford family wage suggests, if we move from this specific example to speculate about the more generalized nature of this ideology, is that the family wage as ideology became, and remained, important because it seemed advantageous to all participants in its creation. For the working class, it heralded the possibility of an adequate income. For employers, it meant lowered wages for some workers and stability in the labor force otherwise. We could also speculate that for the Progresive reformers who encouraged this ideology, the family wage seemed one solution to the "search for order" that marked this period. The family wage benefited all segments of society, except those it excluded from the work force — women. By linking gender roles and subsistence, the family wage ideology successfully reinforced the notion that women should receive low wages, or preferably, remain at home. As Gwendolyn S. Hughes commented in 1925, the ideology of the family wage, which she argued was then widely accepted, presumed every man would provide for his family and that "women's place is in the home."73 The consequences of the family wage ideology for women were serious constraints placed on work participation. And it was as ideology that the family wage remained strongest. By articulating the demand for subsistence in the form of family wages, the working class consented to a particular role for its women and children. Ironically, that family wage was not widespread or long-lived enough to benefit more than a small segment of the working class, and it dovetailed neatly with the concerns of employers for profits. In this sense, the family wage, as ideology, served to divide the working class for a temporary gain, at the great expense of its female members. The family wage as ideology remains an important element in our culture and economy. The "middle-class" standard of living projected by the U.S. Department of Labor is based on a male

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worker, a dependent wife, and two children. And many women still work for single-person wages, a sum adequate to their own needs, but too low to meet the expenses of a family. As we frame our arguments for equal wages and comparable pay, as feminists we continue to face the ideology of the family wage — at the same time that the family wages of many unionized sectors of the labor force are threatened. Can the idea of the family wage be turned to the advantage of both working-class women and men, as we struggle to maintain recent gains? Or are the terras of the family wage, as ideology and as practice, dependent upon a certain vision of gender roles? Only by understanding how the family wage developed, and continues to operate, can we begin to answer these difficult and pressing questions.

NOTES The author would like to thank the many people who commented on successive drafts of this article particularly Melvyn Dubofsky, Harold C. Livesay, Elizabeth FoxGenovese, Joan Smith, Winifred Wandersee, Ronald Schau, Anne Forsythe, and Stephen Burwood. Mary Ryan, Rosalind Petchesky, and the Feminist Studies editors have been especially helpful in suggesting both new directions and connections in the topic. Special thanks must go to Nancy Grey Osterud, who read every version of this paper and responded to all with supportive criticism, and Paul Garver, for his comments on current trade unionism. •The argument for a family wage has also been documented in England in a similar period of early industrial capitalism. See Jane Humphries, "The Working Class Family, Women's Liberation, and Class Struggle: The Case of Nineteenth Century British History," Review of Radical Political Economy 9 (Fall 1977): 25-42; and her "Class Struggle and the Persistence of the Working Class Family," Cambridge Journal oj Economics 1 (1977). 241-58. See also Hillary Land, " T h e Family Wage," Feminist Review 6 (1980): 55-77. For purposes of this analysis, I will consider only the American case. 'David Montgomery, Beyond Equality: Labor and the Radical Republicans, 1862-1872 (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 40; Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 158-59; Stephen Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), p. 22. »Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress, pp. 42-49; Thomas C. Cochran, Business in American Life (New York: McGraw Hill, 1972), pp. 170-71; Robert C. McCloskey, American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise, 1865-1910 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951). 'Judith Bacr, The Chains of Protection: Judicial Response to Women's Labor Legislation (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978), p. 35.

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'Heidi Hartmann, "The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union," Capital and Class no. 8 (Summer 1979): p. 16. 'Quote is cited in Michael Katz. The Irony of Early School Reform (Cambridge: Har vard University Press, 1978), p. 83. See also Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress, ano Dawley, Class and Community, pp. 131-148. •^Katherine Harvey, The Best Dressed Miners: Life and Labor in the Maryland Coal Region, 1835-1910 (Ithaca. N Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969), ρ 49. •See, for example, Elizabeth Pieck. "A Mother's Wages: Income Earning Among Married Italian and Black Women, 1869-1911. " in A Heritage of Her Own: Toward A Sew Social History of American Women, ed. Nancy Cott and Elizabeth Pieck (New York Simon and Schuster, 1979) Sec also Lawrence A. Glaseo, "The Life Cycles and Household Structure of American Ethnic Groups." in Cott and Pieck, eds., A Heritage of Her Own. Daniel Walkowitz provides an interesting look at the income of familes of skilled workers in Worker City, Company Town: Iron and Cotton Workers Protests in Troy and Cohoes, New York, 1855-1884 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978). 'James Boyle, The Minimum Wage and Syndicalism (Cincinnati: Stewart and Kidd Co . 1913), ρ 73. '"Elizabeth Jameson, "Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek. 1890-1914," in Class, Sex, and the Woman Worker, ed M Cantor and B. Laurie (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. 1977). "Anne Schofield, ' 'The Rise of the Pig-Headed Girl: An Analysis of the American Labor Press for their Attitudes toward Women, 1877-1920," (Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton, 1980), p. 150. u Alice Kessler-Harris, '"Where Are the Organized Women Workers?'" Feminist Studies 3 (Fall 1975): 97. "See Nancy F. Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Women's Sphere" in New England. ¡780-1835 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977); Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations between Women in Nineteenth-Century America," Signs 1 (Autumn 1975): 1-29; Barbara Welter, Dimity Convictions, (Ohio University Press, 1976); Gerda Lerner, "The Lady and the Mill Girl: Changes in the Status of Women in the Age of Jackson," Midcontinent American Studies Journal 10 (Spring 1969): 5-14; Mary P. Ryan, TheCradleof the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 186-229; Sheila Rothman, Women's Proper Place: A History of Changing Ideals and Practices, 1870 to the Present (New York: Basic Books. 1978). '•Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class, p. 190. "Discussion of the organized charity movement and the development of social surveys can be found in Daniel M. Fox, Discovery of Abundance (Ithaca. N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1967); Roy Lubove, The Professional Altruist: The Emergence of Social Work As a Profession (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965); Robert Bremer, From the Depths: The Discovery of Poverty in the United States (New York: New York University Press, 1956); Allen Davis, Spearheads for Reform: Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890-1914 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967); James Leiby, Carroll Wright and Labor Reform (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, I960). "Charles Y. Glock, ed.. Survey Research in the Social Sciences (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1967), p. 337. ,7 A useful discussion of the growing interest in social reform and welfare by economists may be found in Sidney Fine, Laissez-Faire and the General Welfare State: A Study of Conflict in American Thought, 1865-1900, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1956).

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE I'Hull House Maps and Papers (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1895), p. 21. '»Louise Β More, Wage Earners' Budgets (New York. Henry Holt and Co., 1907). "Boyle, Minimum Wage and Syndicalism , p. 69. Emphasis added. "This point is expanded by Alice Kessler-Harris, "Women's Wage Work as Myth and History," Labor History 19 (Spring 1978): 287-307; See also Anna Davin, "Imperialism and Motherhood." History Workshop no. 5 (Spring 1978): 9-66, for a provocative assessment of the importance of nationalism and racial ideology in the consideration of motherhood in this period. "John A Ryan. The Living Wage (New York: MacMillan. 1906), p. 283 See also p. 110-128. "Louise Bosworth, The Living Wage of Women Workers (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1911), p. 11. "Robert C. Chapín, The Standard of Living Among Workingmen's Families in New York City (New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Charities Publication Committee, 1909). Ρ 245. "Mary Conyngton, How to Help: A Manual of Practical Charity (New York: MacMillan, 1909). p 185. »Royal Meeker, "What is the American Standard of Living?" Monthly Labor Review, 7 (July 1919): 8. "Many scholars have contributed to the analysis of the family wage and added to our knowlege of that wage form. See, for example. Land. "Family Wage;" Johanna Brenner, "Women's Self-Organization: A Marxist Justification," Against the Current 1 (1980): 24-34; Mary Mcintosh and Michelle Barrett. "'The Family Wage": Some Problems for Socialists and Feminists," Capital and Class no. 11 (Summer 1980): 51-72; Mary Mcintosh, "The Sute and the Oppression of Women," in Feminism and Materialism, ed. A. Kuhn and A. Wölpe (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1978); Maxine Molyneux, "Beyond the Housework Debate," New Left Review, no. 116 (July-August 1979): 3-28. Two collections dealing with issues pertinent to the family wage are Lydia Sargent, Women and Revolution (Boston: South End Press, 1981); and Michelle Barrett, ed.. Women's Oppression Today (London: New Left Books, 1981). "Hartmann, "Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism"; and her "Capitalism and Women's Work in the Home, 1900-1930," (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1974). "Hartmann, "Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism," p. 16. »A second indication that family wages were not common throughout American industry comes from the rise in female labor force participation. The increasing number of women entering the labor force in this century suggests that many families required more than one income. Changes in children's labor force participation suggest as well that the increase in female waged work may have compensated for the decrease in child labor. Nearly 20 percent of children worked in 1900, and the numbers Increased throughout that decade. By 1930, however, only 4.7 percent of all children were recorded as working, as the movement to abolish child labor gained In strength. See Winifred Wandersee, Women's Work and Family Values, 1920-1940 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981). " W e can speculate based on family budget studies that some families that received what appear to be family wages did send other family members into the labor force in order to further improve their standard of living. "Charles Bonnet t, History of Employers' Associations in the United States {New York: Vantage Press, 1956), pp., 188-91; U.S. Department of Labor, History of Wages in the United States from Colonial Times to ¡928 (1934). (Publication Bulletin no. 604).

393

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

"Keith Sward, The Legend of Henry Ford (New York: Rinehart & Co.. 1948), p. 55 "Several historians have studied industrial wage patterns without dealing specifically with the notion of a family wage. Their works indicated that family wages were achieved occasionally under a variety of conditions. Sec Robert Ozanne, A Century of Labor Management Relations at McCormick and International Harvester (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967); Peter Shergold, "Wage Differential Based on Skill in the U.S.. 1899-1914: A Case Study," Labor History 8 (Fall 1977): 486-578; Paul Douglas, Real Wages in the United States, 1890-1926 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co , 1930). Julian Skaggs and John Ehrlich present an intriguing account of the relationship between strike activity, wages, and paternalism in "Profits, Paternalism, and Rebellion: A Case Study in Industrial Strife," Business History Review 54 (Summer 1980): 155-174. "Jane Humphries, "The Working Class Family, Women's Liberation, and Class Struggle: The Case of Nineteenth Century British History," pp. 25-42; and her "Class Struggle and the Persistence of the Working Class Family," pp. 241-58. "Humphries' argument also raises questions about the nature of wage and social reproduction. First It is not clear that the presence of all family members in the labor force would in fact reduce the wages of all; wages could still remain high or adequate within the skilled sectors, for example. Humphries' position on wages here tends to minimize the skill divisions within the labor market. Second, the presence of workers' benevolent societies presents other questions about the demand for family wages which Humphries does not resolve. " " T h e Ford Melon for Labor," Literary Digest, 12 January 1914, p. 95· "Sec. for example, Ozanne, Century of Labor Management; Daniel Nelson, Managers and Workers, (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1975). pp. 105-106. '»At >2.40 per day, a worker would make 1750.00 per year if she or he worked six days per week the entire year. This would be less than Chapin's 1909 income for "health and decency," and barely above Ryan's 1906 1600 minimum for the nation. "Henry Ford. My Ufe and Work (New York: Doubleday. Page A Co., 1925), p. 3. " Several historians have suggested that the Five Dollar Day was more the result of Ford's peculiar personality than a pragmatic business decision. From the accounts of Ford's decision, it is difficult to make an unqualified assessment of the Five Dollar Day decision. Charles Sorenson's version, for example, suggests more eccentricity than rationality on Ford's part. It seems unlikely, however, that the Five Dollar Day was the result of sheer caprice, because it remedied the most significant labor problems facing the company. If the Five Dollar Day was only the result of Ford's eccentricity, it was one of the luckiest strokes of caprice in business history. "Donald F. Davis, "Detroit's Automotive Revolution: A Case Study of Urban Enterprise, 1899-1933." unpublished paper. University of Ottawa, p. 7; Alfred Chandler. Jr., Giant Enterprise: Ford, General Motors, and the Automobile Industry; Sources and Readings (New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1964), p. 23-25. «Davis, Ibid., p. 7; Chandler Jr., Ibid., pp. xi, 2). "Charles Sorenson, My Forty Years with Ford (New York: W.W. Norton, 1956), p. 138; Chandler Jr., Giant Enterprise, p. 11; Nelson, Managers and Workers, pp. 23-24. "Chandler Jr., Ibid., p. 25; Nelson, Ibid., pp. 86, 149"Chandler Jr., Ibid., p. 149. This is a reprint of John R. Lee, "The So-Called Profit Sharing System in the Ford Plant," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (May 1916): 299-308. 47 Nelson, Managers and Workers, p. 81; Allan Nevins (in collaboration with Frank Ernest Hill), Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company (New York: Scribner, 1954), p. 459

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395

«•Chandler Jr., Giant Enterprise, p. 190. «Ibid.. pp. 180, 189»Ford, My Life and Work, p. 82. "Philip Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, vol. 4: The Industrial Workers of the World, ¡905-1917 (New York: International Publishers, 1965), p. 385 «Foner, History of the Labor Movement, vol. 4, pp. 375-86; Nevins, Ford, p. 513. »Foner, History of the Labor Movement, vol. 4, p. 386. xFord netted 130 million after taxes in 1914, and the company's growth was remarkable In 1917, the FMC sold 740,777 automobiles. Its closest competitor. General Motors, sold only 195,945. See Chandler Jr., Giant Enterprise; Alfred D. Chandler Jr., The Visible Hand: Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977); Ralph Epstein, The Automobile Industry (Sevi York: A.W. Shaw & Co., 1928). "Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1969), pp. 267, 291; Foner, History of the Labor Movement, pp. 385-86; Nevins, Ford, p. 513 «David Brody, "The Rise and Decline of Welfare Capitalism," in his Workers in Industrial America, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 59 "Robert Wie be, Businessmen and Reform (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 167; Nelson, Managers and Workers, p. 116; Ozanne, Century of Labor Management; Chandler, Visible Hand, appendix A. ""Unemployment in Detroit," Literary Digest, 14 February 1914, p. 358; Boris Emmet, "Labor Turnover In Cleveland and Detroit," Monthly Labor Review, 7 (January 1919): 12-13. '»Sward, Legend of Henry Ford. "John R. Lee, cited In Chandler, Giant Enterprise, p. 191. This is also described by Ford, My Life and Work, and in Ford's testimony to the Committee on Industrial Relations in 1915, p. 7626. U.S. Congress. Senate, Committee on Industrial Relations, Industrial Relations: Final Report and Testimony, 1916, 64th Congress, 1st Session, p. 7626. •'Nevins, Ford. p. 547. "Testimony of Henry Ford, p. 7636-37. "Henry Ford, Today and Tomorrow (London: William Heineman, Ltd., 1926), p. 143. "Ford, My Life and Work, p. 111. "Testimony of Henry Ford, 1915, p. 7627. "Lee, cited In Chandler Jr., Giant Enterprise, p. 192. Ford claimed the department employed fifty Investigators. Ford, My Life and Work, p. 129. "Ford, My Life and Work. p. 128. «Ibid., p. 129. ••Testimony of Henry Ford. 1915, ρ 7628. nMy Life and Work, p. 111. Emphasis mine. 71 It should be emphasized that managerial strategy is also an essential pan of class struggle — in this case, an offensive move by capitalists to maximize profits and minimize discontent within the labor force. I am not suggesting that managerial strategy should be viewed as the long arm of capital controlling every level of society. Instead, the relationship I am trying to suggest is one of conflicting and contradictory class interests, which, by the very nature and existence of struggle, create specific political, economic, and cultural structures. One class may achieve momentary or sus-

396

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

tained dominance in the creation of a specific structure. "David Montgomery, Workers' Control in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). '»Gwendolyn S. Hughes, Mothers in industry (New York: Amo Press, 1977), p. 9.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE The Newberry Library 60 West Walton Street Chicago, IL 60610

397

Janice L. Reiff, Michel R. Dahlin, and Daniel Scott Smith

RURAL PUSH AND URBAN PULL: WORK AND FAMILY EXPERIENCES OF OLDER BLACK WOMEN IN SOUTHERN CITIES, 1880-1900 From the earliest days of the black migration to cities, debate has raged on the effect of urban life on the black family. Although the discussion has often fccused more specifically on the residual effects of slavery, the impact of poverty, or the problems of discrimination, the issue of urbanization has maintained a prominent position whether confronted explicitly or tacitly. 1 Most frequently the urban impact has been assumed to be negative: somehow residence in a city increased the likelihood that a family would not remain intact. Even those scholars like Herbert G u t m a n who stress the basic stability of black families utilize an analytic framework which differentiates rural from urban and implies that city life causes distinctly different familial experiences. 2 Despite this scholarly attention, the city's impact on the black family remains unclear. Historians have mustered only sketchy evidence that the city has been especially detrimental to the black family. Little attempt has been made to determine which, if any, aspects of urban existence were most harmful. Did the higher mortality and lower fertility associated with urban areas lead to household structures distinct f r o m those in rural areas? How did d i f f e r e n t economic opportunities and difficulties affect the options black families had for support and survival? In this paper we show that the impact of urbanization on the black family has been conceived in far too general terms. First, in the initial phases of black urban existence, most blacks had migrated from the countryside. Therefore, rural conditions and the resulting selectivity of migration powerfully influenced the composition of the urban black population. Just as the urban dimension must be seen in its temporal perspective, so too must the family be disaggregated. T h e experience of family life differs for men and women, married and unmarried, and the old and young. The socioeconomic and cultural environments represented by the city and country also have different meanings for these subgroups within the family. More generally we argue that urban processes must be interpreted in contrast to the rural alternative. We focus on a sample of one specific group of blacks — elderly women (over 65) who lived in some seventeen southern cities in 1880. Old people are a particularly interesting group for the analysis of the workings of the family for aging often has concomitants: poor health, the death of a spouse and the maturation and possible departure of children. Old people thus faced the risk of dependency, and their situations could trigger responses by children and others. These peculiar problems of the aged helped to make elderly black women quite susceptible to the vicissitudes of urban life. Yet, despite the general constraints of poverty and racism and the specific problems of the old such as widowhood and physical debility, these older black women possessed several options: whether to reside in the city or the country, whether to work and with whom to live. These choices, limited though they were, provide the means of seeing how these women, and their families, adapted to their situations.

398

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

The women studied here were part of a distinctive cohort who began their lives and bore their children in slavery and only experienced freedom after the age of SO.3 They were part of the wave of black urban migrants who moved to southern cities after the Civil War and created the first large-scale urban black culture in the United Sutes. Few, if any, had lived in cities all their lives. Instead, they came as adults pulled by opportunities present in the cities or pushed by their absence in rural areas. Although cross-sectional census data as used in our samples preclude the precise dating of these women's moves to the city in historical time or in relationship to particular life events, it is possible to reconstruct tenative migration models from other information available. Two facts are especially suggestive here. First, our 1900 data do not show any significant rural-urban survival differentials fo( southern women. Some 36% of the children of women over SS living in southern cities of more than 4,000 persons had died as compared to 3S% of the children of women in non-urban areas. This small differential disappears completely when relevant demographic controls are introduced. 4 The absence of a differential suggests that the children of women living in southern cities in 1900 were not born and raised in the higher mortality urban environment. 5 Furthermore, 79% of all the older black women in cities in 1880 were widows as compared to only 60% in rural areas. Part of this variation might be explained by the sex differential in urban mortality. Assuming that the sex ratio at age 20 was 100 and applying the only death rates available for a southern city in this period produces a sex ratio of 63 for the over 6S age group, the actual sex ratio found in our 1880 urban sample. 6 It is, however, improbable that mortality was the primary cause of sexual imbalance and higher rates of widowhood in the cities. 7 Were that the case, one would have to postulate an opposite differential in male-female death rates in rural areas to account for the high sex ratio there. Black females would have to die at significantly higher rates than did black males, an assumption neither likely nor supported by available data. In-migration accounted for the dramatic increase in the black population experienced by virtually all southern cities in the years immediately after the Civil War. 8 Blacks of all ages were migrants to the cities. As such, they should have experienced the death rates of rural areas, a factor which would negate the calculations above made on long-term urban death rates. Finally, age-specific sex ratio calculations for southern cities in 1900 show a marked tendency for more black women to migrate to urban areas in all categories over IS. 9 This fact coupled with the high proportion of widows among urban black women (between 50-100% higher than for white women) suggests the possibility that black women frequently moved to a city after the death of their spouse, a supposition supported by the child mortality figures cited above. 10 If our assumptions are correct, one must next ask why those women left the country and moved to urban areas. Most probably, old black women came to cities for the same reasons most persons migrated to cities — for jobs not available in rural areas. That work for pay played a more important role in the lives of black women than white women is well-known. In 1900, the precentage of gainfully employed black women over 16 was more than three times as high as that of white women." The racial discrepancy for women 65 and over in the South was even greater with 26.5% of black women working as compared to only 5.2% of the old white women. 12 Clearly work and the availability of work were central concerns for a substantial group of these old black women.

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This appears to have been especially true for the members of our sample who were not currently married. In rural areas of the South, there was little difference between the work rates of married and non-married old black women — roughly one-fifth worked. 13 Cities, however, showed a noticeably different pattern. There about the same proportion of old married black women worked as in the country (23%) but over a third (35%) of the currently unmarried worked. One might argue that the death of the male breadwinner was almost twice as likely to force his widow to work than the death of a rural breadwinner. A more plausible explanation, though, especially given the probable sequence of widowhood preceding urban migration, is that widows moved into towns and cities in search of the domestic and service jobs that were more readily available there. The actual work patterns, in fact, support the latter hypothesis. Of the married women who worked in rural areas, 58% did farm work. Fewer than four percent worked as servants; the rest were laundresses and odd job workers. Unmarried women demonstrated sharply contrasting patterns. Over half (54%) worked as servants and another quarter (26%) did washing and other similar tasks. Only 20% toiled on farms. Widows did not continue to work on farms to the same extent as they had when married; they moved instead into service occupations. Part of the explanation for this switch lay in the tenuous hold southern blacks had on their land. While most of these w o m e n ' s h u s b a n d s worked as farm laborers, sharecroppers or cash tenants, they, with the help of their wives and children, had managed to control parcels of land to secure some kind of existence, even if meager, from it. With their husbands gone, the old women oftentimes lost claim to the land, if they were to continue as agricultural laborers, they had to compete with younger black field hands unless they were lucky enough to own land or to have children who did. In counties in which a large portion of black farmers owned land, a lesser percentage of black wives were gainfully employed. 14 In addition, farm labor was physically grueling. It is possible, indeed even probable, that old women not helping their farmer husbands might prefer less taxing positions such as domestic work. 15 For whichever reason, widowed black women turned to service jobs as the means to support t h e m s e l v e s and t h o s e jobs were overwhelmingly located in cities rather than the countryside. One other related factor might also have encouraged widowed black women to migrate the cities. Published census figures for the South in 1910 show that almost twice as many black women 65-74 in urban areas were childless as the same cohort in rural areas. 1 6 These percentages might reflect the lower urban fertility associated with long-time residence in a city, an interpretation more plausible in 1910 than for our women thirty years earlier. However, they might also illustrate a selective migration of those women and families with fewer or no children to the cities. This group would be less likely to have any means of supporting themselves other than their own labor than those women with more living children. Therefore, they would be more likely to have to move to a location where appropriate job options existed. Who, then, were the old black women who lived in southern cities in 1880? We would hypothesize that they moved to the cities sometime after the Civil War and that few had grown to maturity in an urban area. Some came with husbands and children. Frequently, though, they were widows and probably had been since they left the country. We can only speculate whether those who had living children brought their children with them, but the following table does suggest that urban women were much less likely to have their children near them than did rural women.

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400

TABLE I Children in Household by Maritai Status Black Women 65 Years of Age and Over, 1880

(!)

Rural (I-2SOO) (3) (2)

(4)

(l)

Urban (16.000+) (2) (3)

(4)

Children N o Child.

42.6 57.4

25.0 75.0

62.1 37.9

58.7 41.3

34.3 65.7

100.0 0.0

43.1 56.9

7.7 92.3

Ν Total

115 33.9

4 1.2

203 59.9

17 5.0

35 15.2

1

181 78.7

13 5.7

( 1 ) married

(2) single

(3) w i d o w e d

.4

(4) o t h e r

T h e migration patterns exhibited by these w o m e n already raise serious questions as to the negative impact of urbanization. High rates of widowhood and the absence of children, taken as signs of urban disintegration by some historians, were more likely the results of traumas experienced in rural areas — events which precipitated leaving the country in pursuit of better lives in the cities. 17 Taken separately, however, they do not disprove the contention that the city was harmful to black families; for it is also necessary to consider the fate of these women once they arrived in the cities. Two pressing issues confronted each of these women when she arrived in a city: where to live and how to support herself. For most, the two were closely related; in many instances, the solution to one was also the solution to the other. And in each woman's resolution of the two problems lies a means of seeing how black families survived the pressures of urban living in the first decades after the Civil War. Before virtually all else, these women had to find a place to live. Their options were basically four: to live alone (if widowed) or with her husband (if married), with children, with other kin, or in a household of non-kin. Table U shows which options were chosen. TABLED Living Arrangements of Black Married Women and Widows Southern Cities, 16,000+, 1880 (Rural Figures Given in Parentheses) Widows A l o n e or w / S p o u s e With Children With O t h e r Kin With Non-Kin Ν

Married Women

10.5 42.1 21.0 25.4

(10.8) (62.1) (11.3) (15.8)

31.4 34.3 14.3 20.0

(29.6) (42.6) (20.0) ( 7.8)

181

(203)

35

(115)

" T h e categorization of living a r r a n g e m e n t s is a priority c o d e devised by Ethel Shanas. All w h o live with their c h i l d r e n are so classified; living with o t h e r kin ( s p o u s e excepted) has p r e c e d e n c e o v e r living with n o n - k i n , w h i c h , in t u r n , h a s priority o v e r living alone, o r , if m a r r i e d , with spouse.

Strikingly, no more urban women lived entirely alone than did rural women. In neither locale were old black women expected to live alone nor did they. Where urban women differed sharply from their rural counterparts was in the proportion living with children. Rural widows were almost one and one-half times more likely to share their homes with one or more of their children (62% vs. 42%) than were

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urban widows. For married women, the ratio was 1.24. Correspondingly, urban women were more likely (25% to 13%) to live in households with non-kin. At first glance one might reasonably argue that these figures would prove the more tightly knit nature of the rural family. Such a conclusion, however, would be precipitous. In fact, when demographic controls are introduced, the rural women seem to live with their children less often than urban women. Here again our data can only be suggestive because of the small number of southern old black women in the 1900 sample, but they show that, adjusted for living children, urban women were 26% more likely to live with their children than were rural women. 18 The implication is clear. In the urban milieu, the tendency for an aged mother and her children to live together is as strong as in the country. Source limitations preclude the possibility of performing similar correctives on the proportion of old black women living with other kin but there is little reason to suspect the results would differ greatly from those concerning children. Unless a heavy kin migration took place into southern cities, a phenomenon that has yet to be explored, we would suspect that urban dwellers might also have fewer kin available with whom they could live. In the absence of children and other kin, both preferred living arrangements, these women would have few options except to live with non-kin. This conclusion can be taken even a step further. We could posit that the late 19th century ideal for old women was that they not have to work to support themselves. Certainly such an ideal appears to have been the case among old white women where fewer than eight percent worked. 1 9 It could also be argued that, if old black women who lived with their families also worked less, then black families too were operating to protect their older women in much the same way as white families. The expanded table below shows that to be the case. TABLE III Percent of Old Black Women Working. 1880 By Marital Status, Size of Piace and Living Arrangements Overall percent working (all variables) Size of Place 1-2500

16.000+

Ν

318 216

26

unadjusted eta

adjusted beta

22

24 29

32

.06

II Marital S t a t u s Married Widowed

150 382

22

27

26

26 .05

Living Arrangements Alone With Spouse W i t h Kids O t h e r Kin Non-Kin

41 45 265 89 94

47 23 15

47 23 15 21 56

20 55 .37

R2 = .139 sig. = .001

.01

.36

402

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Although marital status and size of place of residence do affect the percentage of old women working, neither has the impact carried by living situation. Old black women who lived with their children worked less than a third as often as those living with non-kin. Those living with other kin also worked less often than average, as did those living with their spouse. Clearly living with kin and not working were highly correlated. Knowing whether that relationship implies a c o m m i t m e n t to the ideal, however, requires further evidence. Families of old black women might have unwillingly taken them into their homes and have done so only when the women were infirm or otherwise unable to work. Such a situation would produce the results found above just as would the belief that old women should live with their families and not have to work. The census information used thus far does not permit such differentiation. Fortunately, an 1896 Bureau of Labor survey of blacks in Atlanta, Nashville and several other southern cities can provide the necessary data. 20 Included in this survey were questions on household composition, size of dwelling, rent, occupation (s), wages and weeks worked by the head of the household, whether the wife, children or additional household members worked, how much they contributed to the household income, and how many days of work were missed by individual household members, as well as their age and the illness that kept them from working. Using those ages, we were able to identify 69 households containing persons 65 or over, 56 of whom were elderly women. Given that the households we isolated were chosen by the presence of an old person who had been ill, the sample is necessarily biased to overemphasize the sickly old. Nonetheless, it is still the best source we had available. Despite the data's biases against the ideal described above, results based on them support its existence. If infirmity and not working were closely related, then a significant difference should exist between the number of days sick and whether an old woman worked or not. This was not the case. A difference did appear in the average number of days working and non-working women were sick (33.9 and 50.8) but it was not statistically significant. 21 Where a significant difference did occur was in the income earned by the head of the household. In households having an old woman who worked, the average yearly income of the head was $177. In households where old women did not work, the average climbed to S392. 22 Old women worked when it was necessary to support the family and remained at home when it was not. The data also suggest that old women did not work only to provide a more comfortable life for the household. When the combined yearly income of all workers in the family is compared for households of working and non-working women, the average household income was still almost eighty dollars lower for the former. 23 Clearly the pitiable wages contributed by old women, ranging from $8.00 per month at most for laundresses to $17.00 per month for cooks, were necessary for the family's survival. 24 These facts strongly suggest that black families tried to support their older female relatives whenever economically possible. The Bureau of Labor data also show that the families first preferred that males in the household work and then younger females before the old woman was at last pressed into service.2S Both indicate that urban black families subscribed to the belief that old women ought to be cared for, an ideal closely associated with strong family ties. Only in the face of economic want was that ideal set aside. More important here, however, is the fact that virtually no rural-urban difference existed.2® The concern of the family for its old female members seemed to be every bit as strong in the city as in the country.

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The overall picture that emerges from the living and work patterns of thse urban old black women is of strong family ties, a commitment to keeping the family intact, and a familial decision to protect its older members. Nothing in our data suggests that there was a particular "urban effect" which undermined, whether systematically or sporadically, the family relationships of these old women in the city. Indeed, the sketchy available evidence shows a contrary effect. Urban black families seem, at least in certain aspects, even more cohesive than rural black families. In fact, many of the indicators that have been cited as proof of urban dislocation (high rates of working, widowhood and living alone or with nonkin) resulted from events in rural areas which led to a selective migration into the cities. Limitations implicit in our temporal analysis and our samples do not permit the luxury of large scale pronouncements on the impact of urban dwelling on black families. Because they moved to the city so late in their life cycles, old women are a peculiar group far e n o u g h along in their lives that they might be more impervious to any city effects than younger blacks. Black urban migration was only in its first phase in 1880, so long term effects resulting from urban conditions might not have had sufficient time to appear. Moreover, southern urban patterns might well differ drastically from the later northern urban experience. 27 Our data are also not complete enough for us to test for effects caused by factors like poverty, unemployment or job discrimination which could well result from unique conditions in cities. It should also be emphasized that we have focused on the living situation of the majority of black women. Some 26% of black women lived alone or with non-kin. Inasmuch as they had no children, they had to devise new strategies of survival in the urban area. Nonetheless, we can safely conclude that the immediate impact of the city was not negative for these older black women, at least in the first years after emancipation. The city was not a destroyer; instead it provided options that were not available to black women living in the country. This paper has contended that urban effects should be understood by contrasting the conditions in the rural areas of origin to the special features of the urban environment itself. Old women, particularly old widows and most especially those without living children, were partially pushed from their rural homes. Although they found only modest economic opportunity in the city, their chances there were superior to what was available in the country. Moving to the city made sense to them, and it should make sense to historians.

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES FOOTNOTES

The authors would like to thank the National Institute of Aging for its financial support of this project through grant SR01 AG00350-02 They would also like to thank Vogelback Computing Center of Northwestern University for making its facilities available for our use. I. For a general discussion of the logic and details of the sampling procedure, see Daniel Scott Smith. " A Community-Based Sample of the Older Population f r o m the 1880 and 1900 United States Manuscript C e n s u s . " Historical Methods 11 (1978): 67-74. Before choosing the cities for the 1880 urban sample the South was divided into four regions — n o r t h e r n South Atlantic, southern South Atlantic. East South Central and West S o u t h Central (including Missouri). There were 161,451 blacks over age 65 in the South in 1880. Since only 9.8% of the total black population lived in urban places, we had to take a special sample f r o m the 92 southern places with more than 4,000 people in 1880. Before selecting the cities (primary sampling units), the cities were arranged geographically within a region. This procedure increased the chance that, for example, people f r o m both coastal and interior cities would appear in the sample. T h e likelihood that a given city was picked was directly proportional to the total number of blacks in the city. This proportion was weighted to reflect the relative black age-structure of the state within the region. Places with m o r e blacks thus were more likely to enter the sample. There were 20 primary sampling units (PSU's) taken from 17 cities: two each came from Washington. D.C., Baltimore, and New Orleans. T h e other PSU's were Annapolis. Maryland; Richmond, Virginia; Petersburg, Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia; Charleston, South Carolina; Wilmington, North Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; Macon, Georgia; Mobile. Alabama; Louisville, Kentucky; Lexington, Kentucky; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Kansas City, Missouri; and Little Rock, Arkansas. F r o m 22 to 25 blacks age 65 and over were coded from census manuscripts for each primary sampling unit. For comparison, two-thirds as many old whites were coded. T h e essay in Historical Methods describes the sampling procedure for the sample of the rural S o u t h in 1880 and the entire country in 1900. A list of the 31 rural counties in that sample appears in Table 5, page 55, of " T h e Family Structure of the Older Black Population in the American South in 1880 and 1900." by D.S. Smith. Michel Dahlin and Mark Friedberger, Sociology and Social Research 63 (1979). 2. T h e debate over the Moynilan report illustrates these various a r g u m e n t s quite well. See Lee Rainwater and William L. Yancy, The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy (Cambridge. Mass., 1967). 3

The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom Mew York,

1976).

4. T h e following table comes from the 1900 old age sample for those 55 and over.

Grand Mean (N = 605) Blacks Whites LT 4000 GT4000

(N=139) (N=466) (Ν = 510) ( N = 94)

Percent of Children Dead in 1900 34 47 30 34 36

[adjusted for covariates') 34 34

"age of mother and number of children ever born Statistical significance for size of place of residence is .389 also indicating no urban effect 5. See Reynolds Farley, Growth of the Black Population: A Study in Demographic Trends (Chicago. 1970), 61-62, and Edward Meeker, "Mortality Trends of Southern Blacks. 18501910: S o m e Preliminary F i n d i n g s , " Explorations in Economic History 13 (1976): 13-42, especially 29-30.

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6. That city was the District of Columbia. Us life table appears in James W. Glover, United Stales Life Tables. 1890, 1901. 19/0 and 1901 -1910. United States Bureau of the Census (Washington, D C . , 1921). 120-123, tables35-36. 7 For this argument applied to Philadelphia in 1880, see Frank J. Furstenberg, Jr., Theodore Hershberg and John Modell. " T h e Origins of the Female-Headed Black Family: The Impact of the Urban Experience," Journal of interdisciplinary History VI (1975): 211-234, especially 22S-231. 8. Reynolds Farley, " T h e Urbanization of Negroes in the United S t a t e s , " Journal of Social History 1 (1968): 247. 9. Breakdowns providing the necessary sex. race and age categories are not available in earlier censuses. 10. For a discussion of the high rale of widowhood a m o n g southern black women, see Zane L Miller. " U r b a n Blacks in the South. 1865-1920: T h e Richmond. Savannah, New Orleans, Louisville and B i r m i n g h a m E x p e r i e n c e . " in L e o S c h n o r e . The New Urban History, Princeton. N.J.. 1975). 184-204. especially 194-197. 11 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistics of Women at Work (Washington, D C.. 1907). 10. Table I. 12. These figures are for our combined South sample. 1880. Census figures for 1900 show a similar phenomenon. 7.8% of native born white w o m e n of native born parents worked as compared to 28.5% of the black women. Ibid., 12, Table V. 13. Figures from our combined South sample, 1880. Rural is classified as those places having fewer than 2500 residents. Urban means those places with populations over 16.000. An original town category (2500-15,999) has been excluded because of t h e small sample size and uncertainty as to how to classify these cases in a rural-urban dichotomy. 14. Claudia Goldin argues in " F e m a l e Labor Force Participation: T h e Origin of Black and White Differences, 1870 and 1880," Journal of Economic History Π (1977): 92, that women who were single, divorced and widowed went to cities because they were effectively prohibited from renting farm land. 15. A slight difference in the mean ages of women workers in these categories suggests that women worked longer in non-farm occupations. Mean Age of Women Workers over 65 in Selected Job Categories Category Not Working Domestic Work Agricultural Work Miscellaneous Work

Mean Age 73.7 70.1 69.0 72.8

Ν 486 109 25 41

(Includes all black women in the 1880 combined sample.) 16 The exact figure for the urban South is 13.2; for the rural farm South it is 7.4. Full information is available in the U.S. Bureau of the C e n s u s , Sixteenth Census of the United Slates: 1940. Population. Differential Fertility 1940 and 1910. Women bv Number of Children ever born (Washington. D C., 1945), 213, Table 74 17. Miller, op. cit., suggests that the high proportion of widows in southern cities was due to a high number of desertions by black males.

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

18. Only the 1900 data set provides information on the number of children still alive. A comparison of rural (less than 2500) and urban (25.000+) southern old black women produced the following results:

lives alone or w/spouse lives with children lives with other kin lives with non-kin

Number of Own Children Living Rural Urban 0 0 1+ /+ 1 10 1 3 0 1 28 11 7 2 I 0 2 3 1 1

The ratio was computed by taking the total number of urban old women living with children (12) and dividing by the total number of urban women (18) and dividing that number by the result of the same division using the appropriate rural categories (28/53). It should be noted that the child reported by an urban woman with no children living is probably a step child. For black women 55-64 (he corresponding figures were 12/16 for urban dwellers and 17/26 for rural. 19. Women at Work. 12. Table V. 20. U.S. Bureau of Labor. Commissioner s Report Λ Ί 0 (Washington. D C.. 1897). We thank Elizabeth Pieck for calling these data to our attention. 21. Ν working=l 1, Ν not working= 15,sig. = .5927. 22. Ν working = 1 2 , Ν not working=20, sig. = .0630. 23. Ν working» 11. Ν not w o r k i n g s 18, sig.=6052. 24. See Linda Johnson, "Wage Data for Various Occupations in the South. 1870 and 1880." appendix to Goldin. op. cit. The available data figures in the 1896 sample suggest very similar rates. For example, an old woman averaged $2.00 per week as a laundress. A cook's salary (no old women were included here) averaged $3.40 per week. 25. This hierarchy was produced by a discriminant analysis on the data using work/not work as the dependent variable. The head's wages, the number of males and the household size were the only significant variables when virtually all possible variables were included. Knowing those three variables permits the correct classification of cases 72% of the time. 26. See Table III above. 27. The findings of Elizabeth Pieck appearing in her Black Migration and Poverty: Boston. 1865-1900 (New York. 1979) suggest that both are factors that need to be carefully considered before generalizing from the experiences outlined here.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

Our Own Kind: Family and Community Networks Judith E. Smith The Rhode Island working class has been continually reconstituted by succeeding waves of immigration In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. First Irish, then French Canadian, then Italian, Jewish, and Portuguese: all have come from peasant consnunitles to resettle in the mill towns and Industrial cities of

the state. Listening to immigrants describe their daily life in the old country and in the New World, one is repeatedly struck by their frequent references to the family. Looking more closely at the process by which thousands of immigrants found their way to Rhode Island, one sees that family ties provided the links of the chain that extended from communities in Europe to communities in Rhede Island. The family stands at

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES the very center of their work and life. To focus on the immigrant family, then, is to begin to understand the texture of social life in immigrant communities transplanted in the New World. Recent work in the history of the family has raised questions about the timing and character of change in family life. Standard views of this change held that the family began to lose its productive functions with the onset of industrialization and that this fundamental lose necessitated other changes: the family moved from an extended to a nuclear household, from a producer to a consumer economic unit, from a public to a private sphere.(1) New research, however, has provided examples of societies and families that defy this categorization. Nuclear families existed long before the beginnings of industrialization, Just as family producer units continued to coexist with large modern Industrial organization.(2) This research has generated a more flexible model of social change in which the family is seen as taking its particular form from the complex and shifting interaction of an inherited cultural tradition, the social relations of production, and the legal provisions of the state. By its challenge and adaptation to existing structures of production and social life, the family stands in a dialectical relation to its own history and to its environment.(3) Immigrant families provide particularly rich material with which to explore the implications of this formulation. Imnersed in a comnon cultural tradition, they moved abruptly to an alien one, where they confronted quite different structures of production.* In effect, they experienced change in their own lifetimes that elsewhere required generations to unfold. My work follows the reshaping of southern Italian and eastern European Jewish family traditions in a fast-paced, urban, industrial environment. The study is based on an analysis of the work and family histories of 160 Italian families and seventy-one Jewish families, who came to Providence between 1880 and 1914 and settled in the ethnic neighborhoods of Federal Hill and Smith Hill. These families were drawn from the 1915 Rhode Island state census and traced through state censuses, city directories, and birth, marriage and death records. The histories extend from the families' arrival in Providence to 1940, long enough in most cases to see the second generation Berried and settled into work. The restricted size and neighborhood setting of the group of families are

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE at once a problem and an advantage. As the numbers are too small to be conclusive, the experiences of these immigrants can only be suggestive. But the limited scale also means that X have been able to trace these immigrants in detail, situating them in the context of their lives in family and neighborhood networks, an important dimension of immigrant history often lost or ignored. Given the limitations of these public sources which systematically under-reported women's activities, I have attempted to trace whole families: mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, daughters as well as sons, in addition to cousins and grandparents. I have used traditional literary sources, oral history interviews, and collected family histories to give texture to the account gleaned from the public record. The analysis of immigrant family traditions in Providence reveals neither a sharp uprooting nor a simple continuity. Italian and Jewish lsmigrants brought with then traditions of family and family work groups which had evolved in the particular agrarian economy of the south of Italy and in the artisancommercial economy of Jewish c o m m m i t i e s in the Pale. Through the social and economic transformations taking place in Europe and the personal transformation undergone during migration, the family group proved to be the critical resource which facilitated both the m i gration to the U.S. and the » e s t a b l i s h m e n t of immigrant communities here. Families migrated on the basis of kin ties and settled near relatives, recreating collective family economies and using the conditions In their new neighborhoods and workplaces to establish connections between households. The traditions of mutual support and obligations which operated inside families were embodied in the comnunity Institutions that immigrants built.

For both Italians and Jews in the different economic contexts of southern Italy and eastern Europe, the family group was the work group. Southern Italian immigrants to Providence came from towns in Abruzzi, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, and Sicily. The economic structure of these regions depended upon the household as the primary form of economic organization. There were very few large estates in these regions still intact by the end of the nineteenth century. The break-up of the large estates did not lead to an equal land distribution, but it did increase the number of peasants who owned land. Generally, small, medium, and large holdings

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES ranged side by side In each district. M o s t of the land was divided Into small parcels which were cultivated Independently. Partible inheritance traditions and the role of land in marriage settlements led to increasing subdivision of the land. Land changed hands frequently and ownership, rental, eharecropping, and wage labor were all consson. (4) The small size of land plots in the south limited the size of the agricultural work group to an individual family, usually parents and unmarried children, although households sometimes included aging parents who could no longer work. Even w h e n the families owned land, the plots were too small to sustain them fully, and most families combined agricultural work with non-agricultural pursuits. Cash was usually scarce.(5) One Italian immigrant from Sicily described how her family combined work in their own fields, work in other fields for wages, and craft work for the market: "Angelina, her siblings, and her mother and father all lived w i t h her grandmother in a small farmhouse which had been paesed down to them as family land. Although they did own the house and the land around it, their annual Income was just enough to sustain them .The family lived from their own land and their job was to raise enough crops and produce to live on for the year In days when there w a s little to do on the farm, Maria, the mother, would send the children to neighboring farms to help pick the vegetables and fruits for an average 3¿ a day. while she herself would do extra weaving to sell."(6) The survival of the family was dependent on the work of all its members; this meant mothers as well as fathers, children as well as parents. O f t e n wages were paid to the head of the household for the labor of all family members. Usually, all worked in the fields; additionally, women cooked, cared for children, washed and patched worn clothes, and marketed extra produce. Rarely did all members of the family work in the same place, since fami lies frequently farmed several plots at some distance from each other. In some parts of western Sicily, women worked in nearby garden plots while men worked in fields at a greater distance from their towns. Family members did not necéssarily do the same kind of work, since mothers, sons, and daughters were likely to be hired out as wage laborers if the family required additional income for food, fuel, and taxes for the year.(7) The Jewish inmigrants to Providence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries came from

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE the western borders of Russia and from Poland, the area known ae the Pale of Settlement. Laws in 1882 and 1891 forced the resettlement of Jews from rural v i l l a g e s , and from other regions of Russia, Into the crowded c i t i e s of the Pale. By the census of 1897, Jews represented f i f t y - e i g h t percent of the urban population in the northwestern provinces of Russia.(8) The law e x p l i c i t l y prohibited Jews from working on the land, and the settlement laws had the e f f e c t of keeping Jews out of the larger industrial establishments—sugar m i l l s , mines, smelting and metal works, glass works—situated outside the towns. So Jews worked in trade, artisan c r a f t s , and in small-scale manufacturing, disproportionately to their numbers; Jews made up only 11.6 percent of the population of the provinces which composed the Pale, but by 1898 were f o u r - f i f t h s of i t s c o m e r c i a l class, two-thirds of i t s artisan c l a s s , and one third of i t s industrial class.(9) At t h i s point, both trade and the kind of manufacture in which Jews took part were organized on a small scale, and were frequently carried on in small shops in the front o f , or nearby, people's homes. Most artisans were self-employed, and according to one account, "the a r t i s a n ' s home i s the a r t i s a n ' s shop." Like Italians, Jews were mostly l i k e l y to work in family groups. The settlement laws placed Jews in a marginal economic position. Even within the Pale, they were restricted to a few hundred l a r g e r and smaller towns that were not p a r t i c u l a r l y w e l l suited to either commerce or industry. Kiev, the most important commercial and i n d u s t r i a l center, was closed to Jews. Without freedom of movement, the a b i l i t y to earn a living in small trading or artisanship was limited, and Jews were forced into intense competition with each other. Seasonal unemployment and frequent periods of poverty resulted. By the 1890's, about twenty percent of the Jewish population in the Pale required charity to buy the matzoh with which to c e l e brate Passover; in V i l n a , nearly thirty-eight percent of the Jewish population received charity f o r Passover. (11) These l i m i t s on their economic a b i l i t y made Jewish households similarly dependent on the labor of a l l family members. As in I t a l y , women cooked, cleaned, cared f o r children, and produced and marketed home manufactured items. In the northwest provinces, especially, women worked as seamstresses, m i l l i n e r s , knit goods makers, and cigarette makers, in small shops and f a c t o r i e s . The oldest daughter of a t a i l o r , living in a small town not too f a r from Minsk, recalled the means by which her family managed to l i v e , especially a f t e r her father was forced to leave home

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES to avoid conscription into the Czar's army: "As soon as we were able to hold a needle, we were taught to sew. Mother taught us how to spin...[the mother sewed for women in the village, and the blind grandmother knitted stockings to sell]. Of course, the stockings had to be looked over, the lost stitches found and mended carefully. That was m y work And Grandfather ...would go to the village to see if there were any pots to mend. Grandfather had clever hands. He could do anything with a pen knife and a piece of wood. And in mending pots he was a perfect artist."(12) Complex social and economic changes were transforming southern Italy and eastern Europe in the late nineteenth century, unsettling ordinary family economic strategies, lending new urgency to the dependence of family members on each other, creating the conditions which prompted immigration of family groups. In southern Italy, population increases expanded the number of young men and women entering the labor market. Commercialization of agriculture in other parts of Italy made the traditional agricultural methods of the south less competitive, so that families' needs for extra, non-agricultural income were increased. But industrialization in other parts of Italy diminished the availability of the artisan work on which sons and daughters had depended to supplement the family budget. Although the broader diffusion of property rights held out the hope that families might be able to accumulate land and provide for their sons and daughters, the means of adding to family income in order to do this were diminishing.(13) One peasant from Abruzzi described both the raised hopes and the economic constraints which prompted his father's emigration to the U.S.: "The year before, my father had been trying to better our conditions. He had hired two large pieces of arable ground on which he had toiled every minute of daylight during that whole season. Having no money to make the first payment on the land, he had to borrow some at a very high rate of interest. At the end of that season, after selling the crops, he found that he had just barely enough to pay back the rest of the rent and to pay back the loan with the enormous interest....That season of excessive toil made my father much older. His tall strong body was beginning to bend. He had become a little clumsy and slower. And the result of his futile attempt made him moody and silent. He would sit on our doorstep in the evening and gaze out."(14) Jewish families experienced new instability and uncertainty in their customary way of life. The abo-

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE lición of serfdom in 1861 dissolved the traditional relationship between nobles and peasants, and, with it, the place of Jews as agents and middlemen. The waves of pogroms, violent attacks on Jewish communities in the 1880's and 1900's, were brutal evidence of the new, more uncertain relationship between Jew and peasant. The introduction of modern industrial tools depressed, but did not displace, artisan craft, while the increased production of the machines, which forced manufacturers to seek wider markets, meant that artisans began to produce for stores rather than for individual customers. All through the last part of the nineteenth century, the economic position of the Jews in Russia deteriorated at the same time as their numbers increased. From 1847 to 1897, the number of Jews in the Pale tripled. The move from village to city undermined the traditional shtetl culture that had characterized the Jewish community for hundreds of years. But new ideas flourished in the vacuum: the religious enthusiasm of Hasidism, the modern enlightenment thought of Haskalah, the development of a secular Yiddish literature and cultural movement, Yiddishkeit, the political ideology of socialism, the notion of a Jewish rebirth through Zionism. Again, it was against a background of economic constraint and cultural transformation that the Jewish Immigration, like the Italian Immigration, took place.(IS) In the context of these shifting comnunities, the family economic unit was even more critical for survival in Southern Italy and Russia. Innnigration was itself a family response to changing conditions. Young Italian men and women In search of new opportunities to supplement their family income came to the United States to work and start families here. Some did return to Italy, and many families continued to send money there to support family members who remained. But most families stayed in Providence, seeming evidence of a reorientation, a decision to sink roots here. Jews, in search of less circumscribed economic opportunities, and sometimes in escape from specific attacks on their cosmunities, left their homeland when convinced that life there was hopeless, and they often pulled up stakes as family groups to resettle permanently in the United States. The family was thus at the center of the migration process. The family economic unit was easily adaptable to migration. Migrants could look to brothers, sisters, and cousins who had gone before them to send passage money and to secure housing and Jobs for the new arrivals.(16) Although migration

413

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES chains were based primarily on family groups, migrants did noe all arrive at the same time, and migration had Its own potentially disruptive effects on traditional family expectations. Parents too old to make the journey had to die alone in the old country. Men left wives and children behind while they came to America to earn the money to bring the others over. One brother stayed behind to cultivate the family land while another made the journey across the ocean. Newcomers valued Intensely whichever of their relatives were close by, as much for their connection to a familiar past as for their skills in negotiating the new environment. Because of this structural relationship between families and migration, kinship ties connected much of the imnlgrant comnunity. Over half of the Italians and one third of the Jews lived near kin when they first appeared in the Providence city records. By 1951, three-fifths of the Italians and nearly half of the Jews had brothers, sisters, parents, cousins, and married children in their own households or nearby. The proximity of these relatives meant that extra connections between households compensated in part for incomplete family groups. Most of these relatives lived near enough to each other to meet daily to exchange news, gossip, meals, and child care. Of the Italians who had kin in Providence in 1915, threefourths lived within one block of each other, and 94 percent were within walking distance, seven to eight blocks. As one Sicilian immigrant whose family settled in Rochester, New York, explained: "Most of my relatives lived within one neighborhood, not more than five or six blocks from each other. That was as far apart as they could live without feeling that America was a desolate and lonely place. If it could have been managed, they probably would have lived under one roof."(17) The Interaction between families involved lmnlgrants in reciprocal obligations as well as expectations of support. An Italian immigrant to Providence, Maria A., described how she and her family lived with her uncle, his wife, father, and step-mother. "As I grew up, living conditions were a bit crowded, but no one minded because we were a family." Issnigrants looked to their close kin for help in times of trouble. After Maria's mother died, her aunt helped her to take care of the younger children in her family, and she felt "thankful we all lived together." A Jewish immigrant to Providence who lived in a tene-

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE ment owned by his sister-in-law remembered how the children ran in and out of both families' apartments. His son recalled that the family paid no rent for several years when his father was out of work.(18) The ethnic neighborhoods where imnigrants settled provided a context in which traditional economic interdependence of family members could be recreated and new connections between families developed. The sheer concentration of ismigrants in these neighborhoods made them cultural enclaves. The movement from Italy and Russia to Providence gathered momentum in the 1880's, reaching its peak for both groups around 1905. The steady stream of immigrants from regions in Southern Italy and provinces of the Pale created neighborhoods where families clustered together, surrounding themselves with familiar accents, sights, and sounds. By the 1890's, the Irish who had originally inhabited Federal Hill and Silth Hill had moved out to less densely populated sections of the city, abandoning these areas to Italian and Jewish immigrants. (19) The needs of the crowded immigrant neighborhoods for goods and services provided a ready-made market for artisans and shopkeepers to sell their wares. Some immigrant craftsmen were able to establish themselves in their neighborhoods; by 1915, many had their own shops, or, at least, a front room in their tenements, and continued to work for themselves in or next door to their homes until they retired. Immigrants looked to their countrymen to cut a wedding suit, perhaps with a slightly more American style. Certainly one would look to a paesan or a landsman for mending shoes, sharpening knives, and buying fruit. Bakers made familiarly shaped loaves and grocers stocked favorite foods. Many kept accounts for credit, and shoppers could hear news of home and bargain in their own language. Some lmnigrant artisans moved beyond the world of the ethnic neighborhood; some of the tailors fitted suits in downtown department stores by 1930. But most continued to depend on the iannigrant neighborhood for their livelihood. And, as in che old country, where craft skills were passed from generation to generation, artisan brothers worked with brothers, and shopkeepers looked forward to the day when their business could support a son or son-in-law. For neighborhood artisans and their families, and for retail shopkeepers, the family continued to be the work group, as it had been in the old country. The overlap of home and workplace meant that women and children could work alongside their husbands and

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES fathers without neglecting hone duties. One Italian Immigrant daughter remembered combining school and w o r k in a family bakery: "I can remember rising as early as five o'clock to make the bread and clean the trays before going to school. At home I was given a certain amount of time to do m y chores and home w o r k , and then my father would check to see what w a s accomplished. I received an eighth grade education and was satisfied to work in my father's business. Both of my brothers also worked in the bakery, although it w a s not demanded that w e do so . . . . I also managed the books at work as I was very good with figures." (20) The Immigrant neighborhood provided women and children with another way to earn m o n e y at home. They might cook, and clean for boarders a n d lodgers, who were likely to be new ΉΠΙΒΙ grants working for the passage money to bring other members of their own families to this country. The needs of newer migrants for room and board meant that women could be economically productive by extending the services they were providing for their own families. One Italian daughter remembered: "Her mother took in boarders, three at a time: everyone ate together, she [the daughter] washed and ironed their clothes, and the boarders paid accordingly." Families used their living space as a resource to extend limited Incomes. A Jewish salesman's daughter remembered that her family had m e t hard times by renting the room her invalid grandmother had been sharing with her aunt : "My grandmother and mother got m y room and Ann [her aunt] and I shared the sofa In the living room."(21) Industrial homework provided another w a y for women and children to earn money at home. Various Providence industries divided and subdivided the process of manufacture, resulting in the proliferation of small tasks which could b e done outside the shops. Homework provided manufacturers w i t h a cheap reserve labor force for the busy seasons. Snaps to card, chains to' link, military buttons to stamp on a foot press, rosary beads to string, artificial flowere to stem, lace threads to pull; all were widely available in Providence on a seasonal basis. Often the work was subcontracted through neighborhood networks, w i t h one one woman acting as a distributor for families within several blocks.(22) Most immigrant families needed more than one wage earner; as one homeworker explained: "We didn't have enough money with just one m a n working." Clearly, homework was an important alternative to going out to work for women who had children at home: "I have two

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE children and would rather be home to get them something to eat at mealtime." As little money as homework produced, it was a way for women to be economically productive, as this woman explained : "I like to have my own money. I like the work and would rather have $50 earned by myself than $100 saved out of my husband's pay. "(23) The Children's Bureau investigators who arrived in Providence in 1918 to report on child labor found to their dismay that children routinely helped their mothers with homework. They found homework most common in the Italian and French-Canadian neighborhoods, although they found evidence of it in most of the working-class neighborhoods of the city. One Jewish son remembered working o n jewelry his father brought home from work in the busy season before Christmas. Children in the Italian neighborhood even brought chains to school to link at recess on the fine spring days, and the Children's Bureau investigators also found some teachers at those schools assigning homework at school so their classes could contribute to Liberty Bonds or Red Cross.(24) Homework provided a means of earning money which was taken for granted in the Irani grant neighborhoods, part of a varied family-based economy. Skirting the neighborhoods were the jewelry shops, machine shops, and textile mills which employed others of the immigrant generation. Where the size of fields in southern Italy and the overcrowded market competition of the cities in the Pale had discouraged the formation of work groups larger than one family, the recruitment methods of the factories lent themselves to developing connections between families. The factories were new work places for southern Italians and generally larger in scale and more modern in machinery than factories where Jews may have worked in Russia. But the Immigrants made the factories more familiar by working in them with their brothers and sisters. The foreman's control over hiring made it relatively easy for inmigrants to get jobs for one another. Men offered to speak to their foremen for newly arrived brothers, and if there was work, the brother usually got it. Sisters did the same for younger sisters. These kin connections at work were prominent in Immigrants' descriptions of their jobs: In a rubber plant: "...A little later on, I was more in a position, you know what I mean, to help some of my relatives get a job. See? And so, I think I must have got at least seven or eight of them. I got Angelo a job over there, and m y brother Michele the job, and my brother Albert, one time, and I think

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES there were a couple of others on the outside, too. Ύ 2 5 ) In textllee: "It was almost a family affair there, all cousins and relatives working there, everybody." (26) In an optical shop: "My uncle was foreman there....That was my first job. I worked there with my mother....My sister worked there a while, too." (27) The connections between families which ran through neighborhood and workplace were extended beyond family to the level of community in the mutual benefit societies which Italian and Jewish workers organized In their own communities in Europe, and then in Providence. Tinnii grants looked to these societies, which distributed sickness and death benefits, as an extension of the mutual support and obligations they experienced in their own families. The mutual benefit societies, in turn, articulated the traditions of mutual obligation on a community-wide basis, thus providing a justification for punishment through collective action of those who operated outside of community norms. Mutual benefit societies had proliferated in southern Italy in the last part of the nineteenth century, generated by the same social and economic changes that sparked Immigration. In Palermo, Sicily, there were nine such organizations by the I860's, including groups of fruit vendors, agricultural workers, and master shoemakers. The organizations were often commune-wide, and included important local or national figures as honorary members while restricting active members to working men, men who derived their livelihood from their own labor. The division in southern Italiar town life often dictated that there be two local societies, one for the town workers who saw themselves as more of an entrepreneurial group, and one for agricultural workers. These societies engaged in educational self-help activities, and organized producer and consumer cooperatives as well as providing sick and death benefits for members.(28) Transplanted in Providence, most Italian societies were formed along provincial lines. By 1919, there were one hundred societies in Providence, seventy of which were based on provincial loyalties, a cotranon dialect, patron saint, and social and religious customs.(29) One Providence observer remarked, "A great number of organizations such as the Società Arcese, Società Teanese, Circolo Frosolone, and others initially constitute provinces of their own in the community. To attend their meetings and listen to their business conducted in a characteristic dialect

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE is like crossing from one Italian province into another." (30) In addition to their function a s a source of social and cultural roots for their members, the aid of the mutual benefit societies extended the resources of the hard-pressed immigrant families. The societies made payments if a member vas sick and could not work, often providing the care of their own doctor. When a member died, the smaller societies at least insured that there would be proper ceremony at the funeral by paying the expenses of the band, and the larger and wealthier societies paid all funeral expenses. Each society also sponsored an annual feast day in honor of the patron saint of their village, and these celebrations, complete w i t h band concerts, parades, and fireworks, were an Important assertion of the Italian presence in Providence. (31) In the Pale, mutual benefit societies called chevrahs had formed along trade lines as g r o u p s of m e n who prayed and read the Torah together. M u t u a l obligations of members began with night vigils w i t h sick members and participation in the services for the dead, and naturally extended into sickness a n d death benefits. In the increasing economic crisis of the last half of the nineteenth century, chevrahs began to split along class lines. In one city, for example, there were separate chevrahs of independent craftsmen and workingmen of ladies' tailors, carpenters, dyers, and stove builders, and joint chevrahs for shoemakers, jewelers and watchmakers, tin workers, roofers, and locksmiths. The ladies' tailors' chevrah also acted as a union, negotiating for wages and hours. The Jewish labor movement, the bund, also provided organizational form to groups outside of the traditional crafts. Draymen in Pinsk and Berdichev, boatmen in Kovno, hotel attendants in Pinsk and Slonim, and domestic workers in Warsaw, Grodno, Mogilevm Bobruisk, Pinsk, and Dvinsk had organizations, which struck for higher wages and shorter hours.(32) In Providence, chevrahs reappeared in different forms: as congregations based on provincial ties organized to read the Torah together and as local lodges of national Jewish organizations w h i c h provided sickness and death benefits. The first Russian chevrah in Providence, B'nai Zion, was started by immigrants from the northwestern provinces of the Pale in 1874; and in 1889 the Polish members split off to form their own congregation which would use their own more familiar form of ritual. Congregations from other provinces and from Austria formed in the follow-

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lng years.(33) Huge parades, bands, and celebrations would accompany a chevrah as It moved from temporary quarters to a more permanent building, ae occurred in 1906 when Congregation Sons of Jacob moved into a new building on Douglas Avenue. According to the newspaper, thousands were in the streets to celebrate the transfer of the holy scriptures from one place to the other, listening to Russian music, carrying red, white and blue streamers, American flags, and Jewish flags.(34) The chevrah B'nai Zion increased in size with immigration from the northwestern provinces: it grew to include a chevrah concerned with care for the dead in 1876, a chevrah responsible for care of the sick, in 1890, and two chevrahs for study of different parts of the Talmud in 1892.(35) The local lodges included a workingman's circle and a Hebrew trades'

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE association which organized along trade lines for self-help and collective bargaining.(36) One Jewish daughter In New York described the importance of her father'β chevrah to him: "Father belonged to a society of which he was an active member. The men often came to our house to talk things over with him, and he felt Important and often offered our front room for coranittee meetings. Before they opened the meeting they always assured mother that they would not keep us later than ten. But when the time came they were always so deep in discussion that they never even heard the clock strike the hour. I used to sit in the doorway of the kitchen and front room from where I could see all their faces and listen to their heated arguments. Always it was a piece of burial ground that was the subject of discussion and when a member, or anyone belonging to his family, died, whether the rest of the members should contribute an extra dollar to cover burial expenses and whether as a society they should or should not employ a doctor and pay him out of the society fund. At twelve or even later they would at last break up with the question of the burial ground and the extra dollar and the doctor still unsettled. "Then mother and I would go into the front room, coughing and choking from the cigarette smoke and open up the folding cots and carry the sleeping children to bed. The little ones often cried at being awakened to undress. But father, if he had succeeded in carrying a point, and in the knowledge that he had served the society In giving the room, went to bed smiling. "(37) The tradition of mutual support and obligation led the Immigrant coamunltles to apply collective pressure when they felt that individuals were neglecting their responsibilities and taking advantage of the support of the community. In August 1914, Italians attended two mass meetings protesting the high price of food before they took to the streets Saturday night, August 29, to mete out special punishment to a pasta wholesaler who had raised prices. The wholesaler, Frank P. Ventrane, was a prominent businessman in the Italian comnunity who had come to Providence in the 1880's from Isernia, a city from which many Italians had emigrated to Providence. Over a thousand people marched through Federal Hill, shattered the windows in a block of property owned by Ventrone, and then dumped his stock of macaroni and staples into the street. The participants saw this as an internal community issue and resisted the intervention of the police. According to newspaper

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES accounts, "Jeers and catcalls greeted the police as they tried to clear the area," and "night sticks were freely used." "Every time the patrol was sent to the Knight St. station with a prisoner, It was a signal for the Bob to hurl at the police anything they could grab." When the police returned to Federal Hill the next afternoon, ostensibly to make an arrest on a non-support charge, Italians again resisted the intrusion of the police in a three-hour struggle which the newspapers called "the worst riot in the annals of the city."(38) On Monday, a meeting between the Italian Socialist Club and a representative of Ventrone negotiated an agreement which substantially lowered the price of pasta. The Italian newspaper, in its editorial the next week, articulated the basis on which coonunity sanctions' had been applied when they argued that "Signor Ventrone...owes everything to our colony," and thus had a responsibility to the comminlty which he did not meet until pressure was brought to bear on him. "Our brave colony, when we all stand together, will be given justice."(39) In 1910, women of the Jewish comminity In South Providence, a Jewish neighborhood similar to that on Smith Hill, took a similar action when they declaréd "war against the kosher butchers," because of price increases. The women planned to boycott meat sold by the kosher butchers in their commmity until "the meat has come down to the prices which the people could afford." The women picketed the shops, and dissuaded shoppers from buying meat. The butchers attempted to mobilize their own support by going on a house-tohouse canvass to drum up business, in some cases bringing meat to families who had not ordered it. The women strikers sent delegates to the houses with an explanation of the boycott to persuade the families to rescind their orders, and "in every case, it was said, the butchers were instructed to send after the meat." (40) More than simply prices were at stake. The strikers' demands included "respectable treatment of the customers," echoing demands of Dvinsk domestic workers for private rooms and Kishinev shop workers for "polite treatment of employees." Other demands Insisted on "fresh meat wrapped in clean paper and not In newspaper as has been the custom in some of the shops," as well as a "reduction in the price of all cuts of meat." The police were called out to keep the women picketing the shops from blocking the entrances and biting prospective customers. The women won their

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE protest when another butcher opened a shop In the neighborhood, offering meat at the prices they demanded. The other butchers reluctantly lowered their prices as well.(41) Both Italian and Jewish inmigrante actively recreated their family traditions in the procees of building a new life in Providence, and in so doing, participated in the transformation of these traditions. Over time, changes in work opportunities and family residence patterns loosened the closely-woven networks of kin and comnunity which defined dally life in the old neighborhoods. The process of change involved both the shifting of external circumstances and the reordering of individual and family priorities. The workplaces of the immigrant generation were profoundly affected by large-scale economic shifts in the twentieth century: changes in marketing and retailing, expansion of the white-collar sector, technological and management-oriented directions of production. Small craft shops suffered from competition with department stores and ethnic food shops lost ground to supermarkets.(42) The eons and daughters of self-employed tailors, shoemakers, and peddlars became salespeople and clerks in those department stores and supermarkets, or automobile and insurance salesmen, working in English-language worlds outside the experience of their parents. Sons and daughters of factory workers who thoaselves worked in jewelry shops and in the dwindling number of textile mills worked on new machines which made the skills of their parents obsolete, and at speeds which would have made their parents' heads spin. Families continued to operate as Interdependent economic groups, but changing working conditions altered the responsibilities that women and children held. Families still expected every member to work, but production moved out of the home with the decline of neighborhood craft and retail shops, the immigration restriction which cut down the supply of available boarders, and the decreased availability of homework after its prohibition in the National Recovery Administration codes. It was harder for women to combine productive work with child care, and the patterns and timing of mothers' work shifted. Instead of working when their children were young, and then turning to their children for supplementary wage earning when they were old enough to work, mothers waited until all their children were in school to work. Family economic responsibility was still shared.

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Even without counting the work of some married women, largely invisible in the public record, virtually all the Italian and Jewish families still in Providence in 1930 had an average of two wage earners per family, usually father and child. Sons and daughters still routinely gave their paychecks to their families, but the tradition of the children's contribution to the family began to encounter resistance. When children helped their mothers and fathers with boarders, homework, or by standing behind the counter In a shop, the Income thus produced was clearly generated by family effort. But now sons and daughters were unmistakably working for their own wages. Sons and daughters had a stronger sense of their own needs, peer pressure towards certain kinds of consumption, and a feeling of entitlement to their own earnings. Some children arranged for a larger share of their wages Indirectly: "Mary and her sisters resented turning over every cent they worked for and having a small allowance handed out to them to buy needed clothing, personal items, and for leisure activities. They became adept at sewing, knitting, crocheting, making do, and borrowing from mother."(A3) Other children simply withheld part of their paychecks. Uhlle an older sister dipped into her wages only to treat herself to carfare on payday, her younger sister responded differently: "I'll never forget the time I got my first pay, you know, I'm altogether different from the way she [her older sister] is....I went downtown first, and I spent a lot, more than half of my money....I just went hog wild, I guess. And I came home, and we used to have to hand our pays in. So I gave my father what I had left and he threw it at me. So, I just picked it up and took the rest of It. The next week he didn't throw it at me, he just kept what I gave him."(44) Families continued to build connections between households, but the community context which had supported and extended these relationships shifted. Families continued to live near enough to each other for help and support, and when the sons and daughters of the lmnlgrant generation married, they frequently chose tq live near their parents. In 1930, sixty percent of Italian married children lived at the same address as their parents, presumably in another floor of a triple-decker, and another twelve percent lived within four blocks. Only thirty percent of Jewish married children lived in the same building as their parents, but an additional forty percent lived within four blocks. But the Italian and Jewish communities as a whole had spread out over the city. Less than half of the Italians and Jews who had lived on Federal Hill and Smith Hill still lived there in

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE 1930. Some families left the city altogether. Italians moved with their children to two houses next door to each other on a tree-lined street in Mount Pleasant, or to two houses around the corner from each other in suburban Cranston. Jewish families moved farther west on Smith Street, and to the less crowded blocks in South Providence. Families in these less ethnically homogeneous neighborhoods were less likely to come from the same province in the old country, lees likely to share a common past· The loosening of neighborhood and provincial ties combined with the provisions of social security and company Insurance plans eroded the traditions of the mutual benefit societies that had extended family relationships on a community-wide basis. Though there were differences between the Italian and Jewish experience, both groups illustrate the manner in which Immigrants used the family traditions they brought with them from Europe to shape their new environment. This transformation of inmigrante' lives from generation to generation illuminated a process of family change which in other circumstances took longer to develop. As the settings of work and community changed, the context In which family networks operated was altered, and old networks were loosened. But at the same time, new possibilities were created for new kinds of connections, across ethnic lines, at work in the large companies and in factories, in the new Industry-wide CIO unions, in leisure activities and political clubs in the newer ethnically-mixed neighborhoods. These new kinds of community, created out of a waning Immigrant consciousness, must be the focus of investigations into contemporary working-class culture.

Notes 1. Talcott Parsons, "The Social Structure of the Family," In R.N. Anshen (ed.), The Family; Its Function and Destiny (New York, 1949), pp. 173-201; Neil Smelser, "The Industrial Revolution and the British Working Class," Journal of Social History 1 (1967), 17-35; John Demos, A Little Commonwealth: F«""-ily Life In Plymouth Colony (New York, 1970); Eli Zaretsky, Capitalism, the Family and Personal Life (New York, 1976); Barbara Laslett, "The Family as a Public and Private Institution: An Historical Perspective," Journal of Marriage and the Family 35 (August, 1973), 480-94. 2. Peter Laslett, The World We Rave Lost (New

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES York, 1965); Michael Anderson, Family Structure in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire (Cambridge, 1971); Elizabeth H. Pieck, "Two Worlds In Gbe," Journal of Social History (Winter, 1976). 3. This critique appeared in Lutz Berkner, "The Stem Family and the Developmental Cycle: A n Eighteenth-Century Austrian Example," American Historical Review 77 (1972), 398-418, and "The Use and Misuse of Census Data for the Historical Analysis of Family Structure," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 5 (Spring, 1975), 721-38. I have been particularly influenced in my own analysis by the critiques of functionalism in Pieck, "Two Worlds in One," and in Lise Vogel, "Rummaging Through the Primitive Past: A Note on Family, Industrialization, and Capitalism," Newberry Papers in Family and Camnunity History, 1976. A. J.S. MacDonald, "Agricultural Organization, Migration, and Labor Militancy in Rural Italy," Economic History Review 16 (August, 1963), 68-70; Sydel Silverman, "Agricultural Organization, Social Structure, and Values in Italy: Amoral Famllism Reconsidered," American Anthropologist 70 (February 1968), 11-15; Josef Barton, Peasants and Strangers; Italians, Roumanians, and Slovaks in an American City, 1890-1950 (Cambridge, Mass., 1975), pp. 30-35. 5.

Silverman, "Agricultural Organization," 11-15.

6. GB, University of Rhode Island, New England Family History Collection, hereafter referred to as URI-NEFHC. The work of Sharon Strom, Jim Findlay and Valerie Quinney (members of the History Department at URI) in sponsoring the collection of oral and family histories has been Invaluable to m y research. 7. Silverman, "Agricultural Organization"; Donna Gbaccla, "Housing and Household Work: Sicily and New York, 1890-1910," paper presented at Social Science History Association, October 1977; Joan Scott and Louise Tilly, "Women's Work and the Family in Nineteenth Century Europe," Center for Research in Social Organization (October, 1973), 9-18; later published in Comparative Studies in Society and Hi9tory 17 (January 1975). 8. I.M. Rubinow, "The Economic Condition of the Jews in Russia," U.S. Senate, Report of the Immigration Commission: Emigration Conditions in Europe, Senate Document 748 (Washington, 1911), 287. 9. Rubinow, "Economic Condition," 293; Ezra Mendelsohn, Class Struggle in the Pale: The Formative Years of the Jewish Worker's Movement in Tsaript Russia (Cambridge, 1970), 6.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE 10. Rubinow, "Economic Condition." 306. 11. Ibid., 333-3«; Henry J. Tobias, The Jewish Bund in Russia from its Origins to 1905 (Stanford, 1972), pp. 9-10. 12. Rubinov, "Economic Condition," 305; Rose Cohen, Out of the Shadow (New York, 1918), pp. 23-2«. 13. Barton, Peasants and Strangers, pp. 39-40. Frank Thletlethwalte, "Migration from Europe Overseas in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," in Katz and Kutler (eds.), New Perspectives in the American Past, Vol. 2 (Boston, 1969), pp. 70-76. 14. Pascal D'Angelo, Son of Italy (New York, 1924), pp. 48-49. 15. Tobias, Jewish Bund, pp. 6-7; Mendelsohn, Class Struggle, p. 11; Irving Howe, The World of Our Fathers (New York, 1976), pp. 15-24. 16. Barton. Peasants and Strangers, pp. 18-63; John and Leatrice MacDonald, "Chain Migration, Ethnic Neighborhood Formation, and Social Networks," Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly 42 (January, 1964), 82-97; John and Leatrice MacDonald, "Urbanization, Ethnic Groups, and Social Segmentation," Social Research 29 (1962), 433-48; Thistlethwaite, "Migration," 66-67. 17. Jerre Mangione, Mount Allegro (Boston, 1943), p. 40. 18. ENC, URI-NEFHC; S. Family Interview, April, 1977; S. Family interview, September 9, 1976. 19. William Kirk (ed.), A Modern City; Providence, Rhode Island, and Its Activities (Chicago, 1909), pp. 33-62; John Ihlder, The House6 of Providence, Rhode Island: A Study of Present Conditions and Tendencies (Providence, 1916), pp. 22-25, 94-95; Bessie Bloom, "Jewish Life in Providence," Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 17 (November, 1970), 386-408. 20. ENC, URI-NEFHC. 21. MRD, URI-NEFHC; MW, URI-NEFHC. 22. Women's Bureau Bulletin No. 131, "Industrial Home Work in Rhode Island," (Washington, D.C., 1922); Children's Bureau Bulletin No. 100, "Industrial Home Work of Children: A Study Made in Providence, Pawtucket, and Central Falls," (Washington, D.C., 1922). 23. Children's Bureau Bulletin, 22, 48, 24. 24. Children's Bureau Bulletin; S. Family interview, Correspondence File, Record Group 102, Box 979, National Archives, Industrial and Social Division.

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES 25. M. Family interview, December 1, 1975. 26. M. Family Interview, December 1, 1975. 27. N. Family interview, September 2, 1976. 28. John Briggs, "Lower Class Organizational Life in Italy and America: Implications of Continuity and Change In Organizational Forms," paper presented at the Italian American Historical Association, - Jewish Historical Society Conference, March 1977, pp. 21-2A. See also John Briggs, An Italian Passage; Continuity and Change Among Immigrants 1890-1930 (Yale University Press, forthcoming). 29. "Active Fraternal Life of Little Italy," Providence Journal, 21 December 1919. 30. N. Ruggieri, "Società Arcese Typical," Providence Evening Bulletin, 11 March 1936. 31. Providence Evening Bulletin, 6 March, 4 March, 11 March 1909; Providence Journal, 20 September 1909, 2 October 1909, 16 July 1911, 21 August 1911. 32. Rubinow, "Economic Condition," 309-10, 322-24. 33. "Chartered Organizations," Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 2 (June, 1955), 21-65. 34. Providence Journal, 17 September 1906. 35. Beryl Segal, "Congregation Sons of Zion of Providence, Rhode Island," Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes 12 (November, 1965), 239, 248-49. 36. "Chartered Organizations," 21-65 ; Bessie Bloom, "Jewish Life in Providence," 403. 37. Rose

Cohen, Out of the Shadow, pp. 196-97.

38. Providence Journal, 30 August, 31 August 1914. 39. Providence Journal, 1 September 1914i L'Eco, 5 SeDtember 1914. My thanks to Paul Buhle for translating this editorial for me. 40. Providence Journal, 22 June, 23 June 1910. 41. Rubinow, "Economic Condition," 526-62; Providence Journal, 23 June, 24 June 1910; personal correspondence from Beryl Segal, 8 December 1977. 42. Providence Journal Almanac (1935), 74-75. 43. SBS, URI-NEFHC, 44; M. Family interview, December 1, 1975.

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THE "GOOD MANAGERS": MARRIED WORKING CLASS WOMEN AND FAMILY BUDGET STUDIES,

1895-1915 by Martha May*

"There are good people in all our large cities who live just above the starving point," wrote William T. Elsing, a New York minister, in 1895.' Elsing's claim would have startled few of the men and women involved in urban charitable work, tenement house reform, and public health movements. Middle class Americans active in social reform between 1890 and 1920 saw poverty as one of the nation's most difficult and pressing problems.2 As observers of a changing nation, they knew that many working class families lived from hand to mouth, scrimping by on wages insufficient to meet family needs. What they did not know was how many Americans suffered from poverty. To determine the extent of this suffering Progressive Era reformers began to • An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Social Science Historical Association in Oct. I9HI; John Modell. Alice Hanson Jone:., George Alter, and Steve Dubnoff provided many useful comments on that version. Melvyn Dubofsky and Melvin I. Urofsky made important suggestions toward this draft. 1 William T. Elsing. "Life in New York Tenement-Houses As Seen By a City Missionary," in Robert A. Woods, et al. The Poor In Great Ciliés, (New York. 1895), 42. 2 The "middle class" nature of Progressive reform has been the subject of considerable debaie and a certain amount of assumption. As Gabriel Kolko. David Brody, Mike Davis, and James Weinstein, among others, have suggested, the interests of capitalists in reform were not inconsequential. See Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism (New York, 1963); David Brody. "The Rise and Decline of Welfare Capitalism," in Brody, Workers in Industrial America (New York. 1980); Mike Davis, "Why the U.S. Working Class is Different." New Left Review, Sept.-Oct. 1980, 3-46; James Weinstein. The Corporate Idea/ in the Libera! State, (Boston, 1968); and Allen F. Davis, Spearheads for Reform (New York, 1967), 3$. The charity movement had clear links with capitalist interests, but some question remains as to whether the class nature of charity reform reflected "middle class" or bourgeois goals, if such a distinction could be made. See, for example, Sheila Slaughter and Edward T. Silva. "Looking Backward: How Foundations Formulated Ideology in the Progressive Period," in R. Amove, ed.. Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism (ñosion. 1980), $-86. 0023-656χ/84/2503·35Ι © 1984 Tamiment Institute

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detail the quality and standard of living for American workers in family budget studies and social surveys. Initially centered on the informal examinations of "friendly visitors" and settlement house workers, the budget studies became an important tool for Progressive reform. In surveys such as Louise More's Wage Earners' Budgets, Robert Chapin's Standards of Living, and Margaret Byington's Homestead, these analysts created new definitions of poverty, and isolated levels of income and patterns of consumption. Chapin, for example, called a 1909 income below $800 insufficient to maintain a family of five in "health and decency."' Subsequent budget analysts followed Chapin's practice of determining a specific income level as a poverty line, below which a family could not obtain life's necessities. This practice aided the Progressives in assessing the number of families in a city (or in the nation) living in poverty. Yet like other assumptions that became incorporated into budget studies and social surveys, the practice was based on certain middle class premises about social and family structures, and suggests one element of uniformity in the "Progressive" vision of the causes and cures of American poverty.4 The budget studies as historical documents reveal many of the biases and concerns of the analysts and agencies who authored and sponsored them. Underlying the "scientific" measure of the quality of life through family budget analysis was a complex set of assumptions about society (couched in terms of a statistical scientific rationality), ranging from temperance to the proper role of women in the household. As budgeting developed from informal observations of working class life into complicated analyses with standardized methods, major changes in J

Robert Chapín, The Standard of Living Among Workingmen's Families In New York City, (New York, 1909). 234. * I am aware (hat in examining budget studies Tor a broad perspective on attitudes toward women and family life, there may be a tendency to collapse distinct elements of Progressive reform into a "Progressive" whole. Certainly, settlements, organized charities, and state and federal agencies did not share every aspect of each others' philosophies or goals in budget analysts. The differing views of the causes for poverty held by settlements and charities, and the impact on early budget studies, was significant. In the later years of this period, this distinction becomes less critical. For an examination of federal budget analysis, see James Leiby, Carroll Wright and Labor Reform (Cambridge, MA, 1960). See also Allen F. Davis, 19-21, and Martha May, " H o m e Life: Progressive Reformers' Prescriptions for Social Stability, 1890-1920" (unpublished PhD diss., SUNY—Binghamtom, 1984).

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the assessment of living standards occurred, especially in the inclusion of items deemed necessities, such as transportation, recreation, and insurance.' The expansion of minimum standards of living reflected an increase in real standards of living, a new attitude on the part of reformers toward working class poverty, and new patterns of urban settlement.6 This expansion offers us important information about working class family life and economy. Equally as important, changes within the budget studies reveal not only a transition within the family economy, but in Progressive era thought about the family economy as well. As budget studies assumed a "scientific" form, and as Progressives moved from the discovery of poverty to curing it, they looked less at the overall contours of working class life and more at the patterns of wage earning and consumption within the family. Good wages became the criteria for an "American standard of living", and the good life, "the number and character of the wants which a man considers more important than marriage and the family." 7 The characterization by budget analysts of married women's labor in the working class family illustrates how both changes in methodology and intent in budget studies distorted the perceptions of relationships within families. Budget analysts began to loose sight of the economic contributions of married women to the working class family economy through domestic labor and other non-waged forms of income (such as taking in boarders and doing laundry). 8 Early budget analysts considered the wives and mothers of the working class essential laborers in the fami5

The very term " s t a n d a r d of living" implies a subjective j u d g m e n t ; thus, the assessment of what items a r e included in a standard of living is determined not through objective science, but in subjective decisions m a d e by analysis about c o n s u m p t i o n , poverty, and family life. Daniel H o r o w i t z provides an examination of the theories of three such analysts of this period in " C o n s u m p t i o n and Its Discontents: Simon N. Patten, Thorstein Veblen, and George G u n t o n , " Journal of American History, 67 (1980), 301-317. ' Considerable d e b a t e exists between analysis of standards and costs of living over whether income increased in relation to expenditure in (he period between 1900 and 1920. T h e argument f o r a real increase appears most convincing, and would also explain the expansion of items included as necessities in American budget studies. See. for example, Paul Douglas, Real Wages in the United Slates, 1890-1926 (Boston, 1930) and Alberl Rees, Real Wages in Manufacturing, I890 I9I4 (Princeton, 1961). 7 Richard T . Ely, Outline of Economics (New York, 1907). * See J o h n Modell, " P a t t e r n s of C o n s u m p t i o n , Acculturation, a n d Family i n c o m e Strategies in Late Nineteenth C e n t u r y A m e r i c a , " in T a m a r a H a r a v e n and Maris Vinovskis, eds. Family and Population in Nineteenth Century America, (Princeton, 1978), 206-240.

432

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

ly's struggle to survive on low wages; they were the "good managers," whose foresight and thrift could improve the standard of living. As budget studies assumed a more "scientific" form with standardized methodologies, married women's domestic labor became hidden under an emphasis on wages as the chief determinant of a standard of living. Instead of citing the woman's role as "good manager," budget analysts concentrated on the male's chances to be a "good provider," by earning a wage which would sustain a specific living standard. The notion of a family wage, or a wage earned by a male which would be sufficient for all family needs, developed within the budget studies. Although the concept of the family wage appeared sporadically prior to 1890, by the early years of the 20th century analysts had embraced the idea of a male-earned income which allowed a worker's family to subsist comfortably without a waged contribution from his wife or children. As Frank Streighthoff put it, "for society as at present organized, it is not an irrational ideal that every man should receive at least a LIVING WAGE," which he argued should be a family wage.' The ideology of a male-earned family wage contributed to the rapid disappearance of women's domestic labor within the studies.10 Many of the early studies sponsored by social settlements and organized charities were initiated to isolate the causes of poverty, as reformers recognized that individual character defects such as "shiftlessness" or intemperance provided an inadequate explanation for widespread indigence. The analysts wanted to make the problems of poverty a social crusade, to expose to middle class Americans how the "other h a l f ' lived. As Jacob Riis asked what Americans would do about the poverty abundant in city tenements, he and other reformers thought v

Frank Steighthoff, incomes in the United States, (New York. 1912), 96. For theoretical and historical examinations of the family wage, see Hillary Land, "The Family Wage," Feminist Review 6 (1980), 55-77; Mary Mcintosh and Michelle Barren, " T h e "Family Wage': Some Problems for Socialists and Feminists," Capital and Class, Summer, 1980, 51-72; Heidi Hartmann, " T h e Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive U n i o n , " Capital and Class, Summer, 1979, 3-30; Martha May, " T h e Historical Case of the Family Wage: The Ford Motor Company and the Five Dollar Day," Feminist Studies 8 (1982), 399-424; and Eli Zaretsky, "Progressive Thought on the Impact of Industrialization to the Emergence of the Welfare State, 18901920," (unpublished PhD thesis, Univ. of Maryland, 1979).

10

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the answer clear enough: "it will depend on how fully the situation that prompted the challenge is grasped."" The life of poverty was documented as the studies assumed almost a voyeuristic quality in their description of how working class families survived on low wages in miserable conditions. A picture of a complex family economy emerged. Not only did some family members work in factories, shops, or mills for wages—others in the family supplemented or extended wages through a variety of domestic work roles. The family survived because of the labor of its men, women and children, and the help of neighbors, kin, and friends. All family members were seen as important contributors to the struggle for survival. Because early budget studies emphasized how families lived in poverty and on the margins of poverty, the roles of wage earners and domestic laborers assumed a complementary, if not equal, importance in analysis. Many of the early budget studies completed by social settlement workers and charity organizations used volunteer "friendly visitors" to gather data. The "friendly visitors" observed family life, gaining some insight into the complex networks that allowed the poor to subsist.12 In Hull House's 1895 study, for example, the data for their expose on living conditions were gathered through visiting and interviewing local residents who attended Hull House functions. In analyzing income, the investigators studied the contributions of all family members, not only those working for wages. The analysts found: In this neighborhood, generally a wife and children are sources of income as well as avenues of expense; and the women wash, do "home finishing" on ready made clothing, or pick up and sell rags; the boys run errands and "shine"; the girls work in factories, get places as cash girls, or sell papers on the streets; and the very babies sew buttons on kneepants and shirtwaists, each bringing a trifle to fill out the scanty income. The theory that "every man supports his own family" is as idle in a district like this as the fiction that "everyone can get work if he wants it." 13 11

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Uves (New York. 1890), 3. Most "friendly visitors" were female volunteers. William Elsingcommented, "businessmen are too much occupied to make a monthly visit to the tenement-houses, bul if their wives and daughters would undertake this work a new day would dawn . . . . " Elsing assured his readers these ladies would be safe in " 'darkest' New York." Elsing. 66. For a comparative perspective, see Anne Summers, " A Home from Home: Women's Philanthropic Work in the 19th Century." in S. Burman, ed. Fit Work for Women (New York, 1979). 33-63. " Hull House Maps and Papers. (New York. 1895), 21. 12

434

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

The role of women and children in extending and supplementing the earnings of employed family members was central to the family's ability to survive; the acknowledgement of this fact in Hull House Maps and Papers was based on observation rather than statistical data. Yet even in the Maps and Papers a notion of a male-centered family wage surfaced. One essay addressed the ability of Chicago cloakmakers to survive during these depression years. By 1894, with some resumption in normal wages, yearly averages rose to $330.42. Budgets indicated that average expenditures came to $440.04 per year for workers with families, and to $255.44 for single male workers. The single worker wage was adequate for surviving at the minimum level of subsistence; it was the family's wages that troubled Hull House reporters. The low rate of wages would not support an average-sized family without recourse to additional income earned by wife and children. The severest survival test involved the family with young dependent children who were unable to work; once the children reached the ages of twelve and above, the family's income, supplemented by their earnings, could rise to or even exceed a level of minimum subsistence. By implication, the Hull House Maps and Papers described a variation in earnings and income that was dependent upon the family's life cycle, a concept later formalized by Seebohm Rowntree in his study of English poverty.14 Maps and Papers also indicated that the settlement workers believed a male worker's wages inadequate to meet the needs of a family." The minimum cost of living proposed in Maps and Papers included indefinite allowances for a wife and children who were not part of the labor force; settlement workers predicated a minimum wage upon the ability of a male worker to support a dependent family. The conclusion reached by the investigators contributing to Maps and Papers on the causes of poverty in the Chicago working class focused on low wages and a lack of governmental regulation of industry. This conclusion was facilitated by the scope 14

Ibid., 80-82; Seebohm Rowntree, Poverty: A Study of Town Life A New York, \ 911), passim. " The argument for family wages found most eloquent and detailed expression in the writings of economist John A. Ryan. Ryan claimed that a living wage in the form of a family wage was (he moral right of workingmen, and that such a wage must presume the presence of a dependent family. See John Ryan, The Living Wage, (New York, 1906).

WORK A N D FAMILY LIFE

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of the study, which examined the entire neighborhood, both the destitute and the more fortunate. Mary K. Simkovitch described the difference in outlook between case work and settlement work in New York: Generally, at the settlement, we met either the hopeful, the progressive, or at any rate, the normal life of working families . . . . But in the case conference there was one hard luck story after another. We could not help seeing how fortunate we were to live in a house where all elements of local life were seen. We knew not only poverty and crime, but also the intelligence and ability and charm of our neighbors."'

Other agencies employing volunteer "friendly visitors" displayed a moralistic preoccupation with poverty that had traditionally characterized American charities. Philanthropies like the Charity Organization Society, founded on a model of the English COS, believed a distinction existed between the poor, suffering but capable of being uplifted, and paupers, an unworthy class of social dependents. Dependency on charitable assistance was to be avoided, and little or no direct material assistance given; instead, the American COS sent their "friendly visitors" to train impoverished families in moral habits, Christian virtues, and moderation. The head of the New York State Board of Charities, Oscar Craig, reflected this idea in 1892, writing that to preserve the poor from injury [through the prevention of pauperism] is to guard not merely their physical Welfare but also their moral wellbeing, and to ward off the forces that break down their manhood and thus tend to disintegrate society. 17

The investigation of the causes of poverty among the already poor seemed to encourage charity workers to find causal character flaws in the needy." 16

Mary Kingsbury Simkovitch, Neighborhood: My Story oj Greenwich House, (New York, 1938), 73. This need 10 remind readers that the working class poor were largely " n o r m a l " people illustrates a profound class difference, in both economy and attitude, between the observers and the observed. Simkovitch's outlook suggests as well that settlement workers were beginning to break from the moralistic judgements of poverty that marked older charities. 11 Oscar Craig, "Agencies for the Prevention of Pauperism," in Woods, el al. 341. "Amos Warner as general agent for the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore, argued that some of the causes of poverty in cities included undervitalization and indolence, lubricity, lack of judgment, and unhealthy appetites. Amos Warner, American Charities: A Study in Philanthropy and Economics (New York, 1894).

436

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

By 1900, however, emphasis on character defects had begun to disappear, but it had not entirely vanished. In this period, budget analysis contained elements of the moralism of the 19th century charity movement along with an emerging emphasis on quantifiable standards of living." An awareness of the broader social nature of indigence grew among reformers, and budget analysts became receptive to the notion that many families who were not destitute lived under margins of "health and decency." Settlement worker Robert Hunter wrote in 1904 that the majority of poverty's victims were men and women who received too "little of the common necessities to keep them at their best."20 Edward Devine argued at the 1906 meeting of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections that the "dominant idea of modern philanthropy" was to elevate the needy from conditions "which are beyond the control of individuals whom they injure and whom they too often destroy. " J l Yet while economists and reformers discovered the social roots of poverty, the perception still lingered that a careful and clever family could surmount its poverty, or at least, make the best of a difficult struggle to survive. Here the role of the married woman's domestic labor was paramount. A "good manager" could turn a soapbox into a beautiful table; a meal of beans and bread could become a nutritious banquet in her loving hands. While it might not be the male worker's fault if his wages were low, it would be his wife's fault if she spent what little they had injudiciously. The wife who was a good manager could create her own household miracles; if she failed, she earned the criticism of her "friendly visitor" for her lack of creativity and womanly skill. This critical attitude was particularly pronounced in Louise More's 1904 study, Wage Earner's Budgets. More's study of 200 volunteer families from an area surrounding the New York Greenwich House settlement focused lv

A debate between reformers over proper goals and methods in charity work also created argument about budget analysis. The split between economist Simon Patten and Mary Richmond illustrated some of the issues of the debate. Richmond continued to emphasize individual causes of poverty; Patten urged reformers look at broader social causes. See Daniel Fox, The Discovery of Abundance: Simon N. Palien and the Transformation of Social Theory, (Ithaca, 1967), 100-104. » Robert Hunter, Poverty, (New York, 1904). 21 Edward T. Devine, "Dominant Note of the Modern Philanthropy", Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, 1906, 3.

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specifically on women's role in the working class family. More stressed relative standards of living, arguing that income was only one determinant of the conditions of working class life. Although she ventured an estimate ($600) at a minimum family income level for "physical efficiency," she claimed that careful management and thrift could make a significant difference in a family's wellbeing." The poor family that managed its income well could live better than one that earned a higher income, because "the attitude of the wife and mother toward what is a necessity and what is a luxury, what is desireable and what is to be endured, reflects the real standard of living of the family."23 More placed the woman's role as "good manager" at the center of the family economy; one aim of her investigation was the analysis of this essential contribution. Wage Earners' Budgets was informed not only by the scientific techniques of budget analysis—More compared her findings to the works of Le Play, Engel, Booth, Rowntree, and the 1903 U.S. Department of Labor study for similarities—but also by a moral notion that the standard of living reflected more than income.24 In the families interviewed, More and the "friendly visitors" found many "admirable managers," "women who would be exceptional in any position, who are refined in manner with a sweet and sunny disposition, in spite of a hard life."" One housewife, for example, was extravagant, and perhaps not really a good manager, but still earned More's approval for her Irish wit and good humor. The wifely duties of the good manager extended beyond domestic labor to the affective relationships of the household. More described "typical" families by paying special attention to the household role of married women. Husbands in most cases received little notice except for their occupations, recreational spending habits, and problems with intemperance; the "good managers," in contrast, were described in detail. One « L o u i s e M o r e , Wane tamers' 2S

24

Ibid.. 266.

Budgets.

( N e w York, 1907), 123.

S o m e f a m i l i e s h a d been d r o p p e d f r o m (he study b e c a u s e o f i h e " i g n o r a n c e a n d shiftless m e t h o d s o f h o u s e k e e p i n g of t h e w i f e , " or u n e m p l o y m e n t o r i n t e m p e r a n c e of t h e hus-

band. Ibid., 6.

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V© u< kets weie taken and a bomol biead. bullet. ba< o n . jelly. eggs ami O I H E I 1,1,1(1 was h e m m . I h r buckets, as last as they wen i mplied wen· smashed l>\ the u n l e t s Coffee c o m p a i i metiis weie opened and the w o i k i n g minéis as well as the Sheiiff wete showeied with lile drink intended foi then Iiiik h. Onl\ two ot t i m e of the men lesisied tlu women.-" 1 ΙΜΝΙΙΙΗΊΜ

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE Stories of violence c o n t i n u e d a f t e r t h e m a r c h . Rie h a r d J . H o p k i n s , t h e a t t o r n e y g e n e r a l of Kansas, c o m p l a i n e d of the d i f f i c u l t y of f i n d i n g p r o s e c u t i o n witnesses. O n e p o t e n t i a l witness was d r i v i n g to o n e of t h e m i n e s to wink. " H e w a s s t o p p e d a n d badly beaten by several of t h e w o m e n a n d r e f u s e d to file a c o m p l a i n t a l t h o he k n e w a n d recognized m o r e t h a n o n e of his a s s a i l a n t s . . . . " 3 0 T h e fear of c o m m u n i t y s a n c t i o n s seems to have s u p e i s e d e d legal 01 p o l i c e pressure. In a n o t h e r explicitly identified i n c i d e n t , Mrs. Nick Bossetti a n d Mrs. Walter Garbatigli were ai tested follow ing the m a r c h a n d accused of a s s a u l t ing W a l l e r M a d d e n at C e n t r a l M i n e 49. T h e v s u p posedly d r a g g e d h i m o u t of the m i n e office, b e a t i n g h i m a n d t e a r i n g his c l o t h i n g . 3 1 As w i t h the issue of violence, c o n t e m p o r a r i e s were divided o n the l e a d e r s h i p a n d t h e i n i t i a t i o n of the w o m e n ' s m a r c h . O f f i c i a l s tried to m a k e a case that a few m i l i t a n t s coerced m a n y w o m e n i n t o p a r t i c i p a t i n g in the m a r c h , t h u s d o w n p l a y i n g t h e s i g n i f i c a n c e of the size a n d the d u r a t i o n of the three-day d i s t u r b a n c e . T o this e n d they f o u n d several w o m e n , i n c l u d i n g o n e s c h o o l t e a c h e r f r o m R i n g o . w h o r e p u d i a t e d their p a r t i c i p a t i o n in the m a r c h a n d identified t h e s p e a k e r s at the D e c e m b e r 11 o r g a n i z a t i o n a l m e e t i n g as Mary Skubitz, a socialist activist, a Mrs. W i l s o n , a n d a Dr. P. L. H o w e . 3 2 A n o t h e r effort to discredit the m a r c h , at least as a n a u t o n o m o u s activity of w o r k i n g - c l a s s w o m e n , was m a d e by the Neu· York Times, w h i c h c l a i m e d that " t h e H o w a t forces sent t h e i r w o m e n i n t o the f i g h t . . . . " And j o u r n a l i s t H e n r y J . H a s k e l l w r o t e in Outlook that " r a d i c a l H o w a t f o l l o w e r s u n d e r t o o k a policy of t e r r o r i s m . W o m e n were incited to lead m o b s a n d t h r e a t e n mine ts w h o s t o o d by the I n t e r n a t i o n a l o r g a n i z a t i o n . " " In a s i m i l a r vein. Van Bittner, the provisional president of District 1-1. censured c o w a r d l y m e n w h o seni their m o t h e r s , wives, a n d sisters o u i to riot. In c o n t r a s t to t h i s stream of c o n d e m n a t i o n , t h e Appeal to Reason stated that t h e idea of m a r c h i n g was e n t i r e l y s p o n t a n e o u s w i t h t h e w o m e n . N o n e of the H o w a t leaders advised this tactic, a n d H o w a t ,

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES f r o m h i s j a i l cell, e x p r e s s e d h i s regret t h a t t h e v i o l e n c e had occurred.54 Another labor paper, the Workers Chronicle, n o t e d thai m e n w e r e b a r r e d f r o m t h e o r g a n izational m e e t i n g Sunday night.35 Finally, F a n n i e W i m l e r , a n active participant in the m a r c h , r e s p o n d e d to B i t t n e r ' s c h a r g e s in a letter to t h e Pittsburg Daily Headlight: Husbands, sons, and brothers aren't cowards and haven't a n y t h i n g to do with our affairs. We are d o i n g this on our o w n accord, a n d what we mean is business. . . . If you don't think us responsible, we'll just have to put the responsibility on you, for you are the one w h o is driving us to t h i s . . . . We don't want any blood shed here in Kansas like there was in the Ludlow strike, and in Alabama and Mingo County, W. Va. What we want is our industrial freedom a n d liberty and we want our men to be good, true, loyal u n i o n men and 100 percent American citizens, not like you and your dirty bunch of strike breakers. In the World War we bought liberty b o n d s . . . In a d d i t i o n t o its p r o c l a m a t i o n of a u t o n o m y , W i m l e r ' s letter s t r u c k t h e p a t r i o t i c t u n e of t h e m a r c h e r s ' o r i g i n a l s t a t e m e n t . It reflected a l s o a c l a s s - c o n s c i o u s m e n t a l i t y l i n k i n g t h e i r a c t i o n s to l a b o r s t r u g g l e s e l s e w h e r e as well as a c o n c e p t i o n t h a t t h e i r c a u s e w a s t r u l y A m e r i can. T h e p a t r i o t i c t h e m e w a s f u r t h e r e x p r e s s e d by t h e way in w h i c h t h e m a r c h e r s c a r r i e d a n A m e r i c a n f l a g d u r i n g t h e m a r c h a n d s o m e t i m e s s t r e t c h e d it a c r o s s m i n e e n t r a n c e s to p r e v e n t m i n e r s f r o m e n t e r i n g . In several i n s t a n c e s they f o r c e d m i n e r s to k n e e l a n d kiss the flag.57 Apparently, the m a r c h e r s desperately s o u g h t to i d e n t i f y t h e m s e l v e s as A m e r i c a n s , p a r t i c u l a r l y in l i g h t of s u c h s t a t e m e n t s as G o v . H e n r y A l l e n ' s p r o c l a m a t i o n that " t h e Kansas g o v e r n m e n t does not intend to s u r r e n d e r t o I'oieigners a n d t h e i r I e m a l e r e l a t i v e s . " 5 * Noi d i d P i t t s b u r g p l a n t o h a n g o u t t h e w h i t e f l a g ;is u i m o i s s p r e a d that t h e ( it\ w o u l d be t h e next t a r g e t of t h e m a r c h i n g A m a z o n s . F o l l o w i n g t h e D e c e m b e r l.S m a t c h , t h e C t a w f o i d C o u n t y sheriff ( w h o o n e i n f o r m a n t ( l a i m e d was t h r o w n i m o a p o o l of w a t e t bv t h e w o m e n ) r e q u e s t e d a d e p u t i z e d f o r c e of o n e t h o u s a n d to ileal w i t h t h e e m e r g e n c y . V e t e r a n s w e r e

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE r e c r u i t e d t o d e f e n d t h e city, a n d r i f l e s a n d s h o t g u n s were s t o c k p i l e d in t h e S t i l h v e l l H o t e l f o r t h e i r use. 3 9 Local l a w e n f o r c e m e n t e f f o r t s , h o w e v e r , did not d a m p e n t h e e n t h u s i a s m of t h e w o m e n ' s a r m y . O n Dec e m b e r If), t h r e e d a y s a f t e r t h e d i s t u r b a n c e s b e g a n , three t r o o p s of K a n s a s N a t i o n a l G u a r d c a v a l r y a r r i v e d ai P i t t s b u r g a n d w e r e s u b s e q u e n t l y s t a t i o n e d at R i n g o . M u l b e r r y , a n d F r a n k l i n : L a w r e n c e later sent Λ machine gun detachment.40 F o l l o w i n g t h e m a r c h , s h e r i f f ' s d e p u t i e s arrested f o r t y - n i n e w o m e n o n c h a r g e s of u n l a w f u l a s s e m b l y , a s s a u l t , a n d d i s t u r b i n g t h e peace. 'I'hey w e r e h e l d in b o n d of S730. r a t h e r t h a n t h e c u s t o m a r y S200. T h e h a r s h legal r e p i i s a l s reflected m i d d l e - c l a s s fears a n d h o s t i l i t y , w h i l e t h e a t t e s t lists t e s t i f i e d to t h e m i x e d e t h n i c c h a r a c t e r a n d socialist i n f l u e n c e of t h e event. Italians. French. Slovaks. Americans, and others had j o i n e d f o r r e s to e x p r e s s s h a r e d c o m m u n i t y a n d f a m i l y concerns w h i c h superseded ethnic differences. T h e i r leaders i n e l u d e d M a r y S k u b i t / a n d bet m o t h e r J u l i a Y o u v a i n . socialists a n d m i n e r s ' wives; P h i l Gallery, a n o t h e r local socialist, served as t h e m a r c h e r s ' defense attorney. J u s t as j o u r n a l i s t s c o u c h e d t h e m a r c h in t e r m s of g e n d e r , C a l l e r y based h i s case o n t h e d e f e n d a n t s ' m a t e r n a l r e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s . H i s d e f e n s e for t h e w o m e n w h o w e r e a r r a i g n e d o n c h a r g e s of u n l a w f u l a s s e m b l y , a s s a u l t , a n d d i s t u r b i n g t h e p e a r e w a s o n e of " m a s s P s y c h o l o g y , " w h i r h h e c l a i m e d f r e q u e n t l y led p e o p l e to d o t h i n g s i n t i m e of l a b o r u n r e s t t h a t they w o u l d not d o i n d i v i d u a l l y . F i n a l l y , h e c a u t i o n e d t h a t " t h e trial of t h e cases at t h i s t i m e w o u l d t e n d t o a g a i n stir t h e p a s s i o n s of t h e c o m m u n i t y . " In so m a n y words, Gallery d e f i n e d t h e collective, c o m m u n i t y - i n s p i r e d , a n d g e n d e r - s p e c i f i c n a t u r e of t h e m a r c h . T h e c o u r t too s e e m e d t o u n d e r s t a n d , f o r t h e w o m e n p l e a d e d g u i l t y a n d w e r e fined f r o m o n e d o l l a r to t w o h u n d r e d d o l l a r s , p a r o l e d , a n d o r d e r e d to p a y c o u r t costs. 4 1 T h i s s p i r i t e d c h a p t e r in A m e r i c a n l a b o r history u n f o r t u n a t e l y m u s t be closed o n a n e g a t i v e n o t e . O n J a n u a r y 13, d e f e a t e d b o t h by local o p p o s i t i o n a n d t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l u n i o n . H o w a t o r d e r e d all s t r i k i n g m i n e r s b a c k t o w o r k . T h e I ' M W A g a v e e a c h loc al sole

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES power to accept or reject a p p l i c a n t s for m e m b e r s h i p in newly established locals. Each r e t u r n i n g m i n e r w o u l d have to pay a ten-dollar i n i t i a t i o n f e e a n d w o u l d be a silent, d u e s - p a y i n g m e m b e r with n o voice or vote in the u n i o n . 1 2 F o l l o w i n g the m a r c h , Kansas a u t h o r i t i e s l i g h t e n e d their control of the t u r b u l e n t Balkans w i t h a n t i l a b o r measures such as laws passed by G i r a r d , Cherokee, Arma, a n d Mulberry, u n d e r pressure of the Kansas attorney general, which m a d e it illegal for m e n to refuse to work when there was work available in the area. T h e penalty for n o n c o m p l i a n c e was ten to thirty days at hard labor. 4 3 T h e march also f a n n e d the p a r a n o i a of local a n d state officials about subversive f e m a l e aliens a n d underscored the distance that loomed between most Kansans a n d the m i n i n g c a m p s . T o give t w o e x a m p l e s , A. J. C u r r a n , j u d g e of the district court of Pittsburg, wrote to Mrs. J o h n Tracy, c h a i r m a n of the Americanization C o m m i t t e e of the P i t t s b u r g W o m e n ' s Auxiliary, about the law whereby n a t u r a l i z a t i o n of a male alien gave citizenship io his wife, a sensitive issue in light of the political rights a n d privileges conferred on w o m e n by the recently passed Nineteenth A m e n d m e n t . "It is a k n o w n fact that there are anarchists, c o m m u nists a n d bolsheviki a m o n g the alien w o m e n in this c o m m u n i t y , " C u r r a n stated. "As you k n o w it was the lawlessness of the w o m e n in this c o m m u n i t y a few m o n t h s a g o which m a d e necessary the s t a t i o n i n g of the state militia in o u r c o u n t y for t w o m o n t h s to preserve law a n d o r d e r . " " In a n o t h e r p r o n o u n c e m e n t , Al F. Williams, the U.S. District Attorney, threatened to deport the "worst r a d i c a l s " for h e claimed that " w h e n a situation like the present arises they all flock and act together like so m a n y s h e e p . " 4 5 Faced with such sentiments, many marchers fled the area; a u t h o r ities searched in vain for these w o m e n when warrants were issued for their arrest. Despite its dismal e n d i n g , the w o m e n ' s m a r c h holds several i m p o r t a n t lessons for o n e interested in q u e s t i o n s a b o u t American culture a n d w o m e n ' s historv. As social scientists suggest, in episodes of collective behavior, ideologies a n d m y t h s w h i c h lie beneath the surface of a society emerge. T h u s the

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE m a i d i (list loses i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t the roles, values, a n d political consciousness of w o m e n in this w o r k i n g class c o m m u n i t y . T h e m a r c h itself tells in its o w n " l a n g u a g e " how work, class, a n d politics shaped the s u b c u l t u r e of a c o m m u n i t y while a c k n o w l e d g i n g h e g e m o n i c pressure from the s u r r o u n d i n g district a n d d o m i n a n t culture. T h e way in which contemporary observers structured the narrative of the event, e v o k i n g images of " A m a z o n s " and foreign hordes, s h o w s that the w o m e n ' s m a r c h represented a clear a n d distinct challenge t o a social order based u p o n separate social roles of m e n and w o m e n as well as u p o n docile a n d subservient foreign workers. T h e w o m e n marchers symbolically used the traditional A m e r i c a n flag to i n v o k e a heritage of American democracy a n d show that they were entitled to the rights of citizens. T h e y went to their kitchens for their w e a p o n of red pepper, a n d by e m p t y i n g d i n n e r buckets they conveyed the message that they were n o w violently t a k i n g away the f o o d that as n u r t u r i n g w o m e n they h a d always given. Finally, the actions of the w o m e n defy the interpretation of conventional labor h i s t o r i o g r a p h y which characterizes wives of workers a n d strikers as conservative a n d f r e q u e n t l y a n t i u n i o n a n d antistrike. T h e indirect r e l a t i o n s h i p of w o m e n to m e a n s of production m i g h t s u p p o r t this theory. T h e Kansas w o m e n , as indicated earlier, however, were not a l o n e in their p u b l i c expression of c o m m u n i t y solidarity. In a n u m ber of instances in industrializing America, w o m e n marched to s u p p o r t the strikes of m a l e family members. T h e c o m m o n occurrence of w o m e n ' s strikes in m i n i n g c o m m u n i t i e s seems to imply that the size, isolation, a n d h i g h o c c u p a t i o n a l health hazards created a sense of shared c o m m u n i t y involvement in the work culture of the mines. T h i s involvement was u n e q u a l e d in other industrial settings where the p u b l i c and the private spheres of life were less integrated a n d where the lines between the middle a n d the w o r k i n g classes were less sharply d r a w n . In a d d i t i o n , the single e m p l o y m e n t character of the c o m m u n i t i e s a n d the fact that s u p p l e m e n t a r y income a n d c o n s u m a b l e items were produced in the domestic sphere increased the unity of the c o m m u n i t y . 4 6

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Several issues about such demonstra lions remain problematic, however. T h e first is the political consciousness of the m a n hing women. In the case of the Kansas march, it is clear that miners who returned to work posed a political threat to mining-camp communities. They shattered the cohesiveness of the working-class communities a n d broke the balance of cooperation that sustained these communities in tension with the world a r o u n d them. Women who marched certainly could have perceived the political dimensions of their actions or, like Mrs. Okorn, they could have been motivated simply by the fact that "people were starving and it wasn't fair." It is tantalizing as well to speculate about the intrafamily dynamics which existed in the mining camps. Studies of the Great Depression and family life indicate that cycles of poverty and unemployment alter the decision-making process, roles, and authority relationships in the working-class family. Clearly, the organization and results of the women's march, as well as the march itself, reflected the strength and initiative of women in the m i n i n g community within their households. As the historian Meredith Tax reminds us when writing of the collective behavior of mining women, "These women had their own reasons for wanting to fight. In the company towns and migrant labor camps of the West, people were oppressed as members of family units rather than as individuals." 4 7 T h u s it would seem that much of the answer to the original question of why women marched lies within the structure of the community as well as within the working-class family itself. T h e massive social changes wrought by industrialization altered the work women and men did and changed the family itself as well. These changes, whether in work, gender roles, or the family, cannot be studied outside of the community context in which they operated, for the community at many levels provided reasons for their existence and a framework in which they functioned. It is good to remember also, in light of the preceding discussion, that women's activities cannot be placed in neat historical categories labeled "gender" without considering class. Historians

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE of American women must be consistently aware of the very permeable membrane between the public and the private spheres of life for working-class women. They must understand that when women marched they marched for bread... and sometimes for roses, too. (Kg T h e a u t h o r is grateful 10 Eugene D e G r u s o n of Pittsburg State University for introductions to the p e o p l e a n d the historical resources of southeastern Kansas. She also appreciates the critical readings given the article by Elizabeth Kuzenesof and (he members of the Mellon Faculty Development S e m i n a r at the University of Kansas. 1. Historians who have dealt with the m e a n i n g of collective action include Nadie Ζ. Davis. "Women in the Crafts in SixteenthCentury L y o n . " Feminist Studies 8 (Spring 1982):47-80; Natlie Z. Davis. " T h e Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France." Past and Present 59 (May 197S):51-91; Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1959); Paula E. H y m a n , "Immigrant Women a n d C o n s u m e r Protest: T h e New Vorlc City Kosher Meat Boycott of 1902." American Jewish History 70 (September I980):9I-I05: T e m m a Kaplan. "Class Consciousness a n d C o m m u n i t y in 19th Century Andalusia," in Maurice Zeitlin, ed.. Political Power and Social Theory, vol. 2 (Greenwich. Conn.: Jai Press. 1981 ); Emmanuel L. Ladurie, Carnival in Romans (New York: George Braziller. 1979): George Rudé. Ideology and Popular Protest (New York: Pantheon Books. 1980); Louise A. Tilly and Charles Tilly, eds., Class Conflict and Collective Action (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1981). 2. T h e r e is neither an institutional history of the United Mine Workers of America nor a comprehensive social history of m i n i n g in the United States. T h e best guide io the various articles a n d monographs on m i n i n g and life in m i n i n g c o m m u n i t i e s is Robert F. Munn, The Coal Industry in America: A Bibliography and Guide to Studies (Morgantown: West Virginia University Library, 1965). T w o studies of m i n i n g communities in Great Britain that are suggestive for the analysis of American c o m m u n i t i e s are J o h n Benson, British Coalminers in the Nineteenth Century: A Social History (New York: Holmes a n d Meier Publishers. 1980) a n d Michael Haines, "Fertility, Nuptiality, and O c c u p a t i o n : A Study of Coal M i n i n g P o p u l a t i o n s and Regions in E n g l a n d and Wales in the Mid-Nineteenth Century," journal of Interdisciplinary History 8 (Autumn 1977):245-80. 3. For further discussion of the position of the working-class wife, see essays in Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie, eds.. Class, Sex, and the Woman Worker (Westport. C o n n . : Greenwood Press. 1977) and Mary P. Ryan. Womanhood in America: From Colonial Ann Srhofield, assistant professor of American studies·'women's studies al the L'tiiversily of Kansas, received her Ph.D. decree m history in 1980 from the State I'nn'ersity oj New York at Bmghamton. She is the author of "Union Maids and Rebel Girls" in Feminist Suidie-s (Summer I98ÌI as well as biographies in American Women Writers and the Dictionary of American Biography.

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES Times to the Present (New York: Franklin Watts. 1975). Specific instances of demonstrations by w o m e n in m i n i n g c o m m u n i t i e s can be found in Katherine A. Harvey, The Best-Dressed Miners: Life and Labor in the Maryland Coal Region (Ithaca. N.Y.: Cornell University Press. 1969), 283; Charles J. Bayard, T h e 1927-1928 Colorado Coal Strike." Pacific Historical Review 32 (August 1963): 235-50; Industrial Worker, August 5. 1916: Victor R. Greene. The Slavic Community on Strike: Immigrant Labor in Pennsylvania Anthracite (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 143-44. 4. J o a n Scott and Louise Tilly, Women, Work, and the Family (New York: H o l t . Rinehart and Winston. 1978). Virtually all recent c o m m u n i t y studies deal to some extent with class differences in family function; for example, see Anthony Wallace, Rockdale (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978). 5. Mary Heaton Vorse. "Ma and Mr. Davis," Survey 49 (December 15. 1922):359-60. 6. Fred N. Howell. "Some Phases of the Industrial History of Pittsburg. Kansas," Kansas Historical Quarterly 1 (May 1932):273; William Powell, " T h e Historical Geography of the Impact of Coal Mining U p o n the Cherokee-Crawford Coal Field of Southeastern Kansas" (Ph.D. diss.. University of Nebraska. 1970). 7. United States Immigration Commission, Immigrants in Industries, 61st Cong.. 2d sess., 1909-10, S. Doc. 633. pt. 1, v. 2. 38 (Serial 5668). Most American w o m e n w h o worked were employed as domestics, e.g., 12.5 percent of the black women worked as domestics. 8 Μην Wood-Simons. " M i n i n g Co;il and Maiming Men." Coming Xation. Girard. November 1 I. 191 1 9. Kenneth Melarngno. " I m m i g r a n t s as Viewed Through the Baptismal Register" (unpublished papei. Pittsburg. Kansas. August 25. 1981) I am indebted to Kugene DcGriison for bringing this pa|K*r to niv attention. 10 Ibid. 11 I'.S Immigration Commission. Immigrants in Industries, 56.71.77.80. 12. Jean Brumbes. Human Geography (Chicago: Rand McNally Co.. 1920). 386. 13. Wood-Simons, "Mining Coal and M a i m i n g Men," describes Kansas miners' homes. 14. Ibid. 15. Kansas State Coal Mine Inspector and Mine Rescue Departments. Annual Report. 1920 (Topeka: State Printing Plant, 1922), 104-105. 16. Wood-Simons. "Mining Coal and Maiming Men." 17. Powell. "Historical Geography of the Impact of Coal M i n i n g . " 299. Those without a cellar stored vegetables under the house and piled straw or dirt over them. 18. Interviews with Anna Okorn and Clemencia DeGruson. Pittsburg. August 29. 1981. 19. Ray Ginger. The Bending Cross (New Brunswick. N. J.: Rutgers University Press. 1949). 20. Wood-Simons. "Mining Coal and Maiming Men," 11. 21. Clayton R. Roppes, " T h e Industrial Workers of the World and County-Jail Reform in Kansas, 1915-1920," Kansas Historical Quarterly 41 (Spring 1975):63-86; interview with George Gust, Pittsburg. August 50. 1981. Gust remembers an organizer from " T h e Imperial Workers of the W o r l d " w h o worked with him in the

WORK AND FAMILY UFE souiheastern Kansas coal mines a n d intended to set u p the "Imperial Wizard" in the area to dominate the country. 22. Statements by J o h n Eber and J o h n Hughes. January 5, 1920, Kansas State Historical Society (copies in possession of author). 23. Mary Heaton Vorse described Howat as an idol to Kansas miners under whose leadership "people stopped being afraid." Vorse. "Ma and Mr. Davis." T w o labor historians, however, characterize Howat as a "rambunctious, argumentative, and tempestuous" man whose ambitions included the presidency of the UMWA. Melvyn Dubofsky a n d Warren Van Tine, John L. Lewis: A Biography (New York: Quadrangle New York T i m e s Books. 1977). 32. 24. T h e Kansas Court of Industrial Relations was created by a special session of the Kansas legislature on January 23. 1920. as a tribunal for the administration of industrial justice. A highly controversial court, it was abolished in March of 1925 and was replaced by the Public Service Commission. John H u g h Bowers, The Kansas Court oj Industrial Relations (Chicago: A. C. McClurg and Co., 1922), Kansas Laws. Special Session. ¡920, Ch. 29 (Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, 1920), 36; Kansas Laws, 1925, Ch. 259 (Topeka: Kansas State Printing Plant, 1925), 335-36. 25. T h e identity of the working miners is difficult to determine. Oral and impressionistic evidence leads me to believe that they were not "scabs" imported from other regions but rather came from other c a m p s in the same coal field. O n e miner's widow remembered her c a m p as being "solidly" on strike, but a h i g h school teacher recalled the children of working and striking miners fighting at school. Also, enmity between striking a n d working miners continued after the strike. 26. Topeka State Journal, December 14. 1921. 27. "Extending the Sphere of W o m e n , " New York Times, December 15. 1921, 16 28. Appeal to Reason. Girard, January 14, 1922. 29. New York Times, December 13, 1921, 10. Anna Okorn remembers a "Mrs. N i n o " hitting a miner on the head with his dinner pail. 30. Topeka Daily Capital. December 20. 1921. 31. Pittsburg Daily Headlight, December 19, 1921. 32. On December 29, for example, police arrested Mrs. John Morris of C a m p 51, the wife of a miner and mother of seven children. Mrs. Morris and Carrie Didlott of Ringo expressed their regret at having marched, as did Tillie Roitz, a schoolteacher at Ringo. Roitz protested the revocation of her teacher's certificate and pointed out that wives of members of the school board had participated in the march. Her brother, she said, was in World War I, and she herself taught Americanism to her students. Pittsburg Daily Headlight. January 17. 1922. 33. Henry J. Haskell, "Strike News from Kansas and Chicago: I. T h e Law and the Kansas Miners." Outlook 129 (December 28. 1921):680-81. 34. Appeal to Reason. December 24. 1921. 35. Workers Chronicle. Pittsburg. December 16. 1921. 36. Pittsburg Daily Headlight, December 15. 1921. 37. This gesture bewildered one observer when "Bob Murray, the mine foreman, was made to kiss the flag. T h e reason for this was not clear as Murray is known as a thoroughly patriotic American." Pittsburg Daily Headlight, December 13. 1921.

496

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES 38. New York Times. December 16, 1921, 1. 39. Interview with Joseph Palazzari, J u n e 9, 1980, Pittsburg; Pittsburg Daily Headlight, March 20. 1922. 40. Pittsburg Daily Headlight. December 15. 1921. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid.. J a n u a r y 26, 1922. Because the strikers had been out on strike since October, the ten-dollar initiation fee many limes proved to be a prohibitive expense. C o r r u p t i o n occurred when the local u n i o n had the sole power to decide membership; there were cases where a m a n w h o wanted a job would have to go to the head of the local a n d take a j u g of wine and five pigs to get the job. Pittsburg Daily Headlight, July 12. 1937. 43. Pittsburg D:ily Headlight, J a n u a r y 4, 6, 1922. 44. A. J. Curran to Mrs. J o h n Tracy, May 10, 1922, Pittsburg State University Library, Pittsburg. 45. Pittsburg Daily Headlight, December 29, 1921. 46. A careful survey of the American labor press f r o m 1877 to 1920 discloses n o similar supportive demonstrations in other industries. Ann Schofield. " T h e Rise of the Pig-headed Girl: An Analysis of the American Labor Press for T h e i r Attitudes T o w a r d Women. 1877-1920" (Ph.D. diss.. State University of New York at Binghamton, 1980) 47. Meredith Tax, The Rising of the Women: Feminist Solidarity and Class Conflict, 1880-1917 (New York: Monthly Review Press. 1980), 127.

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Cotton Mill People: Work, Community, and Protest in the Textile South, 1880-1940

JACQUELYN

DOWD

HALL, ROBERT

KORSTAD,

and JAMES

LELOUDIS

TEXTILE MILLS BUILT THE NEW SOUTH. Beginning in t h e 1880s, business a n d

professional men tied their hopes for prosperity to the whirring of spindles and the beadng of looms. Small-town boosterism supplied the rhetoric of the mill-building campaign, but the impoverishment of farmers was industrialization's driving force. The post-Civil War rise of sharecropping, tenantry, and the crop lien ensnared freedmen, then eroded yeoman society. Farmers of both races fought for survival by clinging to subsistence strategies and habits of sharing even as they planted cash crops and succumbed to tenantry. Meanwhile, merchants who had accummulated capital through the crop lien invested in cotton mills. As the industry took off in an era of intensifying segregation, blacks were relegated to the land, and white farmers turned to yet another strategy for coping with economic change. They had sold their cotton to the merchant; now they supplied him with the human commodity needed to run his mills. This homegrown industry was soon attracting outside capital and underselling northern competitors. By the end of the Great Depression, the Southeast replaced New England as the world's leading producer of cotton cloth, and the industrializing Piedmont replaced the rural Coastal Plain as pacesetter for the region.1 Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the Fourth Southern Labor Studies Conference, held in Atlanta. Georgia. September 3 0 - 0 c t o b e r 2. 1982. and the Future of American Labor History Conference, held at Northern Illinois University. DeKalb. Illinois. October 10-12.1984. Research was f u n d e d by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a William F. Sullivan Research Fellowship from the Museum of American Textile History, and a University Research Council Grant f r o m the College of Arts and Sciences. University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill. Chris Daly. Lu Ann Jones, and Mary Murphy arc o u r coauthors on a larger study of southern textile workers, we owe a special debt to their ideas and editorial skills James Barrett. Craig Calhoun. Leon Fink. Susan Levine, and William Leuchtenburg offered helpful suggestions. Sydney Nathans read the essay at a critical juncture, and we have benefited constantly from his wisdom and support. 1 C. Vann Woodward's work remains t h e essential guide to this period. See his Origins of the New South. 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge. La.. 1951). For a survey of the literature on the capitalist reorganization of southern agriculture, see Harold D. Woodman. "Sequel to Slavery: T h e New Historv Views the Postbellum South." Joumat of Southern History, 43 (1977): 523-54. More recent works of particular relevance include Ronald D Eller, Minen, Miühands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South. ¡880-19)0 (Knoxville. Tenn.. 1982); Lawrence Goodwyn. Democratic Promue The Populist Moment in America (New York. 1976): and Steven Hahn. The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman

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Despite the lasting imprint of textile manufacturing on regional development and labor relations, we have no modern survey of the industry's evolution. Nor has the outpouring of research on working-class history been much concerned with factory workers in the New South. T o be sure, recent studies have uncovered sporadic, and sometimes violent, contention over the shape of the industrial South. But those findings have done little to shake the prevailing wisdom: T h e South's mill villages supposedly bred a "social type" compounded of irrationality, individualism, and fatalism. Unable to unite in their own interests, textile workers remained "silent, incoherent, with no agency to express their needs." 2 We have reached different conclusions. Our research began with a collaborative oral history project aimed at discovering how working people made sense of their own experience. We did not view memory as a direct window on the past. But we did presume the moral and intellectual value of listening to those who lacked access to power and, thus, the means of afïecting historical debate. Our effort was repaid in two major ways. Oral autobiographies dissolved static images, replacing them with portrayals of mill village culture drawn by the men and women who helped create it. Workers' narratives also steered us away from psychological interpretations and toward patterns of resistance, cultural creativity, and structural evolution. Later we turned to the trade press, particularly the Southern Textile Bulletin. Published by David Clark in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Bulletin spoke for factory owners at the cutting edge of industrial innovation. Finally, from the eloquent letters textile workers wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the National Recovery Administration, we gained a view of the New Deal from below. Together, retrospective and contemporary evidence revealed the social logic that underlay daily practices and suggested an analysis that distinguished one epoch from another in a broad process of technological, managerial, and cultural change. 3 Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountrj. 1850-1890 (New York. 1983). For an excellent discussion of mill building, see David L. Carlton. Mill and Town in South Carolina. 1880-1920 (Baton Rouge. La., 1982). Earlier studies indude Holland Thompson. Fren the Cotton Fields to the Cotton Mills: A Study of the Induuhal Transition of North Carolina (New York. 1906); and Broadus Mitchell. The Rise of Coam Mills m the South (Baltimore, Md.. 1921). ' Jeannette P. Nichols. "Does the Mill Village Foster Any Social Types?" Social Forces. 2 (192S): 350-57; and Paul Blanshard, Lahor m Soulhem Cotton Mills (New York, 1927). 86. This image found iu most lasting expression in the work of Wilbur J. Cash. See huMindof theNeui South (New York. 1941 ). A more complex undemanding of southern mill workers has begun to emerge from the efforts of recent scholar*. See Bess Beatty. "Textile Labor in the North Carolina Piedmont: Mill Owner Images and Worker Response. 1830-1900," LahorHistorj. 25 (1984): 485-503; Douglas DeNatale. "Traditional Culture and Community in a Piedmont Textile Mill Village" (M.A. thesis. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1980); Dolores Jitúewsks, Sisterhood Denied: Race, Gender, and Class ma New South Community (Philadelphia, 1985); Mary Frederickson, "A Place to Speak Our Minds: The Summer School for Women Workers" (Ph.D. dissertation. University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, 1981); Cathy Louise McHugh, "The Family Labor System in the Southern Textile Industry, 1880-1915" (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1981); Melton Aloiua McLaurin, Paternalism and Protesi: Southern Cotton Mill Worten and Organued Labor, 1875-190} (Westport. Conn.. 1971); Dale Newman. "Work and Community Life in a Southern Textile Town." Labor History. 19 (1978): 204-25; Valerie Quinney, "Childhood in a Southern Mill Village." InternationalJournal of Oral History. 3 (1982): 167-92. and John Sclby. "Industrial Growth and Workers' Protest in a New South City: High Point, North Carolina. 1859-1959" (Ph.D. dissertation. Duke University. 1984). 5 Researchers from the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, have conducted interviews with 205 mill workers throughout the North and South Carolina Piedmont. T h e southern textile industry stretched in a great arc from Danville, Virginia, to Georgia

WORK AND FAMILY

LIFE

499

N O T H I N G BETTER SYMBOLIZED THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ORDER than the mill villages that dotted the Piedmont landscape. Individual families and small groups of local investors built and owned most of the early mills. Run by water wheels, factories flanked the streams that fell rapidly from the mountains toward the Coastal Plain. Of necessity, owners provided housing where none had been before. But the setting, scale, and structure of the mill village reflected rural expectations as well as practical considerations. Typically, a three-story brick mill, a company store, and a superintendent's house were clustered at one end of the village. Three- and four-room frame houses, owned by the company but built in a vernacular style familiar in the countryside, stood on lots that offered individual garden space, often supplemented by communal pastures and hog pens. A church, a company store, and a modest schoolhouse completed the scene. By 1910 steam power and electricity had freed the mills from their dependence on water power, and factories sprang up on the outskirts of towns along the route of the Southern Railway. Nevertheless, the urban mill village retained its original rural design. Companyowned villages survived in part because they fostered management control. Unincorporated "mill hills" that surrounded towns such as Charlotte and Burlington, North Carolina, and Greenville, South Carolina, enabled owners to avoid taxes and excluded workers from municipal government. But the mill village also reflected the workers' heritage and served their needs.4 Like the design of the mill village, the family labor system helped smooth the path from field to factory. On farms women and children had always provided

and Alabama. We chose 10 focus mainly on the Carolina Piedmont because this region contained the greatest concentration of textile mills. See Jules Backman and M. R. Cainsbrugh, Economia of the Cotton Table Industry (New York. 1946), 169. Most of the interviews were conducted in Durham, Bynum. Burlington, Carrboro, Catawba County, and Charlotte, North Carolina; Greenville. South Carolina; and Elizabethton. Tennessee. These sites provided a cross section of the types of mill communities— f r o m rural, company-owned mill towns to cities ringed by unincorporated mill villages. We interviewed an equal number of men and women; because blacks were excluded from most mill jobs, all but six of the mill hands we talked to were white. They fell mainly into three age groups: 26 percent were bom between 1891 and 1900,41 percent between 1901 a n d 1910, a n d 25 percent between 1911 and 1920. Twenty-four percent began work before the age of fourteen, and more than a third of that number held their first cotton mill job before they were ten years old. Roughly half of the people we talked to were the first in their families to work in the mills: the other half were the children of mill hands. Most of the children of those we interviewed abandoned the mills to seek other manufacturing and service jobs. Overall, then, our interviews represent a collective oral biography of the working men and women who transformed the Piedmont f r o m a faltering agricultural zone into an expansive industrial region. Unless otherwise noted, (he interviews are on deposit at the Louis R. Wilson Library, University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill. Southern Historical Collection. For a description of the Piedmont Industrialization Project and an acknowledgement of the researchers who participated in it, see Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "An Oral History of Industrialization: Learning by Listening, - Institute for Research m Social Science Newsletter, April 1981, pp. 5 - 9 . Besides o u r coauthors mentioned above, those who made extensive contributions to the project include Cathy Abernathy. Delia Coulter. Douglas DeNaiale, Patty Dilley, Mary Frederickson. Amy Class. Brent Glass, Rosemarie Hester. Glenn Hinson, Dolores Janiewski, Lynn Hudson. Beverly Jones. Cliff Kuhn. Lanier Rand, and Allen TuUos. 4 Local investors often received additional capital to build mills from northern machine manufacturers and commission houses. See Mitchell, Rise of Cotton Mills, 241-42. 247. On mill location and village design, see Ralph R. Triplette. Jr., "One-Industry Towns: Their Location. Development, and Economic Character" (Ph.D. dissertation. University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill. 1974). 56-68; Brent Glass, "Southern Mill Hills: Design in a 'Public' Place." in Doug Swaim. ed.. Carolina Dwelling: Towards Preservation of Place, In Celebration of the North Carolina Vernacular Landscafe (Raleigh. N.C.. 1978), 138-49; and Helen Bresler. "Industrial Vernacular Architecture: T h e Mill Villages of Glencoe and Bynum" (unpublished typescript. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 1979).

500

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WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

501

essentia] labor, and mill owners took advantage of these traditional roles. They promoted factory work as a refuge for impoverished women and children from the countryside, hired family units rather than individuals, and required the labor of at least one worker per room as a condition for residence in a mill-owned house. But this labor system also dovetailed with family strategies. The first to arrive in the mills were those least essential to farming and most vulnerable to the hazards of commercial agriculture: widows, female heads of households, single women, and itinerant laborers. By the turn of the century, families headed by men also lost their hold on the land. Turning to the mills, they sought not a "family wage" that would enable a man to support his dependents but an arena in which parents and children could work together as they had always done.5 The deployment of family labor also helped maintain permeable boundaries between farm and mill. The people we interviewed moved with remarkable ease from farming to mill work and back again or split their family's time between the two. James Pharis's father raised tobacco in the Leaksville-Spray area of North Carolina until most of his six children were old enough to obtain mill jobs. The family moved to a mill village in the 1890s because the elder Pharis "felt that all we had to do when we come to town was to reach up and pull the money off of the trees." From the farm Pharis saved his most valuable possession: his team of horses. While the children worked in the mill, he raised vegetables on a plot of rented ground and used his team to do "hauling around for people." Betty Davidson's landowning parents came up with the novel solution of sharing a pair of looms. "My father would run the looms in the wintertime," Davidson remembered, "and go to and from work by horseback. And in the summertime, when he was farming, my mother run the looms, and she stayed in town because she couldn't ride the horse. Then, on the weekends, she would come home."6 This ability to move from farming to factory work—or combine the t w o postponed a sharp break with rural life. It also gave mill workers a firm sense of alternative identity and leverage against a boss's demands. Lee Workman recalled his father's steadfast independence. In 1918 the superintendent of a nearby cotton mill came to the Workmans' farm in search of workers to help him meet the demand for cloth during World War I. The elder Workman sold his mules and cow but, contrary to the superintendent's advice, held on to his land. Each spring he returned to shoe his neighbors' horses, repair their wagons and plows, and fashion the cradles they used to harvest grain. "He'd tell the superintendent, 'You can just get somebody else, because I'm going back to make cradles for my friends.' Then he'd come back in the wintertime and work in the mill." This type of freedom did not sit well with the mill superintendent, but the elder Workman had the upper ' Janiewski, Sisterhood Denied. 55-65; McHugh. " T h e Family Labor System." 16-73: a n d U.S. Congress. Repart on the Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners m the United Slates, volume 1 : Cotton Textile Industry, 61st Cong.. 2d sess.. Senate Document No. 645 (Washington. D.C.. 1910). 525 (hereafter. Cotton Textile Industry). 6 Jame« and Nannie Pharis. interview by Allen Tullos. Burlington, N.C., December 5,1978. J a n u a r y 8. 30. 1979, p. 2; and Uoyd and Betty Davidson, interview by Allen Tullos, Burlington, N.C., February 2. 15. 1979. pp. 1-2.

502

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

hand."'Well,' he told them, 'if you don't want to do that, I'll move back to the country and take the family.'" 7 Although Lee Workman's father periodically retreated to the farm, his sons and daughters, along with thousands of others, eventually came to the mills to stay. There they confronted an authority more intrusive than anything country folk had experienced before. In Bynum, North Carolina, the mill owner supervised the Sunday School and kept tabs on residents' private lives. "If you stubbed your toe they'd fire you. They'd fire them here for not putting out the lights late at night. Old Mr. Bynum used to go around over the hill at nine o'clock and see who was up. And, if you were up, he'd knock on the door and tell you to cut the lights out and get into bed." 9 Along with surveillance came entanglement with the company store. Mill hands all too familiar with the crop lien once again found themselves in endless debt. Don Faucette's father often talked about it. "Said if you worked at the mill they'd just take your wages and put it in the company store and you didn't get nothing. For years and years they didn't get no money, just working for the house they lived in and what they got at the company store. They just kept them in the hole all the time." 9 The mill village undeniably served management's interests, but it also nurtured a unique workers' culture. When Piedmont farmers left the land and took a cotton mill job, they did not abandon old habits and customs. Instead, they fashioned familiar ways of thinking and acting into a distinctively new way of life. 10 This adaptation occurred at no single moment in time; rather, it evolved, shaped and reshaped by successive waves of migration off the farm as well as the movement of workers from mill to mill. Village life was based on family tics. Kinship networks facilitated migration to the mill and continued to play a powerful integrative role. Children òf the first generation off the land married newcomers of the second and third, linking households into broad networks of obligation, responsibility, and concern. For many couples, marriage evolved out of friendships formed while growing u p in the village. One married worker recalled, "We knowed each other from childhood. Just raised up together, you might say. All lived here on the hill, you see, that's how we met." As single workers arrived, they, too, were incorporated into the community. Mary Thompson explained that the boarding houses run by 7

Lee Workman, interview by Patty DiUey. Brookford. N.C., J u n e 1977, p. 7. • J o h n Wesley Snipes, interview by Brent Glass. Bynum. N.C.. November 2 0 . 1 9 7 6 . p. 29. For other accounts of surveillance by mill owners, see H . Lanier Rand."'! H a d to Like It': A Study of a D u r h a m Textile Community" (honors essay. University of N o r t h Carolina. Chapel Hill. 1977). 6 6 - 7 2 ; and Gary Richard Freeze. "Master Mill M a n : J o h n Milton Odell and Industrial Development in Concord. N o r t h Carolina. 1877-1907" (M.A. thesis. University of North Carolina, Chapel HiU. 1980). 59-82. For the argument that such personal involvement seldom translated into benevolent paternalism, see Beany, 'Textile Labor in the North Carolina Piedmont." 485-503. 9 Daniel Augustus T o m p k i n s . Cotton Mill. Commercial Features: A Text Book for the Use of Textile Schools and Investors (Charlotte. N.C.. 1899). S5; and Don and Paul Faucette, interview by Allen Tullos. Burlington. N.C., January 7. 1979. p. 35. 10 For f u r t h e r discussion of the ties between f a r m and factory and t h e c r e a u o n of a hybrid mill village culture, see DeNatale. "Traditional Culture a n d Community." Studies of cultural continuity in the New England textile industry include T a m a r a Κ. Hareven, Family Time and Industrial Time: The Relationship between the Family and Work in a New England Industrial Community (Cambridge. 1983); J o n a t h a n P r u d e . The Coming of Industrial Order: Town and Factory Life in Rural Massachusetts, 1810—1860 (Cambridge, 1983): and Barbara M. T u c k e r . Samuel Slater and the Origins of the American Textile Industry. 1790-1860 (Ithaca. N.Y., 1984).

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widowed women and older couples "were kind of family like. There ain't no place like home, but I guess that's the nearest place like home there is, a boarding house." Mill folk commonly used a family metaphor to describe village life. Hoyle McCorkle remembered the Highland Park mill village in Charlotte as a single household knit together by real and fictive kin: "It was kind of one big family; it was a 200-house family."11 Mill hands also brought subsistence strategies from the countryside, modifying them to meet mill village conditions. Just as farmers had tried to bypass the furnishing merchant, mill workers struggled to avoid "living out of a tin can." Edna Hargett's father planted a large garden every spring but could not afford a mule to help till the land. He made do by putting a harness around himself and having his children "stand behind and guide the plow." Louise Jones's family also gardened and raised "homemade meat." Her parents "had a big garden and a corn patch and a few chickens around the yard. We'd have maybe six or eight hens, and we'd let the hens set on the eggs and hatch chickens and have frying-size chickens, raise our own fryers." Self-sufficiency, however, was difficult to achieve, especially when every family member was working a ten- to twelve-hour day for combined wages that barely made ends meet. Even with their gardens, few families could sustain a varied diet through the winter months. As a result, pellagra was a scourge in the mill villages. Life was lived close to the bone. 12 Under these conditions, necessity and habit fostered rural traditions of mutual aid. Although each family claimed a small plot of land, villagers shared what they grew and "live{d] in common." In late summer and early fall, they gathered for the familiar rituals of harvest and hog killing. Paul and Don Faucette remembered how it was done in Glencoe, North Carolina. "We'd kill our hogs this time, and a month later we'd kill yours. Well, you can give us some, and we can give you some. They'd have women get together down in the church basement. They'd have a quilting bee, and they'd go down and they'd all quilt. They'd have a good crop of cabbage, [and] they'd get together and all make kraut." Villagers helped one another, not with an expectation of immediate return but with the assurance of " Ethel Faucette. interview by Allen TuUos, Glencoe. N.C., November 16. 1978. J a n u a r y 4. 1979, p. 35; Carl and Mary Thompson, interview by J a m e s Leloudis. Charlotte. N.C.. July 19, 1979, pp. 30-31; Hoyle a n d Mamie McCorkle. interview by J a m e s Leloudis, Charlotte, N.C.. July 11, 1979. pp. I, 3. 5, 7; a n d DeNatale. "Traditional C u l t u r e and Community." 52-61. " Ernest Hickum, interview by Allen Tullos, Greenville. S.C.. March 27, 1980. p. 4; Edna Hargett. interview by J a m e s Leloudis, Charlotte. N.C.. July 19.1979. p. 5; a n d Louise Jones, interview by Mary Frederickson. Bynum, N.C., September 20. 1976. p. 42. On the prevalence of pellagra and other disabling diseases, see Joseph Goldberger et al.. "A Study of the Relation of Diet to Pellagra Incidence in Seven Textile Communities of South Carolina in 1916." Public Health Riparti. March 19, 1920. pp. 6 4 8 - 7 1 3 : and Edgar Sydenstricker et al.. "Disabling Sickness a m o n g the Population of Seven Cotton Mill Villages of South Carolina in Relation to Family Income." Public Htalth Reports. November 22, 1918. pp. 2038-51. A federal study of mill workers' household budgets conducted in 1907-08 revealed that "20 p e r cent of these people are living in the direst poverty. T h e y are u n d e r f e d , or underclothed. or they have not enough fire to keep t h e m warm." Another 51 percent were "living in poverty of o n e d e g r e e or a n o t h e r . Some are barely above t h e starvation line: others have enough for food a n d clothing and a few of the other things considered as necessaries . . . yet they feel the pinch of poverty somewhere." L'.S. Congress. Report on the Condition of Woman and Child Wage-Earners in the Untied States. volume 16: Family Budgets of Typual Cotton-Mill Workers, 61st Cong , 2d sess.. Senate Document No. 645 (Washington. D.C.. 1911). 170.

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community support in meeting their individual needs. "They'd just visit around and work voluntarily. They all done it, and nobody owed nobody nothing." 13 Cooperation provided a buffer against misery and want at a time when state welfare services were limited and industrialists often refused to assume responsibility for job-related sickness and injury. It bound people together and reduced their dependence on the mill owners' charity. When someone fell ill, neighbors were quick to give the stricken family a "pounding." "They'd all get together and help. They'd cook food and carry it to them—all kinds of food—fruits, vegetables, canned goods." Villagers also aided sick neighbors by taking up a "love offering" in the mill. £dna Hargett organized such collections in the weave room at the Chadwick-Hoskins Mill in Charlotte. "When the neighbors got paid they'd come and pay us, and we'd take their money and give it to [the family of the weaver who was ill], and they'd be so proud of it, because they didn't have any wage coming in." To the people we interviewed, the village was "just one big community and one big family" whose members "all kind of hung together and survived."M Community solidarity did not come without a price. Neighborliness could shade into policing; it could repress as well as sustain. Divorced women and children bom out of wedlock might be ostracized, and kinship ties could give mill supervisors an intelligence network that reached into every corner of the village. Alice Evitt of Charlotte remarked that "people then couldn't do like they do now. They was talked about. My daddy would never allow us to be with people that was talked about. This was the nicest mill hill 1 ever lived on. If anybody done anything wrong and you reported them, they had to move." A Bynum proverb summed u p the double-edged quality of village life. "If you went along, they'd tend to their business and yours, too, if you let them, your neighbors would. Tend to your business and theirs, too. And the old saying here, you know, 'Bynum's red mud. If you stick to Bynum, it'll stick to you when it rains."'15 " Myra Page. Stmthrrn CoUmMiiharui Labor (New York. 1929), 24: Paul and Don Fauceue, interview by Allen Tullos, 29; and Charles Foster, interview by Brent Glau, Swepsonville, N.C., March 4, 1976, p. 14. " Carl and Mary Thompson, interview by James Leloudis. 48-49: Edna Hargeu. interview by James Leloudis, 24-25: and Hoyle and Mamie McCorkle, interview by James Leloudis, 3. Also see Quinney, "Childhood in a Southern Mill Village." 174. 178, 184, 187-88. Such rituals of sharing were known as "poundings" because by custom each family contributed a pound of food or other goods. Most studies of the textile industry overlook these forms of interdependence and emphasize the importance of paternalism and dependency. Particularly significant in this regard are Mitchell. Rise of Couon Milts·. Frank Tannenbaum. Darker Phases of the SouiA (New York, 1924); and Harry Boyle. "The Textile Industry: Keel of Southern Industrialization," Radical America, 6 (1972): 4-49. An equally influential, if contradictory, theme is that of mill workers' "individualism." See, especially. Cash, The Mind of the South. 32-46, 249-50. 365. 397. 15 Alice Evitt, interview byjames Leloudis. Charlotte. N.C.. July 18.1979,pp.8.11; and John Wesley Snipes, interview by Douglas DeNatale, Bynum, N.C., August 22.1979, untranscribed. tape index, p. 3. On the treatment of divorced women, illegitimate children, and unwed mothers, see Edna Hargeu, interview byjames Leloudis, 20-21, 58; and Carl and Mary Thompson, interview byjames Leloudis, 22-23. Vinnie Partin knew a young woman in Burlington who suffered the full force of the community's wrath. "There was a girl that worked in the spinning room there, and she got pregnant and wasn't married. So everybody there just banded together and was going to quit if they didn't fire her, and they had to fire her." Vinnie Partin, interview by Valerie Quinney and Joan Sherman. Cart boro, N.C.. July 3. 1975, pp. 28-29. For a discussion of the use of family networks for purposes of discipline and control, see DeNatale, "Traditional Culture and Community," 62-70; and Newman. "Work and Community Life," 212. For a comparative perspective, see Ellen Ross, "Survival Networks: Women's

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Given such tensions, we were struck by how little ambivalence surfaced in descriptions of mill village life. Recollections of factory work were something else again, but the village—red mud and all—was remembered with affection. The reasons are not hard to find. A commitment to family and friends represented a realistic appraisal of working people's prospects in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century South. Only after World War II, with the expansion of service industries, did the Piedmont offer alternatives to low-wage factory work to more than a lucky few. Until then, casting one's lot with others offered more promise and certainly more security than the slim hope of individual gain. To be sure, mill people understood the power of money; they struggled against dependency and claimed an economic competence as their due. Nevertheless, they had "their own ideas . . . about what constitute^] the 'good life.'" Communal values, embodied in everyday behavior, distanced mill folk from the acquisitiveness that characterized middle-class life in New South towns.16 This is not to say that mill village culture destroyed individuality. On the contrary, it conferred status and dignity that the workplace could seldom afford. Although mill ways encouraged group welfare at the expense of personal ambition, they did support individual accomplishment of a different sort. The practice of medicine provides one example, music another. Folk medicine formed an important part of workers' "live-at-home" culture. Until well into the twentieth century, mill hands simply could not afford medical fees; besides, they viewed doctors with distrust and fear. In emergencies, the village turned to its own specialists. Among the earliest of these in Bynum was Louise Jones's mother, Madlena Riggsbee. "She was what you'd say was a midwife. She could just hold up under anything. Unless they were bound and compelled to have the doctor, they'd usually get her to go." In the 1920s and 1930s, the company retained the services of a physician, paid for with funds withheld from workers' checks. But in the eyes of the villagers, he was a partner—indeed a junior partner—to Ida Jane Smith, a healer and midwife who was one of the most respected figures in the community. "Lord, she was a good woman," Carrie Gerlinger recalled. "She knowed more about younguns than any doctor."17 If the midwife was the most prestigious member of the female community, the musician held that place among men. String bands had been a mainstay of country gatherings, and they multiplied in the mill villages where musicians lived closer together and had more occasions to play. Mastery of an instrument brought a man fame as the local "banjo king" or expert guitar picker. Musicians sometimes played simply for their own enjoyment. Paul Faucette and a small group of friends and kinfolk used "to get together on the porch on Saturday night and just have a big Neighbourhood Sharing in London before World War I." History Workshop Journal. 15 (1985): 14-18; and Laurel T h a t c h e r Ulrich. Good Wives: Image and Reality m the Lives of Women m Northern Sew England. 1650-17}0 (New York. 1983), 51-67. 16 M a q o n e A. Potwin. Cotton Mill PtopU of the Pudmant: A Study m Social Change (New York. 1927), 17. " Louise Jone», interview by Mary Fredenckson. 27, 58; Carrie Cerringer. interview by Douglas DeNaiale. Bvnum. N.C.. August I I . 1979. p. 25; and DeNaule, "Traditional Culture and Community," 70-80.

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time." On other occasions, they performed for house dances and community celebrations. Harvey Ellington remembered that on Saturday night "you'd have a dance in somebody's house—they'd take the beds and all out, and then we'd just play." The dance might end before midnight, but the musicians' performance often continued into the morning. "We'd be going home and decide we didn't want to go to bed. So we'd take the ñddle and the guitar and the banjo and stop at the corner and harmonize—do what they call serenade. The people would raise the windows and listen. That's the best sounding music, wake up at night and hear somebody playing."18 Special talents won Harvey Ellington and Madlena Riggsbee places of honor in their neighbors' memories. But most villagers never achieved such distinction. They lived in quiet anonymity, often guided and strengthened by religious faith. Most textile workers were evangelical Protestants, and many worshipped in churches built and financed by factory owners. On one level, these churches proved helpful, maybe even essential, to the mills. Like their counterparts in other industrializing societies, they inculcated the moral and social discipline demanded by factory life. Still, there was another side to evangelical religion, one that empowered the weak, bound them together, and brought them close to God. At springtime revivals, faith turned to ecstasy. "People got happy and they shouted. They'd sing and hug each other—men and women both." When the Holy Spirit moved individuals to confessions of sin, the entire body of worshippers joined in thanksgiving for God's saving grace.19

of the mill village, then, was less a product of owners' designs than a compromise between capitalist organization and workers' needs. For a more clear-cut embodiment of the manufacturers' will, we must look to the factory. The ornate facades of nineteenth-century textile mills reflected their builders' ambitions and the orderly world they hoped to create. The mill that still stands at Glencoe is an excellent example. Situated only a few hundred yards from the clapboard houses that make up the village, the mill is a three-story structure complete with "stair tower, corbelled cornice, quoined stucco corners, and heavily stuccoed window labels." In contrast to the vernacular form of the village, the architecture of the factory, modeled on that of New England's urban mills, was highly self-conscious, formal, and refined. 50 At Glencoe, and in mills throughout the Piedmont, manufacturers endeavored to shape the southern yeomanry into a tractable industrial workforce. Workers'

T H E PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY

" Rov L e t and Mary Ruth A u t o n . interview b y j a c q u e l v n Hall. Maiden. N.C.. February 28. 1980, p. S1 : Pau! and Don Faucette. interview bv Allen Tullos. 31 ; and Harvey Ellington a n d Sam Pridgen, interview by Allen Tullos. O x f o r d . N.C.. March 1, April 5.1979, p p . 1 8 - 1 9 . 3 5 - 3 6 . Also see DeNatale. "Traditional Culture and C o m m u n i t y . " 80-87. " George a n d Tessie Dyer, interview by Lu A n n Jones. Charlotte. N.C.. March 5. 1980. p. 10. Also see Quinney. "Childhood in a Southern Mill Village." 184—86. For two perspectives o n t h e social meaning of evangelical religion, see Paul E. J o h n s o n , Λ Shopkeeper'i Millennium: Soeiety and Revivals m Rochester, Sew York, 18Π-1837 (New York. 1978); and Donald C . Mathews. Rehgun in the Old South (Chicago. 1977). J0 Glass. "Southern Mill Hills." 139.

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attitudes toward factory labor, like those toward village life, owed much to the cycles and traditions of the countryside. Owners, on the other hand, sought to substitute for cooperation and task orientation a labor system controlled from the top down and paced by the regular rhythms of the machine. Barring adverse market conditions, work in the mills varied little from day to day and season to season. Workers rose early in the morning, still tired from the day before, and readied themselves for more of the same. For ten, eleven, and twelve hours they walked, stretched, leaned, and pulled at their machines. Noise, heat, and humidity engulfed them. The lint that setded on their hair and skin marked them as mill workers to the outside world. The cotton dust that silendy entered their lungs could also kill them. Owners enforced this new pattern of labor with the assistance of a small coterie of supervisors. As a rule, manufacturers delegated responsibility for organizing work and disciplining the help to a superintendent and his overseers and second hands. A second hand in a pre-World War I mill recalled, "You had the cotton, the machinery, and the people, and you were supposed to get out the production. How you did it was pretty much up to you; it was production management was interested in and not how you got it." Under these circumstances, supervision was a highly personal affair; there were as many different approaches to its problems as there were second hands and overseers. As one observer explained, "There was nothing that could be idendfied as a general pattern of supervisory practice."21 At times, discipline could be harsh, erratic, and arbitrary. This was particularly true before 1905, when most workers in southern mills were women and children. Even supervisors writing in the Southern Textile Bulletin admitted that "some overseers, second hands, and section men have a disposition to abuse the help. Whoop, holler, curse, and jerk the children around." James Pharis remembered that "you used to work for the supervisor because you were scared. I seen a time when I'd walk across the road to keep from meeting my supervisor. They was the hat-stomping kind. If you done anything, they'd throw their hat on the floor and stomp it and raise hell."22 In the absence of either state regulation or trade unions, management's power seemed limitless, but there were, in fact, social and structural constraints. Although manufacturers relinquished day-to-day authority to underlings, they were everpresent figures, touring the mill, making decisions on wages and production quotas, and checking up on the help. These visits were, in part, attempts to maintain the appearance of paternalism and inspire hard work and company loyalty. At the same time, ihey divided power in the mill. Workers had direct access to the owner and sometimes saw him as a buffer between themselves and supervisors, a "force that could bring an arbitrary and unreasonable [overseer] back into line." Mack Duncan recalled that in the early years "most all the mill owners seemed like they had a little milk of human kindness about them, but some 21 G l e n n O i l m a n . Human Relations in the Industrial Southeast: Λ Study of the Textile Industry ( C h a p e l Hill, SC.. 1956), 142. " Southern Textile Bulletin ( h e r e a f t e r . STB). N o v e m b e r 2. 1911. p. 7; a n d J a m e s Pharis. i n t e r v i e w by Cliff K u h n . B u r l i n g t o n . N. C . July 24. 1977. p. 41.

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of the people they hired didn't. Some of the managers didn't have that. They were bad to exploit people." Under these circumstances, the commands of an overseer were always subject to review. Workers felt free to complain about unjust treatment, and owners, eager to keep up production, sometimes reversed their lieutenants' orders. Federal labor investigators reponed in 1910 that "when an employee is dissatisfied about mill conditions he may obtain a hearing from the chief officer of the mill. . . and present his side of the case. Not infrequently when complaints are thus made, the overseer is overruled and the operative upheld." 23 Authority on the shop floor was further complicated by social relations in the mill village. Before the introduction of industrial engineers and college-trained foremen in the 1920s and 1930s, most supervisors worked their way up through the ranks. Personal and occupational life were inseparable; supervisors knew the mill, the various jobs, and the ways of the workers. Edgar Moore, superintendent of the Bynum mill from 1904 to 1955, was carefully picked and groomed for his job. Relatives recalled how he attained his position. "They told Edgar, 'Now if you'll come down there and work through the mill, start at the first, just learn the machinery, when you get through with it, I'll put you overseer.' They seen something in him. And he was a brilliant fellow. The company helped him. and he worked through the mill and got to be superintendent."24 As time went on, Moore became known for his threats to fire workers at the least provocation, but he seldom acted on his words. He was involved both inside and outside the mill in relationships other than that of worker and manager. Like the rest of the villagers, Moore relied on the healing skill of Ida Jane Smith. He also played in the village string band, where he took a back seat to a drifter who was Bynum's best musician. Most important, Moore's brothers and sister, nieces and nephews, had married established Bynum residents and newcomers from other mills. Those kinship ties gave him access to details of workers' private lives, but they also meant that blatant injustice on his pan might have repercussions on his own family.25 In their daily lives, managers whose interests were tied to those of owners had to meet the pressures of a community to which the owners did not belong. As a result, overseers were sometimes as loyal to the workers as to the company. Eva Hopkins's father, an overseer in the Mercury mill in Charlotte, "worked with the help. He didn't work against them. He didn't work just for the company, he worked with the people." When a mill owner issued an unpopular order, such an overseer might pass the order along but yield to workers' pressure not to enforce it. Mildred Edmonds, who worked in the Piedmont Heights plant in Burlington, remembered that "they made a rule up there one time. They said you couldn't talk to the other one on the other side of you. Well, the bossman went around, and he told all of them. He got down to me, and he said, 'Mil, I'll have to tell you but I 25 Oilman. Human Rektums. 146-47: Mack Duncan, interview by Allen TuUoj. Greenville. S.C.. August 30. 1979. p. 60; and Cotton Textile Industry. 608. 2 * Flossie Moore Durham, interview by Mary Frederickson and Brent Class. Bynum. N.C., September 2. 1976. pp. 22-23; and Frank Durham, interview by Douglas DeNatale. Bynum. N.C., September 10. 17, 1979, p. 5. " DeNataie. "Traditional Culture and Community," 62-70.

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know it won't do no good.' I asked him what it was, and he said, 'You're not supposed to talk to each other.' 1 said, 'God gave me a tongue, and I'm going to use it.' It didn't last long. He didn't want to do it. But you see, the man above him put that on him. " îs A personal style of labor management posed but one obstacle to the imposition of strict discipline. Mill owners also faced the limitations of existing technology. The small size of most mills before World War I made it difficult to coordinate production in a way that kept all hands constantly at work. The people we interviewed remembered long breaks while they waited for their machines to finish a production cycle. Weavers and spinners had time to sit down and rest or visit neighbors in the mill, while doffers, most of whom were children, could play outdoors. Workers who had spare time also helped others so that all could share a few moments away from the job. Mamie Shue offered one example. "All the boys that doffed in the spinning room, they'd bring me my bobbins and then, when they got caught up, they come out there and helped me spool. When I'd catch up, we'd go out behind the mill, sit in the grass, and stay out there about two hours. We'd come down to North Charlotte and get watermelons. Carry them back u p there behind the mill and sit down. Then we'd come back in and do that all over."?7 Most prewar mills had central power systems in which a water wheel, steam engine, or single electric motor drove the machinery through an elaborate network of bells, shafts, and pulleys. At certain times of the year water-powered mills were prone to frequent stoppages. £thel Faucette explained that, "when the water'd get low, maybe they'd stop off for an hour or two. That was in the summertime. Well, this gang of boys would get their instruments and get out there in front of the mill, and they would sing and pick the guitar and the banjo and play different kinds of string music. And maybe they'd stand an hour or two, and the water'd gain up, and they'd start back up." 28 The introduction of steam power and electricity at the turn of the century reduced the irregularities of production, but mills remained susceptible to the problems caused by belt-driven machinery. Paul Cline of Greenville remembered that "back in them days they had that old machinery that run by belt drives and things. They couldn't run [too fast]. Them belts'd slip off, and they'd have to stop to put the belts back on. It'd break, and they'd have to get somebody to fix the belts." Such breakdowns could stop work on a single machine or in an entire section of the mill, sometimes sending workers home for the remainder of the day. 59 Mill owners and workers alike had to accommodate themselves to a work environment not entirely of their own choosing. Factory labor did not allow the independence and flexibility of labor on the farm, but neither did it meet the 26 Eva B. Hopkins, interview by Lu Ann Jones. Charlotte. N.C.. March 5. 1980. p. 26; a n d Manie Shoemaker and Mildred Edmonds, interview by Mary M u r p h y . Burlington, N.C., March 23. 1979. ρ 23. " George and Mamie Shue. interview by J a m e s Leloudis. Charlotte. N C . J u n e 20. 1979. p p 44. 46. Also see Jennings J. Rhyne. Some Southern Cotton MiU Worker: and Their Villages (Chapel Hill. N.C.. 1930). 11; and Cotton Textile Industry. 269-72. n Ethel Faucette. interview by Allen TuUos. 24—25 " Paul Ciine. interview by Allen TuUos, Greenville. S.C.. November 8. 1979. ρ 17.

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standards of rigor and regularity desired by owners. An informal compromise governed the shop floor. "We worked longer then in the mill than they do now," explained Naomi Trammell, "and made less, too. But we didn't work hard. I done all my playing in the mill."50

work pace on the one hand and long hours and low wages on the other was tenuous at best. Despite manufacturers' efforts to create a secure world in the mill and village, there were recurrent symptoms of unrest. During the 1880s and 1890s, southern mill hands turned first to the Knights of Labor and then to the National Union of Textile Workers (NUTW) to defend their "freedom and liberty." In 1900 an intense conflict led by the NUTW flared in Alamance County, center of textile manufacturing in North Carolina, when an overseer at the Haw River Mill fired a female weaver for leaving her loom unattended. The next day, September 28, union members "threw up" their machines, defending the woman's right to "go when she pleased and where she pleased." By mid-October, workers at other mills throughout the county had joined in a sympathy strike." The mill owners, conveniently overstocked with surplus goods, posted armed guards around their factories, declared they would employ only nonunion labor, and threatened to evict union members from company-owned houses. Undeterred, the workers resolved to stand together as "free men and free women"; five thousand strong, they brought production in Alamance mills virtually to a halt. But by the end of November evictions had overwhelmed the NUTW's relief fund, and the Alamance mill hands were forced to accept a settlement on management's terms.32 The Haw River strike capped more than two decades of unrest. During those years, Populists and factory laborers challenged the power of planters, merchants, and industrialists. Between 1895 and 1902, southern Democrats turned to race baiting, fraud, and intimidation to destroy this interracial movement. The passage of state constitutional amendments disfranchising blacks and many poor whites, accompanied by a flurry of Jim Crow laws, restructured the political system, narrowing the terms of public discourse, discouraging lower-class political participation, and making it impossible for opposition movements to survive." T H I S TRADEOFF BETWEEN A RELATIVELY RELAXED

50

Naomi Trammell. interview by Allen TuUos. Greenville. S.C., March 25. 1980, p. 7. 31 Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Printing of the State of North Carolina for the Year 190! (Raleigh, N.C., 1902). 415-16; J e r o m e Dowd. "Strikes a n d Lockouts in N o r t h Carolina." Guntons Magazine, February 1901. p. 138: a n d Raleigh Newt and Observer. October 6. 1900. p. 1. October 18. 1900, pp. 1-2. O n the organizing efforts of the Knights of Labor a n d the N U T W . see Melton Alonza McLaurin. The Knights of Labor in the South (Westport. Conn.. 1978), and Paternalism and Protest. " Dowd. "Strikes a n d Lockouts." 139; Raleigh News and Observer. October 5. 1900. p. 1. October 20. 1900. p p . 1-2. November 21.1900. p. I .Alamance Gleaner, November 1.1900. p. Ϊ.ΛΤιά Fifteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Printing, 415—16 For f u r t h e r discussion of t h e strike, see McLaurin. Paternalism and Protest, 156-61; and Sydnev Nathans. The Quest for Progress: The Way We Lived m North Carolina. 1880-1920 (Chapel HiU. N.C.. 1983). 3 6 - 3 7 35 O n disfranchisement and the larger political context in which the Haw River strike occurred, see Paul D. E s c o u . M e n j Excellent People: Power and Privilege in North Carolina. 1850-1900 (Chapel Hill. Ν .C.. 1985), 252-62; Goodwyn, Democratic Promise-, J. Morgan Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics:

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As prospects for collective protest diminished, Piedmont mill hands opted for a personal strategy as old as the industry itself—relocation. In Alamance County alone, more than three hundred workers left to find new jobs in South Carolina and Georgia. "Among them," reported the Alamance Gleaner, "are a great many excellent people who prefer to go elsewhere rather than surrender rights and privileges which they as citizens deem they should own and enjoy." In choosing to leave in search of better conditions, the Haw River workers set a pattern for decades to come. Until the end of World War I, quitting was textile workers' most effective alternative to public protest or acquiescence. One student of the southern textile industry' declared that a mill hand's "ability to move at a moment's notice was his Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, and Communist Manifesto."' 4 This movement f r o m j o b to job could be touched off by any number of factors— curtailed production, a promise of higher wages, or a simple desire to move on— but it could also be a response to a perceived abuse of authority. Josephine Glenn of Burlington explained. "A lot of people in textile mills come and go. They're more or less on a cycle. They're not like that as a whole, but a lot of them are. They're dissatisfied, you might say, restless. They just go somewhere and work awhile, and, if everything don't go just like they think it should, why, they walk out. Sometimes they'd be mad, and sometimes they'd just get on a bender and just not come back. Maybe something personal, or maybe something about the work, or just whatever they got mad about. They'd just [say], 'I've had it,' and that was it." Workers expected to be treated with respect; when it was lacking, they left. George Dyer of Charlotte offered this advice: "Sometimes some boss don't like you, gets it in for you. It's best then just to quit. Don't work under conditions like that. I didn't want to work u n d e r a man that don't respect me."' 5 T h e decision to move was usually made by men, and it could be hard on women and children. Family ties could fray under the wear and tear of factory life. Although £dna Hargett also worked in the mills, she was evicted f r o m her house every time her husband quit his job. "He was bad about getting mad and quitting. He was just hot-tempered and didn't like it when they wanted to take him off his job and put him on another job. When you work in the card room, you have to know how to run about every piece of machinery in there. He liked to be a slubber, and they wanted to put him on drawing or something else. Well, he didn't like to do that." Edna understood her husband's motives but finally left to settle down and rear their children on her own. 56

Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of tht Ont-Party South, 1880-1910 (New Haven, Conn.. 1975); and Michael Schwanz, Radical Proust and Social Structure: The Southern Farmers' Alliance and Cotton Tenancy. ¡880-1890 (New York. 1976), 281-87. Democratic leaders in Soulh Carolina had less success than their North Carolina counterparts in restricting white, working-class political participation. See Carlton. Mill and Town. 2 1 5 - 7 2 . 54 Alamance Gleaner. N o v e m b e r 22. 1900. p. 3. November 29, 1900, p. 3: and Blanshard, Labor m Southern Cotton Mills. 48. " Josephine Glenn, interview by ClifT K u h n . Burlington. N C . J u n e 27.1977, pp. 7 , 2 0 ; and George and Tessie Dyer, interview by Lu Ann Jones, 37. s6 Edna Hargett, interview by James Leloudis. 57.

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Divorce, however, was uncommon. Most families stayed together, and their moves from mill to mill were facilitated by kinship and cushioned by community. A study completed in the late 1920s revealed that 41 percent of mill families had moved less than three times in ten years. Most settled families were headed by middle-aged men and women who had "just kept the road hot" before and immediately after marriage and had then stayed in a village they liked. This relatively stable core of residents made movement possible by providing the contacts through which other workers learned of job opportunities. Established residents also mitigated the ill effects of transiency and preserved ways of life that made it easy for newcomers to feel at home. Women played central roles in this process, keeping up with the events in the village, coordinating informal acts of relief, and keeping the web of social relations intact. 57 In these ways, the Piedmont became what journalist Arthur W. Page described in 1907 as "one long mill village." Individual communities were woven together— through kinship, shared occupational experiences, and popular culture—into an elaborate regional fabric. According to Lacy Wright, who worked at Greensboro's White Oak Mill, "We had a pretty fair picture, generally speaking, of what you might say was a 200-mile radius of Greensboro. News traveled by word of mouth faster than any other way in those days, because that's the only way we had. In other words, if something would happen at White Oak this week, you could go over to Danville, Virginia, by the weekend and they'd done heard about it. It looked like it always worked out that there would be somebody or another that would carry that information all around." Rooted in a regional mill village culture, workers like Wright took the entire Piedmont as their frame of reference. 58 Owners and workers understood that the ability to move in search of more satisfying employment could serve as a check on mill management. After a tour of North and South Carolina mills in 1906, a superintendent vented his frustrations in the pages of the Southern and Western Textile Excelsior. "Unfortunately," he lamented, "the help have come to think that they and not the mill owners control the situation." Writing to the Southern Textile Bulletin twelve years later, another superintendent complained that "such a thing as discipline in the average cotton mill is an unknown quantity." Blaine Wofford. a Charlotte mill hand, explained. "The drawback on the mill was that a whole family would get mad and quit; if one would get mad, all would quit. That kind of put the mill behind the eight ball. There'd be all those jobs and nobody on them. I guess back then the overseers had to walk lighdy with them." 59 " Rhyne, Some Southern CoUon Milt Workers. 107. Carrie Gerringer. interview by Douglas DeNatale. 19. For more on workers' mobility, see Cotton Textile Industry. 127. O n women's community roles, see Edna Hargett. interview by James Leloudis. 23-24. 28: Ethel Faucette. interview by Allen Tullos. 28: James a n d Nannie Pharis. interview by Allen Tullos. 4S; and Frances Latta, interview by Valerie Quinney. Carrboro, N.C., July 8. 1975. p. I I . Ellen Ross discussed similar activities a m o n g working-class women in pre-World War I London; "Survival Networks." 10-14. M A r t h u r W. Page, " T h e Cotton Mills and the People." Southern and Western Textile Excelsior (hereafter. SWTE). J u n e 8, 1907. p. 3; and Lacv Wright, interview by Bill Finger and Chip H u g h e s . Greensboro. N.C.. March 10. 1975. pp. 21-22. " " T h e Help Question f r o m the Superintendent's Point of View." SWTE. August 4. 1906. p. 13; "From a Mill Superintendent." STB. May 30. 1918. ρ 12; and Blaine Wofford. interview by Allen Tullos.

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Through the end of World War I, mill workers' "roving disposition" not only posed serious problems for shop floor discipline but also aggravated a chronic labor shortage. As early as 1906, manufacturers worried openly that labor turnover was leaving machines idle and shrinking profits. They had unwittingly contributed to these problems by taking p a n in a building boom at the turn of the century that dramatically increased the demand for labor. As jobs became more plentiful, mill hands were free to move more frequently. Workers remembered that "it wasn't no job at all to get a job then." By 1907 the annual labor turnover rate in the southern textile industry had reached 176 percent, and various mill owners estimated that anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of their employees belonged to the "floating" population. Mill worker Paul Cline summed it up in one vivid image. "My daddy had an old rooster—when he seen the wagon coming, he'd just lay down and cross his legs; he knowed it was time to move."40 Owners first responded to the problems of labor scarcity and control by competing more fiercely with one another. In hopes of attracting and keeping reliable workers, many mill owners raised wages. Between 1902 and 1907 the earnings of male weavers in South Carolina rose by 58 percent, those of female weavers by 65 percent, and those of spinners by 138 percent, while the cost of living increased by only 9 percent. But, if owners sought stability, they did not achieve it with wage competition. As one superintendent complained, "The more the help can earn, the less they work. . . . The prices paid at present have gotten to be so high that an average family, or individual, can make in four days what it once took a full week to cam, and the result is in most instances, such help work only four-sixths of their time. T h e average mill hand is inclined to care only for enough to live on and when they have made that, they rest the balance of the week."41 A more drastic response to the competition for workers was labor pirating. Mill owners throughout the Piedmont hired recruiters to circulate through other mill villages and induce workers to leave their jobs. "In some instances," reported the Soulhern Textile Bulletin, "men are sent to other towns to mix with the people on Saturday night, display rolls of money, and tell remarkable stories of how much they earn at this or that mill." Owners paid moving expenses and offered free housing and groceries to lure workers into their mills. But those practices, like wage increases, only exacerbated the problems they were intended to resolve. The Southern and Western Textile Excelsior warned mill owners that "the scarcity of help Charlotte. N.C.. February 1. 1980, untranscribed. tape index, p. 2. Also see T h o m a s F. Parker. " T h e South Carolina Cotton Mill—A Manufacturer's View," Soulh Atlantu Quarterly. 8 (1909): 332. 40 " T h e Mill Help Question Discussed by Mill Men." SWTE, April 20. 1907. p. 17. Marlin Lowe, interview by Allen Tullos, Greenville. S.C.. October 19.21. 1979. p. 10; Daniel T . Rodgers. "Tradition. Modernity, a n d the American Industrial Worker: Reflections a n d Critique. "Journal of Interdisciplinary Hutory, 7 (1977): 663, 671; a n d Paul Cline, interview by Allen Tullos. 15. For more on the turn-of-the-century building b o o m a n d labor t u r n o v e r , see T h o m p s o n , f r o m the Cotton F if Id u the Cotton Mill. 71 ; Cotton Textile Industry, 126-27; "Wage E a r n e r s in Cotton Textile Industry," STB. September 7, 1911. p p . 4. 17; Oilman. Human Rtlaiitms. 130; McHugh. " T h e Family Labor System." 19; and Carlton. Mill and Town. 152-53. " Carlton, Mill and Town, 142; and "The Mil] H e l p Question Discussed by Mill Men," 17.

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among the cotton mills is aggravated by the pernicious practice of furnishing transportation and enticing help from one mill to another. . . . You furnish transportation from another mill to yours, and another man furnishes transportation from your mill to his, and so the game goes on and maybe there are enough operatives on the trains all the time going from place to place to operate all the idle spindles in the South." 42 Manufacturers took such warnings to heart, realizing that the solution to their problems lay not in fighting among themselves but in rethinking their relations to one another and the nature of mill management. Joining forces in 1908, they turned to their own advantage the efforts of overseers and second hands to organize a supervisors' union. Although uninvited, David Clark and representatives from the state's leading mills attended an overseers' meeting in Spray, North Carolina, and convinced those present that their interests would best be served by allying themselves with mill owners rather than seeking a separate voice. In October of that year, Clark presided over the formation of the Southern Textile Association, which offered membership to all superintendents, overseers, master mechanics, electricians, engineers, editors of textile publications, and instructors at textile schools. T h e association subsequently played a major role in the industry's development, serving as a conduit for the introduction of new theories of personnel management and industrial relations. 41 The manufacturers' most ambitious undertaking in the prewar years was the implementation of company-sponsored "welfare work." Taking their cue f r o m the National Civic Federation and major northern corporations, southern mill owners embarked on a campaign to beautify their villages and provide new social services for their employees. 44 Urged on by industry publicists such as Clark, they began substituting professional intermediaries—social workers, nurses, and teachers— for the direct surveillance of workers' lives. Welfare work was expensive and therefore gained only a limited following among small-scale manufacturers. But the Piedmont's largest mills embraced the new approach to labor-management relations with enthusiasm. Writing in the Southern Textile Bulletin, manufacturers made clear the relationship between welfare work and labor mobility. One mill president explained that he and others undertook welfare work "to secure an attachment for the village to 42 "Scamping of Labor." 5ΓΒ. J u n e 6. 1918. p. 10: a n d "The Labor Problem." SWTE. May 26, 1906, p. 10. For m o r e o n labor pirating, see Giiman. Human Relations. 130; a n d Cotton Textile Industry, 126-27. " Marshall Oilling. "Review of the History of the S o u t h e r n Textile Association." Textile Bulletin. 77 (1951); 140-43; "Southern Textile Association." American Textile Manufacturer. October 29. 1908, p. 5; and "History of t h e Southern Textile Association." STB. November 21, 1918. p. 3. " Southern textile manufacturers defined welfare work as services not directly related to production. Village beautificauon schemes were included but not the provision of low-rent housing, since the village itself was necessary to secure a labor force and carry on t h e business of the mill. For general accounts of welfare work and American business, see Stuart 0 . Brandes. American Welfare Capitalism, 1880-1940 (Chicago. 1976); David Brody, " T h e Rise a n d Decline of Welfare Capitalism." in David Brody, War ken m Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth-Century Struggle (New York. 1980). 48-81 ; and Daniel Kelson. Managers and Workrrs: Origins of the Sew Factory System in the Untied Susies, 1880—1920 (Madison. Wis.. 1975), 101-21.

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decrease the migratory tendency." W. A. Giles of Graniteville, South Carolina, advised fellow mill presidents that welfare work made employees "more loyal, better workers, better contented with their lot, and it will be found that those mills which pay more attention to work of this kind will have [the] best class of labor and more of it in times of stress." Although mill owners were no doubt sincere in their efforts to improve workers' living conditions, welfare work was "also [a] cold blooded business proposition."45 But how could such mundane activities as garden clubs and organized recreation accomplish mill owners' goals? Above all, welfare programs tried to redefine the neighborhood as a physical extension of the mill rather than a network of human relations. Manufacturers awarded prizes for the best flower gardens in their villages and set aside specific plots of land for the vegetable gardens workers had always tilled. They also took over many of the activities that bound workers together. They established "domestic science" classes in which girls learned the arts of housekeeping and cooking not from their mothers and grandmothers but from a professional social worker, and company nurseries replaced informal, familybased child care. Mills financed workers' "pick-up" baseball teams and organized factory leagues in an effort to transform community games into a sport sponsored by and identified with the company. They formed brass bands to take the place of village string bands and built YMCAs to structure workers' leisure. On occasion, owners outlawed the collection of "love offerings" and, in the 1920s, began to offer minimal insurance programs instead. Promotional literature for these programs promised to "eliminate passing the hat in the mill" and enable the employer "to assist the community in meeting some of its welfare problems." 46 Welfare programs also aimed at stimulating desires for consumer goods that would compel mill hands to work regularly. Here domestic science classes did double duty. As we have already seen, workers' nonacquisitiveness could decrease productivity by promoting absenteeism and "loafing." To combat the problem, professional social workers taught mill women to make fashionable clothes, cook elaborate meals, and keep neat homes furnished with upholstered sofas and chairs. The Southern and Western Textile Excelsior voiced owners' confidence that, if these measures did not change the present generation of mill workers, they would at least influence their children. "Their needs must be increased to equal the rise in wages to get them to work steadily," one mill president candidly explained. "The people are not sufficiently ambitious to care to work all the time, but as we are throwing about them elevating influences their needs are growing greater and the next generation will be all right."47 41 A mill president, as quoted by G e r t r u d e Beelu. "In Southern Cotton Mills," SWTE. August 11. 1906. p. 18: W. A Giles. "Welfare Work." Textile Manufacturer, }uiy 7, 1910, p. 23; and E. S. Draper. "Community Work in Southern Mill Villages." STB. May 8. 1919. p. 31. " Harriet L. H e r r i n g . Welfare Work in Mill Villages: The Story of Extra-Mill ActiMiei in North Carolina (Chapel Hill. N.C.. 1929). 106-218, 248-92; Potwin, Cotton Mill People. 151-52; a n d advertisement. STB. April 9. 1936. p. 3. T h e Southern Textile Bulletin promoted welfare work t h r o u g h special "Health and Happiness" issues: December 20, 1917, December 25, 1919. and November 22. 1923. " Beeks, "In Southern Cotton Mills," 18.

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LIFE

517

Despite promises that welfare work would bring "the employer and the employee into closer touch and . . . eliminate industrial unrest," results were disappointing. Many workers recognized the purpose of welfare activities and refused to participate. One mill hand, writing to the Charlotte Labor Herald, observed that owners had substituted "cunning" for authoritarianism in their dealings with employees. "How this could best be done, was a question of much speculation, and has caused no little experimenting," he explained. "Said some, 'We will build . . . kindergartens for the tots, and V.M.C.A.'s for the adults.. . . Thus from the cradle to the grave, we will mould their minds and formulate their convictions. . . . ' T o accomplish this, they learned that a good stafF of social workers was as necessary as the tusks in the mouth of a vicious wild beast." 48 Other mill hands preserved their independence in less self-conscious ways. Mamie Shue remembered that Charlotte's Highland Park Mill "had a house fixed up for a cooking school. And we'd go down there, and they'd teach us how to cook—teach us how to make fancy meals. We just went for the f u n of it. We didn't care nothing about cooking." On the whole, our interviews suggest that welfare work failed to attract workers' interest and redirect their loyalties. T h e carefully balanced investigations of sociologist Harriet Herring point in the same direction. North Carolina mill owners found that "the response of the villagers was so discouraging as to make the work seem not worth while." As an economic depression setded over the textile industry in the years after World War I, manufacturers became convinced that the results of welfare work did not justify the expense. Only a handful of mills initiated new programs after 1920, and many abandoned their welfare activities altogether. 49 in the development of the southern textile industry. Stimulated by wartime demand, new mills sprang up, old ones operated around the clock, wages rose, and profits soared. But, when peace came, overexpanded businesses went into a tailspin. T h e situation worsened when tariff policies and the advent of textile manufacturing in other parts of the world cut into the southern industry's lucrative foreign markets. A sudden change in clothing styles added to manufacturers' troubles. Young women in the 1920s hiked their skins six inches above the ankle, then all the way to the knee, causing consternation among their elders and panic in the textile industry. All in all, the depression that hit the rest of the country in 1929 began for textile manufacturers in the immediate postwar years. 50 Mill officials greeted the armistice with a rollback of workers' wages. But, to the owners' surprise, mill hands refused to abandon small but cherished advances in W O R L D WAR I MARKED A TURNING POINT

" David Clark. Effect of Welfare Work on Industrial Unrest." STB. July 22. 1915, p. 5; and Labor Herald. August 17. 1923, p. 4. 49 George a n d Mamie Shue. interview by J a m e s Leloudis. 30; a n d Herring. Welfare Work in Mill Villages. 123. For owners' doubts about t h e success of welfare work, see W. R. Lynch, "Evolution of Welfare Work in Southern Mill Communities." STB. July 8. 1915, p. 3. w Liston Pope. MtWumds and Preachers: A Study of Castoma (New Haven. C o n n . , 1942) 217-18; Gilman. Human Relations. 177; a n d Gavin Wright. "Cheap Labor a n d Southern Textiles. 1880-1930," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 96 (1981); 606

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their standard of living. When wage cuts were announced in 1919, thousands of workers joined the American Federation of Labor's United Textile Workers (UTW). "They are in deadly earnest," reported the Raleigh News and Observer, "and almost religiously serious in their belief in the union." Manufacturers were equally determined not to employ union members,*and in many cases they simply shut their factory gates to all workers. As the conflict dragged on, threats of violence mounted. Armed strikers patrolled the mill villages, intent on enforcing community and union solidarity. Manufacturers eventually agreed to a settlement but insisted that "the adjustment. . . shall not be construed as a recognition by the mills of collective bargaining." Similar confrontations occurred throughout the Piedmont until 1921, when a severe business downturn crippled union locals and gave management the upper hand. But workers had made their message clear: mill owners would no longer be able to shore up profits simply by cutting wages.51 The impasse created in 1921 by hard times and workers' protests set the suge for a new era of corporate consolidation. As smaller firms went bankrupt, more aggressive competitors gobbled them up. J. Spencer Love, who took over faltering mills in Alamance County and eventually built Burlington Mills into the world's largest textile enterprise, set the pace. Love's generation led the region to ascendancy in the production of synthetics and helped effect a permanent shift of cotton manufacturing from New England to the Piedmont. These "progressive mill men" also set out to find new solutions to problems of profitability and labor control." The methods they adopted aimed at altering the structure of work and breaking the bonds between supervisors and the mill village community. But their freedom of action depended on a ballooning labor supply. As the demand for cotton fell and an agricultural depression settled over the countryside, farmers again came to the mills—in "droves," recalled John Wesley Snipes, "all of them hunting jobs." A story that made the rounds in mill villages summed up the situation. In Snipes's version, the supervisor of the Bynum mill told a desperate applicant, '"No, we ain't got no job for you, not unless somebody dies.'" As the man walked away, "this fellow fell out of the window and got killed." So he ran back and said, '"How about that man; can I have his job?'" '"No,"' replied the superintendent, '"the man that pushed him gets his [job].' They told it as a joke," Snipes concluded, "but it was rough, I'm telling you." For the first time since 51 O n the Charlotte strike, see Charlotti Obserutr. February 26, 1919, p. 4. May 28, 1919, p. 2, May 31, 1919. p. 5. For a discussion of other strikes t h r o u g h 1921, see George Sinclair Mitchell, Textile Unionum and the South (Chapel Hill. N.C.. 1931 ), 4 2 - 5 3 : and H e r b e n J . Lahne. The Cotton Mill Worker (New York. 1944). 205-14. Gavin Wright examined the stability of real wages: "Cheap Labor and Southern Textiles." 623. " Bill Finger. "Textile Men: Looms. Loans, a n d Lockouts." Southern Exposure. 3 (1976): 54-65: and Mary Murphy. "Burlington. North Carolina," S o u t h e r n Oral History Program Working Paper. University of North Carolina. Chapel HiU. 1980. Burlington Mills Corporation changed its name to Burlington Industries in 1955: University of N o r t h Carolina. Chapel HiU, Louis R. Wilson Library, N o r t h Carolina Collection. Burlington Mills C o r p o r a t i o n , 30th Annual Report (n.p.. n.d.), 5. Between 1923 a n d 1933,40 percent of the mills in New England closed down, a n d almost o n e h u n d r e d thousand of t h e one h u n d r e d ninety thousand workers once employed there lost their jobs. T h e South s share of t h e total n u m b e r of textile workers rose f r o m 4 6 to 68 percent. See George B. Tindall. Emergence of the New South. 1913-194} (Baton Rouge. La.. 1967), 78. "Progressive mill m e n " was the phrase David Clark frequently used to describe industry leaders in technological a n d managerial innovation.

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1900, owners could press forward with innovation, unhindered by the fear that disgruntled workers could pick up and move to another mill. 55 The industry looked first to simple cost-cutting measures. One approach was to run the mills around the clock. The faster old machinery could be used up and paid for, the sooner new, efficient designs could be introduced. A second strategy involved tightening operations throughout the mill. Writing in the Southern Textile Bulletin, a "well known superintendent" explained that a major problem was the "waste of t i m e . . . . There are many ways of wasting time . . . too much talking, too much going after drinking water, and too much loitering around sink r o o m s . . . . Time is money and the waste of time is the waste of c a s h . . . . Margins of profit are now so close that waste of all kinds must be most carefully guarded against. Leaks cost money which . . . must, of necessity, come out of profits which would otherwise have been paid out to the owners." But "preventing leaks in mill operation" was, at best, a stopgap measure.54 Major increases in productivity required more fundamental changes. Faster-running, labor-saving machinery had to be installed, jobs had to be reorganized, and new supervisory practices had to be put in place. In 1924 the Southern Textile Bulletin announced a "Better Equipment Campaign" designed to "show the great advantage of modern machinery and methods over old style or primitive forms of machinery." Through the early 1930s, equipment manufacturers flooded the Bulletin and other trade journals with advertisements praising the cost effectiveness and labor-saving qualities of their machines. The Barbara-Colman Company lauded the ability of its new line of spoolers and warpers to remove "the human equation" from production by enabling mills to run with far fewer workers. Other advertisements boasted that Saco-Lowell equipment could reduce the number of men needed to run five pickers from thirteen to four: "Lost—Nine Men But They'll Never Be Missedl" When Blaine Wofford went to work in the Highland Park Mill, twenty-six men ran the speeders and slubbers in the card room. In the late 1920s the company installed machines that enabled "five " J o h n Wesley Snip«, interview by Brem Glau, SO. On the ballooning labor supply and postwar increases in unemployment, part-time work, and layoffs, see Wright, "Cheap Labor and Southern Textiles." 626: Gilman, Human Relations, 177, 207-11: and Lahne, Tht Colton MiU Worker, 149-52. Although moving became less effective as a form of protest, labor mobility did not decline all at once. Sociologist Harriet Herring observed that "labor turnover did not stop or even materially diminish when the depression set in at the middle of 1920 Running from wage cuts and short time was as common as running to increases had been." See Herring, Welfare Work m MiU Villages, 122. Turnover remained high in southern mills in 1923: the avenge annual rate was 190 percent. As the economic depression took hold, however, that figure declined, as it did for American industry in general. See U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Lost Time and Labor Turnover m Cotton Mills: Study of Cause and Extent, Bulletin 52 (Washington, D.C., 1926). 109: Herring, Welfare Work in MiU Villages, 122: Rodgers, "Tradition, Modernity, and the American Industrial Worker," 674-75: and Ewan Clague, "Long-Term Trends in Quit Rates," in U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment and Earnings. December 1956, pp. iii—ix. 54 "Preventing Leaks in Mill Operations." STB, July 28. 1927, pp. 7, 54. On the expansion of night work and multiple shifts during the 1920s, see Martha Shields and Gavin Wright. "Night Work as a Labor Market Phenomenon: Southern Textiles in the lnterwar Period," Explorations in Economic History, 20 (1983): 331-50.

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HISTORY OF WOMEN EN THE UNITED STATES

Û / W A L L - S E E I N C EYE The one place where you tee what you're getting—in a measured production—is on the dud of a Veeder-Root Counter. More watchful than any human eye is the allseeing, all-the-time check-up of the Pick Counter. It takes in the work-situatk>n at every bom.

in the WEAVE ROOM Tbe Pick Counter sees which looms are busiest ; which ones produce too little. It •ees which weavers are working hard, and sees that they get what they earn—by the pick. Would you like to see the effect on out futi Then ask for a trial installation.

VwSk-Rooj'Z

Advertisement for Veeder-Root pick counter*. Southern Ttxtdt BuUetm, July 11, 1929, p. 8.

men to take off more production than the 26 was taking off with the other machinery." The new equipment kept them "balling the jack all the time."" General Electric and Westinghouse encouraged manufacturers to adopt "the motor way to greater production." Mill owners attached individual electric motors to their machines and abandoned older, less reliable belt-drive systems, freeing mill operation from "the whims of a river." With motor drives, the failure of a single machine no longer stopped work in other parts of the mill. Equipment also ran at more uniform speeds, reducing the number of mechanical breakdowns and damage to the goods. When combined with efficient new machinery, the turn to electricity enabled mills to "maintain maximum production speed." "That ruined our playhouse when they got power," recalled Eula Durham of Bynum. "That tore up our playhouse."56 " H. D. Martin. "Advantages of New Equipment," STB, May 1, 1924, p. 7; advertisement!. STB, February !9. 1925. p. 38, March 14. 1929, p. 47, and Blaine WofTord. interview by Allen TuUos, untranscribed, tape index, p. 2. For a discussion of the labor-saving effects of new machinery, see Boris Stern, "Mechanical Changes in the Cotton-Textile Industry. 1910 to 1936." Monthly Labor Revuui, August 1937, pp. 316—41. Increased productivity was hardly a new concern for southern textile manufacturers. From the outset, they ranked among the most enthusiastic purchasers of labor-saving equipment. Between 1894 and 1919, southern mills adopted the automatic Draper loom at nearly twice the rate of New England firms. Before the 1920s, however, efforts to improve efficiency remained piecemeal. See Irwin Feller, "The Diffusion and Location of Technological Change in the American Cotton-Textile Industry, 1890-1970," Technciogj and Culture. 15 (1974): 569-75. 16 Advertisements. STB, November 27, 1924, pp. S-8. April 28. 1921, p. IS; Eula and V e m o n Durham, interview by James Leloudis, Bynum, N.C., November 29.1978, p. 61. For discussions of the changes brought by the use of individual electric motors, see "Electric Power in the Textile Industry." STB, August 12, 1915, pp. 4-5: Sidney B. Paine. "Electricity and the Textile Industry." STB. April 26, 1928. pp. 12, 32; and H. W. Redding, "Twenty Years' Development in Electrical Equipment," STB, March 5. 1931, pp. 34, 46

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Production monitoring equipment abo enforced a more rigorous pace of work. Advertisements urged owners to "use Veeder-Root 'watch-dogs of the weave room' to detect looms that steal time, operatives that waste time; loom fixers that lose time for both." Such monitors would serve as the supervisor's "aJl-seeing eye," putting "the screws on operating costs" by forcing every worker to "face the facts of his job." Operatives might "fool the foreman," but they could not "deceive the 'silent little superintendent' on the end of the frame."57 Technological innovation alone could not solve all problems. Equally important was application of labor-saving methods in the organization of work. The weave room was the main target of reform. The Northrup loom, eagerly adopted by southern mills after the tum of the century, automated many weave-room tasks. Yet in an industry that had relentlessly stripped most jobs of initiative and skill, weavers remained more independent and better paid than most textile workers. The multiple-loom system undermined that privileged position. An adaptation of Frederick W. Taylor's scientific management, the system parceled weaving into numerous tasks performed at low pay by workers with little training. Weavers, left with the simple job of mending broken threads, could tend more looms, but at the expense of control over the pace and methods of their labor. Yoked to their work stations, they no longer moved about the mill, filling their own batteries and doffing their own doth—and finding opportunities for conversation and companionship. Most important, the multiple-loom system brought unemployment and, when piece rates were cut, a decrease in earnings.M With this new division of labor in place, industrial engineers concentrated on maximizing each worker's productivity. Sam Finley, a loom fixer in Marion, North Carolina, remembered how it was done. "They got a stopwatch, and they followed them around. They figured out exactly how long it took you to tie that thread and start the loom up. They figured right down to the tick ofthat stopwatch. Then they expected you to stretch it out a little bit, to do a little more. You couldn't please them. The more you done, the more they wanted done." To Finley, the multiple-loom system was simplicity itself: "Give them more work for no more pay."" " For advertisements of Veeder-Root counters, see STB. August 2, 1928, p. 16, July 11. 1929. p. 28. June 11. 1931. p. 17. December 6. 1928, p. 18; and Oscar £. Elsas, "Piece Rate Wage System in Cotton Mills." STB. April 29.1915. p. 3. Also see "Root Loom Counters." STA, July 24,1924, pp. 20-22. M Elliott DunlapSmith. "Lessons of the Stretchout: A Preliminary Report of a Study of Some Human Problems in the Management of Technological Change," Mechanical Engineering, 56 (1934): 73-80; Elliott DunlapSmith and Richmond Carter Nyman. Technolog) and Labor: A Study ofthe Human Problemi of Labor Saving (New Haven. Conn.. 1939); Albert Palmer. "Cost of Manufacturing and the Multiple Loom System of Operation: Weaver and His Work Present Large Opportunities for Savings," TixtiU World. February 2.1929, pp. 183-84.287: and J. M. Barnes, "The Labor Extension System." STB. July 5, 1928, pp. 7. 35. Between 1924 and July 1933, wages for male weavers fell from an average of 36 cents per hour to 24 cents; those for women dropped from 31 to 22 cents. See A. F. Hinrichs and Ruth Clem. "Historical Review of Wage Rates and Wage Differentials in the Cotton-Textile Industry." Monthly Labor Revmi. May 1935, p. 1171. " S a m Finley, interview by Sam Howie. Marion. N.C.. September 11, 1976, Appalachian Oral History Project. Appalachian State University. Boone. N.C.. p. 10. On time-motion studies, see Smith and Nyman. Technolog) and Labor, 82-91. and Henry Joseph Rehn. Scientific Management m the Cotton Textile Industry (Chicago. 1934). 109—12. Rehn's work is a private edition distributed by the University of Chicago Libraries.

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Along with new technologies and the reorganization of work came an attack on the idiosyncratic relations of the shop floor. In part because of prodding from the Southern Textile Bulletin, larger mills began replacing men who had come up through the ranks with young, college-trained supervisors. Those who still rose from production jobs did so by taking night-school or correspondence courses in which they learned to "handle men" through "diplomacy" rather than "loud swearing" and "hat stamping." Instead of the mechanical skills and personal relations on which their predecessors had relied, the newly schooled supervisors derived authority solely from the owners and passed orders along through a strict chain of command. No longer could a loom fixer like Sam Finley aspire to the post of weave-room supervisor. In the old days, he explained, "when it came time when they needed a supervisor, you'd get that job." But, during the 1920s, such positions went to men with textile degrees who served only a brief stint on the shop floor and "didn't know a thing in the world about weaving. They'd bring them down there and in two or three weeks they'd have a supervisor out of him. What they wanted was somebody when they'd whistle they'd jump. Make the other jump. And that's the difference." 60 As in other aspects of the industry's evolution, J. Spencer Love of Burlington Mills led the way. Harry Rogers remembered that Love's new, college-trained supervisors "were strictly for Burlington Mills. A human being didn't mean too much to them. T h e machinery did. They changed their attitude, I reckon. They kept close count of all the figures, and that's all they knew, was the figures. 'How much production did you get? How was quality?' They tried to put across that they were interested in the human side of it, but I don't think they were." Under this regime, overseers and second hands were less likely to ally themselves with workers by questioning company policy, and workers could no longer look to the superintendent or the owner as a mediator between themselves and their immediate supervisors. 61 Social critics in the 1920s were quick to point out the evils of the mill village, but few noted the extraordinary capacity for surveillance embedded in impersonal machines or imagined the psychological havoc that rationalization could bring. Workers, on the other hand, remembered conditions that "just kept getting worse and worse." The "stretch-out" was their term for the cumulative changes that set them tending machines "by the acre," filled every pore of the working day, and robbed them of control over the pace and methods of work. "There's many a times I dreamt about it," Edna Hargett recalled. "Sometimes you'd be up on your job, 60 "Management of Help,"S7"B.November2.1911. p. 6; and Sam Finley, interviewed by Sam Howie. 6. Beginning in July 1928, the Southrm Τ exalt BulUtin printed n u m e r o u s a n i d e s on the question of "why the experienced m a n at the age of 40 years is being t u r n e d down for younger m e n " in promotions to overseer. See. f o r example, "Can You Tell Him?" STB, July 26, 1928, p. 16. Southern mills began experimenting with new management styles as early as the 1910s, primarily as a way of reducing labor turnover. T h e technological changes of the 1920s, however, d e m a n d e d that those experiments be applied systematically. As Elliott Smith observed, " T h e refinement of laboring methods called for a parallel refinement in the techniques of executive control, and that in t u r n required a new type of manager." See Smith, "Lessons of the Stretchout," 7 9 - 8 0 . For a mill manager's perspective, compare W. M McLaurine, " M o d e r n Methods Demand Modern Men." 5TB, April 2. 1931, pp. 14, 32 61 Harry Rogers, interview by Cliff K u h n , Burlington, N.C .July 21, 1977, p. 16.

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and other times you'd be behind. So I just sweated it out in my dreams like I did when I was there on the job, wanting to quit, but I knew I couldn't afford to."62 In 1927 resistance to management tactics by individuals and small groups gave way to labor conflict on an unprecedented scale. The battle opened in Henderson, North Carolina, where workers struck for restoration of a bonus withdrawn three years before. Then on March 12, 1929, young women in a German-owned rayon plant in Elizabethton, Tennessee, touched offa strike wave that spread quickly into the Carolinas. The involvement of the communist-led National Textile Workers Union and the shooting deaths, first of the police chief and then of Ella May Wiggins, the strikers' balladeer, brought Gastonia, North Carolina, a special notoriety. But the carnage was even worse in nearby Marion, where deputies opened fire on demonstrators, wounding twenty-five and killing six. In 1930, revolt hit the massive Dan River Mill in Virginia—a model of welfare capitalism.65 Responding to these workers' initiatives, the UTW tried to remedy its neglect of southern labor. Most energetic was the American Federation of Hosiery Workers, an autonomous UTW affiliate, represented by Alfred Hoffman, an intrepid organizer who popped up in virtually every trouble spot until his militancy landed him in a Marion jail. But even Hoffman usually arrived after the fact, and a number of the less well known but more successful walkouts ran their course with no official union involvement at all. In 1929, thousands of South Carolina workers formed their own relief committees, held mass meetings, and negotiated modifications in the stretch-out—all without help from the UTW. Similarly, in 1932, in High Point, North Carolina, hosiery workers sparked sympathy strikes at textile mills and furniture planu and used automobile caravans to spread walkouts to nearby towns. Fearing a "revolution on our hands," officials conceded most of the workers' demands.64 " Perry Hicks. interview by Sam Howie, Manon, N.C.. December SI, 1975, Appalachian S u t e University Oral History Program, Appalachian Sute University. Boone, N.C., p. 3; Robert Blauner, Alienation and Freedom: The Factory Wörter and His Industry (Chicago. 1964). 66; and Edna Hargett, interview by James Leloudis, 64. On criticism of the mill village, see Daniel Joseph Singal, The War Within: From Victorian to Modernist Thought in the South, ¡919-194) (Chapel Hill, N.C.. 1982). 3-10. 115-52.302-38; and Harriet L. Herring, "Cycles of Cotton Mill Criticism," South Atlantic Quarterly. 28 (1929): 113-25. 03 For surveys of these strikes, see Irving Bernstein, The Lean Y tan: A History of the American Worker. 1920-1933 (Boston. 1972). 1-43; and T o m Tippeu. When Southern Labor Stm (New York. 1931). For more recent studies, see David Painter, "The Southern Labor Revolt of 1929" (unpublished typescript. University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill. 1974); Linda Frankel. "Southern Textile Women: Generations of Struggle," in Karen Brodkin Sacks and Dorothy Remy. eds., My Troubles Art Going to Have Trouble WUh Me: Everyday Tnumphs o[ Women Workers (New Brunswick. N.J.. 1984). 39-60; Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Women. Kin. and Collective Action: T h e Elizabethton. Tennessee. Strike of 1929" (unpublished typescript. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Washington. D.C., 1985); and Lynn Haessly,-"MiU Mother's Lament': Ella May. Working Women's Militancy, and the 1929 Gaston County Textile Strikes'' (unpublished typescript. University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill. 1984). M TrndlH. Emergence of the New South. 349-50; H. M. Douty. "Labor Unrest in North Carolina. 1932." Social Forces. 11 (1933): 580-88: John P. Prior. "From Community to National Unionism: North Carolina Textile Labor Organizations. July, 1932-September. 1934" (M. A. thesis. University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, 1972), 14-39; John Selby. "Industrial Growth and Workers' Protest.'' 113-191; and Capus Waynick. interview by Bill Finger. High Point. N.C., November 24, 1974, p. 13.

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Whether independently organized or union led, each walkout was shaped by local circumstances. But more important than the differences were the experiences strikers shared. In community after community, mill folk turned habits of mutuality and self-help to novel ends. Union relief funds were paltry at best, and survival depended on neighborly sharing. Many of the Marion strikers "had a good garden, and they'd divide their gardens with people that didn't have any." Those who held back found themselves donating anyway. Sam Finley remembered frying chickens for hungry picketers—supplied by a boy who could "get a chicken off the roost and leave the feathers." Baseball games, picnics, and barbecues buoyed spirits and fostered solidarity. As in the routines of daily life, women workers were essential to this mobilization of community resources. "The women done as much as the men," Lillie Price asserted. "They always do in everything."65 For the most part, village churches did not support collective action. Yet evangelicalism remained a resource on which rebels could draw. Gathering in an interdenominational tabernacle built for revivals, Elizabethton workers listened to a country preacher warn that "the hand of oppression is growing on our p e o p l e . . . . You women work for practically nothing. You must come together and say that such things must cease to be." Each night, another crowd "came forward" to take the union oath. Marion activists held "open air services," sang hymns on the picket line, and invited strikebreakers to join the union and be saved. At Greenville's Brandon Mill, strikers drew an analogy between "the cotton mill people" and the "children of Israel [who] were forced to work for the Egyptians," then appealed to "the good Christian people of the city to offer up prayers to God" in the textile workers' behalf. 6 · In these ways, workers fashioned a language of resistance from established cultural forms. But the young people who led the protests had also come of age in a society different from the one their parents had known. Most had grown up in the mill villages or moved as children from the countryside. They did not see themselves as temporary sojourners, ready to beat a retreat to the land, or as displaced farmers for whom "it was heaven to draw a payday, however small." Their identities had been formed in the mill village; they had cast their fate with the mills.67 As social stratification increased, men and women who considered themselves cotton mill people traversed the psychic minefields of a changing world. Partic65 Perry Hicks, interview by Sam Howie, 17; Sam Finley, interview by Sam Howie. 21; Lillie Morns Price, interview by Mary Frederickson and Marion Roydhouse. AsheviUe. N.C.. July 22, 1975. pp. 37-38. Also see Haesslyt"'MiU Mother's Lament,'" 13-14.26: and Duane McCracken. Strike Injunctions m the New Sourt (Chapel Hill. N.C.. 1931), 89. M Knoxrille News Sentoul, March 14, 1929, p. 1; Vesta and Sam Finley, interview by Mary Frederickson and Marion Roydhouse. Marion. Ν C , July 22. 1975, p. 19; and Greenville News, April 4. 1929. p. 7. Also see Perry Hicks, interview by Sam Howie, 21. For the classic study of churches and unionism, see Pope. MiUiumis and Preachers. Much needed, however, is further research on the role of independent mill churches and holiness sects in mill village life and labor conflict. For an interesting glimpse, see Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, Department of Research and Education, "The Strikes at Marion, North Carolina," informaban Service, Decembers. 1929. pp. 10-12. · ' Perry Hicks, interview by Sam Howie. 4. For a discussion of the creation of a hereditary population of mill workers, see Rhyne, Some Cotton MiU People. 65-77.

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ularly in urban centers, changes in residential and employment patterns widened the gap between mill and town. Charlotte, for instance, acquired a large population of clerks, service workers, and professionals who settled in the suburbs of Dilworth and Myers Park—physically and socially removed from the mill communities of North and East Charlotte. Hoyle McCorkle remembered the tensions that could result. "The other children would kind of look down on you. You'd go to school and they'd call you a linthead and all that stuff. You was kind of from the wrong side of the tracks." Sam Finley had similar memories, from an adult point of view. Marion merchants "were glad to get your paycheck, glad for you to come up there and spend money in their stores, but to uptown people you were still cotton mill trash."6· But such encounters do not tell the whole story. The activists of the 1920s shared a generational experience in more positive ways as well. They had entered the mills during the boom years of World War I, when rising wages and opportunities for promotion gave them reason to hope for better times ahead. Literacy increased with the decline of child labor and the spread of compulsory education; newspapers and magazines brought word of boom times in an affluent, larger world. Perhaps most important was the advent of radio. Recording studios and broadcasters discovered stringband music in the early 1920s and began transforming ballad singing, fiddle playing, and banjo picking into one of America's great popular sounds. Across the Piedmont, mill hands listened to their own music on the Grand Ole Opry and danced to the tunes of local performers playing in the studios of Charlotte's WBT. Eventually homogenized and commercialized as the Nashville sound, country music in the 1920s bolstered a sense of unique, region-wide cultural identity.69 New modes of transportation forwarded the same ends, and Model T s figured prominently in the labor upheavals of the 1920s. When the Marion Manufacturing Company started "tightening down on people," Sam Finley, Lawrence Hogan, and their friends drove across the Blue Ridge Mountains to Elizabethton, "hunting somebody to organize them as a union." They brought back Alfred Hoffman, and soon twenty-five-year-old Lawrence Hogan became his right-hand man. Educating himself for "the responsibilities of class leadership," Hogan became a full-time organizer. From his base in Marion, he published The Shuttle, a newsletter designed to "carry the message to' and fro." Hogan favored the "whirlwind system of distribution. Making about 40 [miles per hour] through a town I toss a bundle of Shuttles into the air, the wind whips them away, scatters them, and the mill workers, who have learned to expect them, run out and pick them up." When Hogan died— ** Hoyle and Mamie McCorUe, interview by James Leloudis. 5-7: and Sam Finley, interview by Sam Howie. 10. n For insights into the experience» of this post-World War I generation, see Sam Howie, "The New South in the North Carolina Foothills: A Study of the Early Industrial Experience in McDowell County" (M.A. thesis. Appalachian State University, 1978): Harriet L. Herring, "The Metamorphosis of the Docile Worker," in Harriet Herring, Worker and Public in the Southern Toóle Problem (Greensboro, N.C., 1930), 3-10, and "Industrial Relations in the South and the NIRA." Social Forca. 12 (1933): 124-31, The Charlotte Country Music Story (Charlotte, N.C., 1985); and Kinney Rorrer. Rambling Blues: The Life and Songs of Charlie Poole (London. 1982).

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after a car wreck in 1935—he was mourned as "one of the dearest-eyed leaders of federated workingmen in this section."70 Creative tactics, indigenous leaders, lessons in "the power of group action"— these were legacies of the 1920s. Still, victories were isolated and limited by external constraints. T h e UTW had conceded the deeper sources of workers' discontent. Its policy of "labor-management cooperation" opposed strikes and asked only that workers be made junior partners in the process of rationalization. But even a stronger and more aggressive union would have had difficulty making headway in the region. Southern mill owners monopolized social, economic, and political power. They stood united in their refusal to tolerate even the mildest form of unionism and were strengthened in their resolve by hard times. With the stock market crash of 1929 came massive lay-offs, further wage cuts, and efforts to recoup profits by "stretch[ing]-out the stretch o u t " The result was an atmosphere of smoldering antagonism. Lawrence Hogan described Piedmont mills in 1932 as "volcano-like.... Everywhere you go," he reported, "they are ready to explode." 71

16, 1933, PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT signed the National Industrial Recovery Act into law. Introduced with much fanfare, the NIRA promised a "great cooperative movement" among business, government, and labor to bring about national recovery. It relaxed antitrust measures, permitting trade associations to control production and set prices, and encouraged manufacturers to spread employment and stimulate consumer demand by shortening hours and raising wages. Balancing the license given employers' associations was Section 7(a) endorsing workers' right to organize and bargain collectively. T h e Cotton Textile Institute, formed in 1926 at the instigation of southern manufacturers, welcomed the NIRA and pushed through the first Code of Fair Competition. The code called for a minimum wage of $12.00 per week ($13.00 for northern workers), a forty-hour week, and the prohibition of child labor. Mills throughout the South hoisted the National Recovery Administration's (NRA) Blue Eagle banner, proclaiming "We Do Our Part." Prices, employment, and sales climbed. The industry enjoyed its most profitable year since 1928.7*

O N JUNE

70 Vesta and Sam Finley, interview by Mary Frederick*«» and Marion Roydhouse, 17-18; Greensboro Daily S rua, August 25,1935, p. 4B; and Tess Huff. "A Conference of Southern Workers." Labor Age, 21 (1932): 4. We thank John Selby for bringing the article in the Greensboro Daily Neua to our attention. 71 Herring, "Industrial Relations," 128; Bernstein. Lean Yean, 97-103; Mrs. B. M. Miller to Hugh Johnson. July 23.1933, Chadwick-Hoskins Mill, Charlotte. N.C., National Archives, Washington. D.C.. Records of the National Recovery Administration. Record Group 9, Records of the Cotton Textile National Industrial Relations Board and the Textile National Industrial Relations Board, Entry 398 (hereafter, NRA Records 398); and Huff, "Conference of Social Workers.' 4. For the basic study of the UTW, see Robert R. R. Brooks, "The United Textile Workers of America" (Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1935). 12 Irving Bernstein. Turbulent Yean: Λ History of At American Worker, ¡933-1941 (Boston, 1970), 30. On the Cotton Textile Institute, see Louis Galambos, Competition and Cooperation The Emergence of a National Trade Association (Baltimore, 1966). For works most helpfu! to our understanding of early New Deal industrial policies, see William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin Roosevelt and Ou New Deal (New Vork, 1963), 55-58, 63-70; Bernstein, Turbulent Yean, 172-185; James A. Hodges, "The New Deal Labor Policy and the Southern Cotton Textile Industry, 1933-1941" (Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt

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Across the Piedmont, mill hands listened eagerly to Roosevelt's fireside chats and signed on as "members of the NRA." Recovery legislation seemed to place the federal government's imprimatur on ideals of equity, independence, and cooperation. Everyone, from the lowliest sweeper to the most skilled loom fixer, could join in a fervent campaign to put the industry, and the nation, back on its feet. In all this, the New Deal resonated with the past even as it spoke to present needs. But the NIRA also promised something altogether new: the intervention of a powerful third party as leverage against local elites and a guarantor of workers' rights. Within less than a month, union locals had sprung to life in 75 percent of South Carolina's mills. UTW membership jumped from an estimated forty thousand members in September 1933 to two hundred seventy thousand by August 1934. To the shock of government officials and businessmen alike, southern workers organized. 73 As it turned out, recovery was short-lived. It was one thing for trade associations to endorse the principle of self-regulation, quite another for individual mills to sustain the short-term losses that resulted from lower production and higher labor costs. And mill owners had no intention ofjoining a "great cooperative movement" with organized labor or surrendering any of their authority in the factories. By the fall of 1933, workers across the country were complaining about bosses who"'chiseled' at the code." Skilled workers watched maximum wages sink toward the minimum, as owners reclassified jobs and cut piecework rates. The benefits of an eight-hour day evaporated, as mill hands found themselves "doing as much in 8 hours as we did in 12." Unionists summarily lost their jobs. Once more, production outran demand, warehouses bulged with unsold goods, and textile workers joined the ragged ranks of the unemployed. 74 Code chiseling struck hardest at the mills' most vulnerable workers. As long as they could pay low piecework rates, small firms that could not afford new machinery or efficiency experts kept less productive employees on the payroll. Children, older people, pregnant women, mothers bearing the burden of a double workday—such workers might not produce as much as young adults, but they were valued as a pool of cheap labor. Minimum-wage standards changed all that. Hoping to contain the consequent rise in labor costs, mill officials pegged the $12.00 wage to production quotas that only the fastest workers could meet. "They discharged all spinners that could not run 8 sides of spinning and that included women that was the sole dependers (supporters] of their family as bread earners," University. 1963); a n d T h e d a Skocpol, "Politici] Response to Capitalist Crisis: Neo-Marxist Theories of the S u t e and t h e Case of the New Deal." Politics and Socutj. vol. 10. no. 2 ( 1980): 155-201. On the business u p t u r n of 1933, see Hodges. "New Deal Labor Policy," 196. " Employees of Randolph Mills to H u g h J o h n s o n . February 27.1934, Randolph Mills. Franklinville. N.C.. NRA Records 398; Hodges. "New Deal Labor Policy," 208-09; and Tindall. Emergence oftíieNew South. 509. " Bernstein, Turbulent fears. 302: and Ralph B. Bowers to H u g h Johnson. February 26. 1934. American Cotton Mills, Bessemer City, N.C.. NRA Records 398. Among numerous examples of such complaints, see R. W. Russell to Franklin D. Roosevelt (hereafter. FDR). July 25. 1933. Brown Mill. Concord, N.C.; N o a h Scott to H u g h J o h n s o n . October 10,1933, Aragon-Baldwm Mill. Whitmire. S.C., NRA Records 398.

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wrote one woman. "They have made work so hard [a] woman just can't hold a job," claimed another. To make matters worse, short time and hikes in the cost of living cancelled out the gains enjoyed by those who did manage to hold their jobs at the bottom of the industry's broad job pyramid. 7 * Whether weavers who found their wages cut or spinners who could barely keep u p their sides, most who wrote to the NRA spoke not just for themselves but for "my own class of people (textile workers) that are being oppressed so much." And they made clear where they placed the blame: on "low down Boss-men," "these dishonest inhuman industrialists," or, more generally, "the blood thirsty rich." Mill owners could point to numerous bankruptcies and argue, with some justification, that cut-throat competition and slackened demand drove down profits and dictated low wages. Yet, throughout the period, southern mills enjoyed higher rates of return than their northern competitors. The southward trend of the industry reached its peak in 1935, leaving ghost towns across New England where textile mills had thrived. Pressing their advantage through speed ups, consolidation, vertical integration, and continued investment in labor-saving machinery, the South's better-established firms emerged from the Great Depression relatively unscathed. 76 In any case, the issue for workers was not how wage rates affected profit margins and stockholders' dividends but whether owners were accepting a fair share of the sacrifices demanded by hard times. Mill officials "claim they are not making money," wrote one Gastonia worker whose letter was published in the Charlotte Observer. "Well if they are not making money, I ask you, how can they afford to build these fine mansions to live in? How can every member of the family own his or her own car? How can they afford to take trips to foreign countries? How can they afford to send their children to college and obtain the best education? When the poor mill worker can't make enough money to buy milk for his undernourished children . . . and the mothers must watch the flour sack like a hawk watching a chicken to get hold of them to make little under-garments for her children." How could such conditions be changed? A widow from Tapacau, South Carolina, had a modest suggestion: 'They could cut down the pay on some of the supers and overseers and president and give to [the] help." 77 Nothing more vividly revealed the chasm opening between "the common worker and the Capitalist" than the metaphors that laced mill folks' letters to FDR. " W. H. Fowler to Hugh Johnjon. July 26, 1933. Appalachee Mill, Greer, S C.; Ralph B. Bowers to Hugh Johnson, February 26. 1934, American Cotton Mills. Bessemer City, N.C., NRA Records S98; Hodges. "New Deal Labor Policy." 25&-5Θ; and John W. Kennedy. "The General Strike of the Textile Industry. September 1934" (M.A. thesis. Duke University, 1947), 154-55. 76 Greenville News, August 2. 1934. p. 4; letter from Mrs. Steele, April 30, 1934. Calvine Mill. Charlotte. N.C.. NRA Records 398; Clarence J. Swinkto Donald Richberg, March 30, 1935, Cannon Mills. China Grove. N.C., National Archives. Washington. D.C.. Records of the National Recovery Administration, Record Group 9, Records of the Cotton Textile National Industrial Relations Board and the Textile National Industrial Relations Board, Entry 402 (hereafter, NRA Records 402); Mrs J. G. Hutchinson to FDR. December 5. 1933. NRA Records 398; Tindall. Emergence of the New South. 361-62; Kennedy. "General Strike." 103; and Hodges, "New Deal Labor Policy," 59.66-67. 329-56. " Letter to the editor, Charlotte Observer. September 13, 1934. p. 4; and Lottie Gainsbrugh to FDR. March 21. 1934, Tacapau Mill. Tacapau, S.C., NRA Records 398.

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One woman reported that the superintendents were "treating the People worse than convicts." "We have been . . . treated worse than beasts," complained another. Above all, workers spoke of "bondage" and "slavery," of "release from our balls and chain." A unionist at Durham's Erwin Mill drew this parallel: "I am glad to know that Abraham Lincoln freed the negroes and am glad to know that now you are trying to free us. White slaves."78 Surveillance and economic vulnerability made letter writing an act of enormous courage. In practically every case, workers closed with a plea for anonymity. It would cost them their jobs if mill officials knew what they had done. A woman with a "sick husband and children to support" mailed her letter by train because "the Washington mail is being watched here." A young girl in Whitmire, South Carolina, was also afraid. "If they thought for one instance I had written you they would fire me like lightning." Yet, despite the risk, many offered to step forward and vouch for what they had seen. A. W. Litton from the tiny village of Glencoe wrote, "If Mr gTeen finds out that i rote you this he will fire me and run me off this place but if you can't find out that Mr. W. G. Green is [violating] the N.R.A. law in every way call for me and i will show what is going on here." 75 Such men and women saw federal intervention as a two-way street. They took the law at face value and coupled petitions for help with promises of responsible citizenship and political support. "The laboring people here are trying to uphold our President and also the code. We believe in it—We talk it—And we would so love to live it," wrote Mrs. B. M. Miller from Charlotte. "Dear Demcrate Friend, I am trying to provide [abide] by the code, but our country is not. Our overseer don't want us to no anything about the NRA code . . . but I am going to provide by it even if I do loss my job," pledged a man in Bessemer City, North Carolina. "If we get fully organized we are all going to vote and elect you again," promised a Durham unionist, "for you are the only [president] that [was] ever for the working man."80 This outpouring of faith, anger, and fear was shunted through a bureaucratic maze. Disputes in other industries were referred to the National Labor Board, which, despite its inability to force compliance, began hammering out enduring principles of labor law. By contrast, textile workers' complaints wound their way ' · J. Vernon Phillips to FDR. September IS. 1954. NRA Records 402, Miscellaneous Cases Closed: Dorothy Taylor to FDR. February 14, 1954, American Spinning Company, Greenville, S.C., NRA Records 398: Mary Alice EUenburgh to FDR. September 1954, Lonsdale Mill. S.C.. NRA Records 402: anonymous letter to FDR. September 10. 1954, National Archives. Washington. D.C.. Records of the National Recovery Administration, Record Croup 9, Records of the Cotton Textile National Industrial Relations Board and the Textile National Industrial Relations Board. Entry 401. Complaints of Workers—Individuals (hereafter. NRA Records 401): and Archie L. Dunn to FDR. J u n e 7, 1954. Erwin Mills. West Durham, N.C.. NRA Records 398. For other uses of the slavery metaphor, see Mrs. M. C. Hunter to FDR. n.d.. Louise Cotton Mill. Charlotte. N.C.. NRA Records 402: and E. M. Flowers to Hugh Johnson. October 27. 1933. Priscilla Mill. Gastonia. N.C.. NRA Records 398. 79 Mrs. Hamilton to FDR. September I. 1933. Iceman Mill. McCall. S.C.: Inez Broome to Hugh Johnson. October 25. 1933. Aragon-Baldwin Mill. Whitmire, S.C.: A. W. Litton to Hugh Johnson. August 20. 1934. Glencoe Cotton Mill. Burlington. N.C.. NRA Records 398. ,s Mrs. B. M. Miller to Frances Perkins. December 15.1955. Chadwick-Hoskins Mill. Charlotte. N.C.; Friu Howell to Robert Bruere, March 10. 1934. American Spinning Mill. Bessemer City, N.C.: Archie L. Dunn to FDR. June 7, 1934, Erwin Mills. West Durham. N.C., NRA Records 398.

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through local, state, and distría committees until they reached the Cotton Textile National Industrial Relations Board, which followed the extraordinary procedure of forwarding them to agents of the industry's trade association, the Cotton Textile Institute. Investigators then contacted the complainant's employer. If the mill denied wrongdoing, the case was dosed. Between August 8, 1933, and August 8, 1934, the Board received 3,920 complaints. It authorized ninety-six investigations and resolved only one wage and hour dispute in a worker's favor. As far as can be determined, the board never ordered reinstatement of a worker fired for union activity or even held a hearing in such a case.81 The shortcomings of this system were not lost on mill folk. "If Mr. Sloan [head of the CTI] thinks that mill workers in S[outh] Qarolina] are satisfied with their wages," advised one worker, "he ought to investigate among the workers and not among the mill officials and office force." A weaver at Charlotte's ChadwickHoskins Mill objected to the practice of appointing "big mill men" to the textile boards. "They are not going to turn in . . . any kind of report which would . . . mean that they would have to pay out more money from their own pockets. The t h i n g . . . to do, is to appoint some good, Honest, Hard working man, say one from each mill community, so he . . . could get the true fact of this stretch out system." When Mrs. Miller of Charlotte was notified—for the third time—that she had failed to reach "the right board," she wrote in exasperation to Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. "Now if there is a right board I, as well as all the Laboring people of Charlotte would like to know where it i s . . . . We have just lots of good citizens in Textile Plants, but we cant come out of bondage alone. We must have help. We must have some one to breake the shackles. We need action now. If we don't get it, it will lead to strikes, WHO WILL BE T O BLAME? NOT T H E LABORING PEOPLE, BUT THE PEOPLE WHO HAS POWER TO HELP US NOW." 1 2

When help was not forthcoming, mill workers took matters into their own hands. In June 1934, the textile board ignored the suffering already caused by short time, unemployment, and rising living costs and attacked the problem of overproduction with a 25 percent cut in machine hours. Many mills simply shut down every fourth week, reducing wages accordingly. Local unionists in northern Alabama struck back on July 14, pulling twenty thousand workers out of the mills. They demanded a $12.00 minimum wage for a thirty-hour week, abolition of the stretch-out, reinstatement of workers fired for union activity, and union recognition. On August 14, a national UTW convention dominated by militant southern representatives called for a general strike of the textile industry to begin at midnight on Saturday, September 1. Union vice-president Francis Gorman took on the formidable task of organizing hundreds of walkouts in widely scattered mills. Workers organized into "flying squadrons" sped through the Carolinas, " Bernstein. Turbulent Yean. 172-7S, 302-04; and Hodges. "New Deal Labor Policy," 253-54. T h e Cotton Textile National Industrial Board gained exdusivejurisdiction primarily because of the UTW's weakness and the textile owners' political clout; Bernstein. Turbulent Yean, 300-04 " M . J . James to Francis Gorman. March 24. 1934. Alice Cotton Mill. Easley, S.C.: Frank Snipes to FDR. August 4. 1933. Chadwick-Hoskins Mill. Charlotte. N.C.. Ν RA Records 398; and Mrs. Β. M. Miller to Frances Perkins, December 13, 1934, Chadwick-Hoskins Mill. Ν RA Records 402.

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forcing plants to close "so rapidly that tabulators almost lost check." By the end of the week some four hundred thousand employees had deserted the mills, closing down the entire industry.83 Governors were immediately swamped with demands for military intervention. Twenty-two Gaston County mill executives signed a petition spelling out their fears. Several times daily hundreds of men, women and children parade through town yelling, screaming, threatening and intimidating citizens of the town, stating they intend confiscating automobiles and other personal property as their needs d e m a n d . . . . Our situation is desperate, much more desperate than we can express in words. Law and order no longer exists, except for the surrender of personal and property rights by a majority of the substantial citizenship and unless something is done within the next twenty-four hours no authority can be held responsible for results.

By September 7, fourteen thousand troops were on duty in the Carolinas alone.. A week later, Governor £ugene Talmadge of Georgia declared martial law and interned flying squadron participants in a makeshift "Detention Camp." To panicked townsmen, the strike represented "the gTavest emergency which has confronted our people since Reconstruction Days."·4 The depth of strike support, and the violence of repression, varied from community to community. The Chiquola Mill in Honea Path, South Carolina, was divided "about half and half' between union and nonunion workers. When flying squadrons from nearby villages encircled the plant, local authorities passed out picker sticks and deputized "just about [anybody who] could carry a gun." The result was "a regular riot" in which seven strikers died. By contrast, the General Strike in Durham, North Carolina, was peaceful, unanimous, and self-contained.85 Individual responses were even more complex. Some workers joined with passionate conviction. Others saw the flying squadrons as "a disorganized mob" and dreaded the divisiveness unions might bring. A Greenville woman spoke for those whose nonparticipation did not imply consent "I like thousands of others did not strike with the union, because we knew we would loose our jobs like thousands of others have done before us. Even though we might have had faith in the union we simply couldn't afford to quit because we live right up to every penny we m a k e . . . . It is true that every textile worker in the south would walk out of the mill to day if they were not afraid of starvation. I don't believe that God " Bernstein. Turtruimi Ytan. 305-06: Raleigh News ani Observer, September 6. 19S4. p. 2; and Kennedy. "General Strike." 54. M Petition to Governor J. C. B. Eringhaus. September 5, 19S4, North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh. North Carolina. Governor J. C. B. Eringhaus Papers, box 10S; Benjamin B. Gossett to Governor Eringhaus. September 14,1934. ibid., box 104: and J. M.Zimmerman to Eugene Talmadge. January 14,1935, NRA Records 402. On the use of troops in the Carolinas and Georgia, see Hodges. "New Deal Labor Policy," 281: and Tindall. Emergente of Ou New South, 511. " Mack Duncan, interview by Allen TuUos. IS. 15-16; andjaniewski, Sisterhood Dewed. 3-4. A pickcr stick was a heavy wooden dowel around which cotton was wound before carding.

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intended people to suffer as we have s u f f e r e d . . . . The life of the average textile worker is a tragic thing."»6 The General Strike, whatever else it may have been, was a moment in history that laid bare longings and antagonisms ordinarily silenced, distorted, and repressed. Cotton mill people in the 1930s did not subscribe to an abstract, universalistic notion of class solidarity. If nothing else, deep racial divisions militated against such perceptions. But mill hands did see themselves as a people apart, exploited by men with interests opposed to their own and denied opportunities for progress that had seemed within their grasp. 87 T h e ten thousand mourners who converged on the funeral of the strikers killed at Honea Path, the hundreds of young men and women who climbed into "Fords and rush[ed] across counties to join other familiar-unfamiliar young people in clamoring at the mesh wire of mill gates," the workers in Durham who denied executives access to their own mills—these people broke through the restraints imposed by political isolation and economic defenselessness to make their mark on the times.·® Still, the opposition held all the cards. Mill owners whose warehouses were already stocked to overflowing with unsold goods simply "stopped off" and waited out the conflict. Picket lines faltered before machine guns and fixed bayonets. The UTW could not begin to provide adequate strike relief. Nor could mill folk hope for local backing in a region thoroughly dominated by conservative political elites. And Franklin Roosevelt, on whom southern workers relied, "either could not or would not grasp the critical importance" of unionization. Always more interested in agricultural policy than the problems of industry, and dependent on southern congressional support for passage of New Deal legislation, Roosevelt refused to intervene. Keeping his distance, he appointed a mediation board, headed by New Hampshire governor John G. Winant, which found merit in labor's grievances but recommended little more than further study. The president added his personal plea to the board's request that the union end the strike and that employers take back striking workers. Afraid of losing all government support, the UTW

*® Roy Lec and Mary Ruth Auton. interview by jacquelyn Hall, 7-11 ; and anonymous letter to FDR, September 10. 1934, Ν RA Record» 401. Particularly relevant here is the debate over traditional notions of class consciousness. See, for example, Harry Boyte, "Populism and the Left." Democracy, 1 (1981): 55-66; Craig Calhoun, Tbl Question of Clou Struggi*: Social Foundations of Popular Radicalism during the Industrial Revolution (Chicago, 1982); and James R. Green, "Populism, Socialism, and the Promise of Democracy," Radical History Review, 24 (1980): 7—40. Racial antipathy was notably absent from white mill workers' letters to Roosevelt and the NRA. In fact, a number of complainants explicitly included blacks among "the people" for whom they spoke. See. for example. Friu Howell to Robert Bruere, March 10. 1934, American Spinning Mill, Bessemer City. N.C.. NRA Records 398. AJI in all. white workers in the 1930s were much less concerned with racial ideology than with the more immediate and pressing injuries of class bias. For a discussion of heightened perceptions of class inequality in Depression-era America, see Robert S. McElvaine. Down and Out tn the Great Depression: Letters From the Forgotten Man (Chapel Hill, N.C.. 1983). 8-13. Bernstein, Turbulent Years. 310; Jonathan Daniels, A Southerner Discovers the South (New York. 1938), 26; and Janiewski. Sisterhood Denied, 3. Also see T . J. Jackson Lears, "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities. " ΛΗΛ. 90 (1985): 567-93.

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complied. T h e General Strike officially ended on September 22, twenty-two days after it began. 89 In hindsight, Francis Gorman's poststrike claim that the Winant board's report constituted an "overwhelming victory" for the UTW appears patently absurd. But to mill folk at the time it seemed more plausible. Only gradually, in the face of evictions and blacklisting on a massive scale, did a different interpretation emerge. T h e letters that continued to pour into the White House indicated not a quick fading away of local unions but valiant attempts to hold out in the face of overwhelming odds. Returning to the Matthews Mill in Greenwood, South Carolina, workers confronted a ten-week lockout. "It look like the owner of this mill is doing every thing he can to tare our union up, but I feel like you will help us in some way where we can hole our people to-geather for our rights," wrote Ruby Brown. A coworker added her testimony: "When the people here went back in to their jobs, many of them were d i s c h a r g e . . . because they joined a u n i o n . . . . [T]he managers by discharging our strongest union members therefore broke u p our local union, causing the rest of us to submit to them to hold a job." From across the Piedmont came similar stories of employers "breaking] up o u r union," of workers forced to "submit." 90 Eviction was the employers' ultimate sanction. Nothing produced more terror than the prospect of being out on the road with "nowhere to go" and "cold weather . . . coming on." A man in Williamston, South Carolina, lost his job for being elected president of his union local. After the General Strike, his son and daughter were discharged as well. " T h e n they forced me out of the house i was living in i had no other place to g o . . . . I have tried in over 300 cotton mills for work and they will not hire me because I belong to the u n i o n . . . . T h e r e is starvation ahead if i don't get work at once.... Please for God's sake help me." 9 1 We can only speculate about what might have happened had the General Strike occurred later, after the Wagner ACT had strengthened labor's right to organize and the U T W had joined forces with the more aggressive Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). 93 T h e strike itself might have ended as it did, but with less M Edward and Mary Harrington, interview by Mary Murphy, Burlington, N.C., February 28,1979. p. 11 ; Leuchtenburg. Franklin Roosevelt. 108; and Benuiein, Turbulent Keen, 313-34. For a discussion of the weakness of labor's allies within the region, see Alan Brinkley, "The New Deal and Southern Politics," in James C. Cobb and Michael V. Vamorato, eds., The New Deal and the South (Jackson, Miss., 1984). 97-115. 90 Bernstein. Turbulent Yean. 314: and Ruby Brown to FDR. December 3. 1934, Matthews Mill. Greenwood. S.C.; Mrs. J. G. Minor to FDR, November 5,1934. Greenwood Cotton Mill. Greenwood. S.C.: Mrs. Kenneth Sims to FDR. November 20, 1934. Worth Spinning Company. Stony Point. N.C., Ν RA Records 402. Hodges estimated that between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand people were unable to regain their jobs. Between September 1934 and September 1935. the Textile Labor Relations Board (which replaced the discredited industry-dominated board) received 4.374 complaints indicating that prestrike practices were continuing, while lockouts and wholesale firings were additional threats that workers faced during the bleakest months of the Depression. See Hodges, "New Deal Labor Policy.·1 302. 314. 91 Milan Owens to FDR, October 10. 1934. Ware Shoals Manufacturing Company, Ware Shoals, S.C.: W. A. Davis to FDR. November 8. 1934, Matthews Mill. Greenwood. S.C., Β. E. Brookshire to FDR, November 25, 1935. Laurens Cotton Mill, Laurens. S.C.. Ν RA Records 402. ** T h e NIRA was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1935. It was replaced by legislation sponsored by Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York that strengthened Section 7(a), which had been ineffectual under the NRA. For two perspectives on how Wagner's initiatives combined with

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devastating effects. As it was, working-class leaders—those who had seized the opportunities for political participation and collective action offered by the New Deal—were purged from the mills, while those who stayed suffered a debilitating erosion of faith and will. The secretary of Local 2265 in Kannapolis, North Carolina, writing to Francis Gorman, made these feelings clear. "Our local is gone and it dont seem there is any use to try now as they have lost faith in the union. We have had so many promises and nothing done. I my self am almost ready to give u p . . . . What is wrong[?] [H]ave the whole works sold o u t [ ? ] . . . We as a poor hungry people cannot live with(out) something to eat and something to wear and to keep us warm. How do you people in Washington think we can go on living on air and promises. What we need is help and if you cannot get that for us then say so and we will not depend on promises any longer.... [I]t looks like Cannon Mills are running the whole thing. We want to know if they run the whole country. It looks like i t . . . . Please . . . do something that we may be able to still have faith in our government."93 Mill hands learned from their history, and in 1934 the lesson for many was a deep distrust of government and trade unions alike. Above all, the General Strike drove home the cost of challenging the established order. Better the familiar securities of job and home than "air and promises," followed by exile, suffering, and defeat. 94

efforts to shift the balance of power in the mills. Their disillusionment with the NRA helped spur passage of the Wagner Act in 1935. Heartened by this restructuring of labor law, the CIO launched a southern organizing drive; by the end of World War II textile unionism had established a small but permanent beachhead in the region. Still, labor's spectacular gains in other industries bypassed the textile South. Southern legislators, unhindered by working-class bargaining power, led a postwar attack on labor's legislative gains. The unorganized South remained a mecca for runaway shops and an ongoing source of cheap labor.95 Within this environment, textile leaders enlarged on the strategies developed in the 1920s and 1930s. To earlier forms of rationalization, they added destruction of the communities they had created and tried so hard to subdue. After 1938, when the Fair Labor Standards Act narrowed the wage differential between North and SOUTHERN WORXERS DID NOT ABANDON

working-class pressures to strengthen New Deal labor policies, see Skocpol. "Political Response," 179-201; and Samuel P. Hays, "The New Deal: After Fifty Years" (unpublished typescript. University of Pittsburgh. 1985). 3-10. · ' G. W. McElroy to Francis Gorman. November 1. 1934, Cannon Mill, Kannapolis. N.C.. NRA Records 402. M For a similar point about the legacy of repeated setbacks in the democratic movements of the late nineteenth century, see Escott, Many ExceUeni People. 265-66. " Tindall, Emergence of the New Soulh, 517-21; and F. Ray Marshall, Lahor in the Soulh (Cambridge. Mass., 1967), 246-S9, 324-29.

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South, the maintenance of company housing became an economic disadvantage. Burlington Mills began selling its villages in the wake of the General Strike, and other firms followed suit. With the aid of improvements in highway transportation, which they had helped promote, southern mill owners gradually dismantled their villages, hired workers from the surrounding countryside, or relocated in rural industrial parks.96 The retired workers we talked to welcomed rising wages and diminution of company control, but they reported the unraveling of social relations as a personal loss. Work was severed from community life. People "didn't visit like they once did," and neighbors seemed distant and aloof. "People misses a lot by not having community," Mary Thompson explained. "I believe it made you more secure or something. But now you're scattered. You work maybe one place, and another works way over yonder, and you don't get close to nobody."97 At least some manufacturers saw the dispersion of people and the dismantling of neighborhoods in a more favorable light. A North Carolina textile promoter explained: "[Our] goal was to have one industrial employee from every farm family in [the county]. We stressed this continually until I think it got to the point that people believed it, and the employment practices of the mills we brought here confirmed it. They found that by scattering their labor they were never available in large enough numbers to attract the union. When you get a lot of people living in one community, living in one mill village, they're naturally objects of concern— and, of course, exploitation—by labor unions. But scattering these people out all over the country turned out to be a very healthy concept." 9 · Thus was a world of cotton mill people made and unmade. Pushed off the land, white fanners created a mill village culture that sustained their personal lives and public protest. They suffered poverty and exploitation, but they did not live in a dosed society that stripped them of independence, hope, and dignity. On the contrary, the manufacturers' authority was hedged about by technological and social constraints. The assault on the mill workers' world, which began with welfare work and culminated in owners' efforts to bend New Deal legislation to their own advantage, sparked the largest single strike in American history. The men and women who came forward in unparalleled numbers in 1934 did so in the belief that powerful allies were by their sides. Far from silent or incoherent, they may have misread the dynamics of national politics, but they understood the realities of power. "It is a great struggle for the people who are not so fortunate as to possess M Harriet L. Herring, Pasmg ofthtMiü Vtliage: Revolution in β Southgm Institution (Chapel Hill. N.C.. 1949). 8-23. 128—SI; Triplette, One-Industry Town»." 72-137. 225-54: and Chip H u g h « . "A New Twist for Textile!," in Marc S. Miller, ed.. Working Lives: The Southern Exposure History of Labor tn the South (New York. 1980). 338-51. " Carl and Mary Thompson, interview by James Leloudis. 47-48. Also see Class. "Southern Mill Hills." ' · Raymond Shute. interview by Wayne Durnll. Monroe. N.C.. June 25. 1982. pp. 56-57. Also see Caesar Cone to Harriet Herring. "Long Range Program for Modernization of Cone Mills' Greensboro Villages." March 1.1950. Louis R. Wilson Library, University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, Southern Historical Collection, Harriet Herring Papers.

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the requirements that is necessary to make Liberty," wrote a mill hand in the aftermath of the 1934 conflict. "Those who are at Liberty and Freedom now are those who own and possess authority and money." The defeat of the General Strike, the subsequent failure of unionization, and the breakup of the villages ended an era and reshaped the terrain of labor conflict in the postwar South." *· Mrs. Ralph Cullom to FDR. November 17, 19)4, Rosemary Manufacturing Company, Roanoke Rapidi. N.C., Ν RA Records 402.

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BEYOND THE FAMILY ECONOMY: BLACK AND WHITE WORKING-CLASS WOMEN DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION

LOIS RITA HELMBOLD To cope with unemployment, poverty, and uncertainty during the Great Depression, working-class women devised many ingenious strategies. Flexibility and creativity defined their actions. Yet cooperation and increased female responsibilities did not always provide greater family cohesiveness or stave off the economic effects of the crisis; the Depression disrupted people's lives. The expectations and actualities of female self-sacrifice resulted in conflict between parents and daughters, between husbands and wives, among members of doubled-up households, and between "unattached" women and their children and siblings. Although families changed their form and structure and increased their responsibilities, they also fell apart from the strains of the Depression. To understand the family tensions and conflicts that occurred during the Depression, it is necessary to look at women and families in a broad historical context. Yet much historical work on the family economy, recent scholarship on black families, and discussions of the Great Depression generally treat families within a framework of cooperation. Scholars in these three areas usually fail to account for widespread evidence of families' inabilities and/ or unwillingness to meet the needs of their members. Does evidence from the Great Depression suggest that current interpretations are wrong or inadequate, or does the atypicality of the Depression place it in a category of its own? Two stories illustrate the issues. A white working-class woman born in Chicago in 1902, Catherine T., like most urban adolescent girls of her race and Feminist Studies 13, no. 3 (Fall 198η. ® 1987 by Feminist Studies, Inc.

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class, left school at age fourteen and began to work. For more than fifteen years she held steady jobs, sewing in garment and drapery factories and assembling parts in an electrical manufacturing company. After 1930, when she lost a job she had held for six years, she worked sporadically at a number of short-term and seasonal jobs, often employed on rush orders which lasted only a few weeks. Each summer she worked as a counter waitress at a concession stand in Riverside Park. During the first five years of the Depression, Catherine continued to support herself by taking any job she could find and by dipping into her savings when she was unemployed. Catherine's diligence, according to her interviewer from the Women's Bureau, could be read in her appearance. She described Catherine as "rather plain," "very neat," a "hardworking type," who "always had her nose to the grindstone." As a single woman, Catherine maintained close ties with her family. She lived with and supported her invalid mother until her financial resources dwindled, then both of them moved in with one of Catherine's married sisters. Catherine paid room and board and her siblings took over their mother's expenses. When her mother's health worsened dramatically in December 1935, Catherine left the labor force and nursed her mother full-time for the remaining months of her life. After her mother's death the following spring, Catherine received $390 from her insurance policy. In earlier years, Catherine had borrowed money to keep up the policy payments and her mother had made her the sole beneficiary. Her sister, however, demanded $150 for the assistance she claimed she had provided Catherine, a paying boarder, and so Catherine moved out of the house. Catherine attempted to find full-time work again, but harsh working conditions, an inadequate diet, worry, and the strain of her mother's illness had taken their toll. Seriously ill and completely run down, she could not stand the stress and noise of a sewing factory or her thirteen-hour days and seven-day weeks at Riverside Park. For the next year and a half she lived on the insurance money, earnings from occasional brief jobs, small bits of assistance from friends, and by gathering rags and papers to sell to junk dealers. When her interviewer "commented that it was hard to visualize a woman like herself rummaging about in alleys, Catherine said, 'If you're hungry you'll do anything.'" In September 1936, still ill and having exhausted all her resources, Catherine ap-

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plied to the Chicago Relief Authority. The CRA stipulated that an "unattached" woman could qualify for relief payments only if she were unemployed, unemployable, and unable to secure support from her family. Catherine had been a dutiful daughter, but her siblings still jealous of her inheritance, resented her and cut her off. Virtue, in other words, went unrewarded. 1 Dutiful daughters were not the only women shaken by familial dissension. Mothers of adult children could not necessarily rely on their offspring in hard times either. Another Chicago resident, Mary P., a fifty-three-year-old widow, and a black Pentecostal preacher, had supported herself and her family for forty years by doing domestic work. When she lost the last of her day work in 1932, Mary attempted to get help from her sons. The youngest, unmarried and living in Chattanooga, never contributed to her support. Another son, William, she described as a "good boy" and his wife as "a lovely girl. I love her like my own." William and his wife usually gave Mary twenty-five or fifty cents each payday over the next several years. Mary had never lived with them, however, which she explained by the fact that they had no furniture and had always roomed in other people's homes. In 1932 Mary moved in with Ossie, her third son, and his wife, Maud, a "good girl." Her affection for her daughter-in-law, however, could not sustain the relationship. Mary and Ossie did not get along and after three months she left his home in despair and applied for relief. Five years later Mary told an interviewer that she had received scarcely any help from Ossie since then. Maud had died and Ossie had moved in with «mother woman and her three children. Although Ossie's failure to marry his new partner may have contributed to his religious mother's displeasure with him, even a marriage of which she had approved had not sustained the mother/son relationship. Mary said emphatically to her interviewer, "He's no good, that boy, I'd sooner see him dead. He curses me out."2 Between 1932 and 1937, Mary, who suffered from a variety of ailments, got by on a combination of work relief jobs and direct relief payments. One son never helped her, a second contributed regularly but minimally, and a third son had earned his mother's wrath and disapproval. Raising children did not necessarily entitle a mother to support, help, or even respect from them. The experiences of Catherine and Mary challenge current

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scholarship about familial cooperation. After summarizing recent scholarship and debates about white working-class families, AfroAmerican families, and women during the Depression, I want to illustrate gaps in each analysis. I will then describe the disharmonies and destruction that characterized many families during the 1930s and suggest alternative explanations that do account for Depression experiences.

Social historians have created one model of the (white) family economy to analyze the connections between women's productive work, domestic activity, and reproduction. Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott, in Women, Work, and Family, an influential work in the field, place the family at the center of their attempt to understand women's work, because the family is "the unit of decisionmaking for the activities of its members," and its decisions "implicitly assign economic value to all household tasks."3 Whether women contributed unwaged but necessary labor or earned wages, whether they lived in preindustrial or industrial societies, women's economic significance was central to their families' survived. Thus, this model counters the myths that women do not work and that the "private" family is separate from the "public" economy. Those scholars who use this model assume a harmony of interests among family members, who choose "overall strategies to maximize the economic goals of the family group."4 But this view, as many feminists have pointed out, often disregards the exercise of power within families and thus ignores or bypasses the feminist theory of the early 1970s that characterized the family as an oppressive institution structured by the dominance of men over women and old over young.5 As Rayna Rapp, Ellen Ross, and Renate Bridenthal have warned, the family should not be regarded as a "natural" institution with a unity of interests. Similarly, Heidi I. Hartmann reminds us that "mutual dependence by no means precludes the possibility of coercion."6 Yet historians such as Miriam Cohen, Sarah Eisenstein, Tamara Κ. Hareven, and Leslie Woodcock Tentler, like Scott and Tilly, discuss dependence and mutuality but ignore or minimize coercion, conflicts, and differences of interest.7 Judith E. Smith's recent study of Italian and Jewish immigrant families in Providence,

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Rhode Island-although acknowledging challenges to familial and patriarchal authority by the young adult children of immigrants in the prosperous 1920s-also focuses on mutual dependence. 8 The problem with this work is that it fails to specify the power and authority exercised in family decision making. Cohen, for example, in her essays on Italian immigrants, claims that "the girls were pulled out of school because families needed their labor," and "Italian families were faced with a strong financial motive for sending women to work."9 Who was pulling and sending? Fathers? Mothers? Did parents jointly make and enforce these decisions? Did daughters dutifully comply or did they ever resist? What did the resistance accomplish and what price did it exact from the rebels? Working-class female writers of the early twentieth century, such as Anzia Yezierska, Agnes Smedley, and Emma Goldman, have portrayed rampant conflict within families. But surely we cannot conclude that only socialists and anarchists ever fought with their families, ever turned aside from tugs on their heart strings and appeals to their guilt. The family economy model has created two archetypes-the dutiful daughter and the malleable matron. Paying insufficient attention to the entire life cycle and ignoring women who do not fit into either of these categories, historians have excluded many women. Older single women, who may not continue to live with their families; women whose marriages end in divorce, desertion, or separation (with or without children to support); widows, more likely to be older-with problems comparable to women with broken marriages, although lacking the stigma of failure-and lesbians, all fail to appear in the paradigm. Far more than one-quarter of adult women, I would argue, are likely to spend some part of their lives in one of these categories. A model, then, that fails to account for at least one-quarter of the adult female population at a given time certainly cannot be used uncritically.10 But although historians of the family economy account for the lives of millions of women on two continents across several centuries, and often write as though their model were universally applicable, they have applied their model only to white women. The history of Afro-American women does share certain characteristics with that of white women, but there are also important dissimilarities-due, most importantly, to the experiences of slavery, racism, and African and Afro-American cultural practices

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and values. Writers of black history, unlike historians of white women, have not needed to demonstrate the economic centrality of black women. Slave owners appropriated female and male productive labor, and women's reproductive labor was similarly a source of profit to the masters.11 In the years of freedom, black married women have consistently worked outside their homes at rates far surpassing the labor force participation of white married women; only within the past decade has white women's labor force participation grown close to that of black women. 12 So instead of concentrating on the importance of women's work to the family, recent scholars of the black family have focused their work on countering the claim that black families-particularly poor and working-class black families-are pathological when they are not similar to white nuclear families.13 Recent scholarship has analyzed the extensive kinship networks that provided security, stability, and the wherewithal to provide daily sustenance and to raise children. Although the nuclear family form characterized the majority of black families from Reconstruction onwards, black people also survived by relying on larger kin communities. 14 Yet the revisionist focus on black kin cooperation creates some of the same problems as the white family economy model. To be sure, there are differences in the scholarly approaches. Historians have noted that the power relationship between black women and men is not parallel to that between white women and men. 15 Moreover, scholars of black families have broadened their focus to consanguine families, including relations among siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, and nonfamily kin-like relations.16 The advantage of this approach is that an analysis of kinship and cooperation based on consanguine families does not exclude from consideration women who are neither wives nor daughters, nor does it credit marital and parental relations with the sole power to explain family decisions. In other words, black family history, because of its focus on kinship, accounts for the lives of more black women than does the model of the white cooperative family economy. But both white family history and the history of the black family share a common theme of cooperation, even though they developed from separate historical and scholarly roots. And neither adequately describes Depression America, when many urban black and white working-class families proved incapable of meeting the needs of their members. 17

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What explains the conflicts between parents and daughters, the broken marriages, the dispersal of families, and the failure of kin to aid one another when hard times hit? Was the shock of the Depression so severe that it destroyed cooperative mechanisms? Examining the impact of the Depression on daily life, contemporary scholars have focused on the themes of family stability or destruction and on the increase in married women's employment despite depressed economic conditions.18 Social scientists of the 1930s concluded that the relative strength of a family determined whether it could survive hard times. "Weak" families, characterized by problems prior to the crisis, more frequently fell apart under the additional strain, and "strong" families more often pulled together and survived. This facile social Darwinian judgment fails to examine the family as an institution.19 But this view still affects recent work on women in the Depression. The increase in married women's employment, for example, a subject of controversy during the 1930s, has become an expression of "family values" in historical interpretations. Both Lois Scharf and Winifred Wandersee cite the rising patterns of consumption in the 1920s which enlarged the definition of necessity as the impulse sending white married women into the labor force. Although white married women seemingly discarded their traditional roles, the public need not have worried. Rather than being a sign of women's dissatisfaction, their employment symbolized commitment to their husbands, children, and homes.20 Married white women of the 1930s were not significantly different from the group described by Leslie Tentler who, earlier in the century, worked to fulfill "wifely and motherly obligations."21 Julia Kirk Blackwelder, author of the only comparative history of women of the Depression era, finds evidence of emotional stress in divorce, abandonment, mental illness, and suicide, but she concludes that most families remained intact. Comparing black, Mexican, nativeborn white, and immigrant white women in San Antonio, Texas, Blackwelder sees black families as most likely to be broken by separation or abandonment and black women as more likely to work outside their homes. She explains these differences by cultural factors-for example, expectations of male authority and female deference account for the lower incidence of labor force

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participation among Mexican women. Her conclusions in general substantiate the judgments of earlier family historians who look at common survival goals.22 In my own comparative work, however, I have found that differences between urban black and white women during the Depression were most pronounced in their experience of paid work, but that the experience of family life was comparatively similar. White women-particularly white married women in their twenties and thirties-increased their share of the female labor force, but black women's share declined. Married women's proportion of total female employment grew 28 percent from 1929 to 1940, and the share of women in the twenty-five to forty-fourage group increased 13.8 percent. Nationally, black women's proportion of the labor force declined 22.6 percent in eleven years; in the four cities I studied, black women's rate of decline varied from 42.3 percent at its highest to 32.3 percent at its lowest.23 White women replaced black women by moving down the occupational ladder of desirability. For black women already on the bottom rung, there was no lower step, and they were effectively pushed out of the labor force. Yet the existing literature does not provide an adequate explanation for the comparative similarity regarding family situations. Using interviews which the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor conducted during the 1930s, I have constructed a sample of 1,340 women from Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and South Bend, Indiana-black and white; immigrant and native-bom; young, middle-aged, and old; and of all family and marital statuses. Employed, unemployed, job applicants, relief applicants, relief recipients, or outside the labor force, these women span the demographic and employment spectrum of urban working-class women during the 1930s. Some had never worked before the Depression, others had been steadily employed for years, and still others had a sporadic history of employment, usually remaining out of the labor force while raising children. My criterion for inclusion in the sample was that a woman held a service or clerical job at some point during the late 1920s or the 1930s.24 Thus, the women in these samples are a cross-section of urban working-class women in the Northeast and Midwest during the

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Depression. White women of all family and marital statuses are included. Because most of the black women in the samples had been previously married, young, single black women and married black women are underrepresented.25 Black women accounted for no more than 11 percent of the adult female population in any of these cities in 1930; (the majority of North American black people still lived in the South during the Depression).34 The black women in the samples were either Northem-bom, or more frequently, recent immigrants from the South. The white immigrants came from virtually all the countries of Europe and from Canada. No Asian women appear in my samples (only a tiny number of Asians lived in these cities in the 1930s).26 Although Chicago claimed a Mexican population of almost 20,000 in 1930, no Mexican woman showed up in either Chicago sample. Deportation removed many Mexicans from the area during the Depression, but it is unclear why none of those who remained appeared in either of my samples. The Chicago sample groups consisted of relief applicants and relief recipients. Discrimination against Mexicans may have made them ineligible or unwilling to apply for relief; Mexican women may have wanted to avoid public attention for fear of being deported.27 What are the biases of these sources? The Women's Bureau conducted studies in order to answer questions about women's employment, unemployment, and remedies for unemployment. Although the interviewers elicited some information about marital and family relationships, this was not their focus. The fact, then, that so much evidence of familial distress did surface in the interviews is a clear sign of how much this issue was on women's minds. The samples from Chicago and Philadelphia consisted of "unattached" women who were unemployed and unable to obtain financial help from their families; thus, lack of family support was, for some of them, a motivating factor in filing their applications for relief jobs or relief. Some had no family nearby; others had experienced marital or family breakups as a result of the Depression. These surveys might therefore contain more evidence of family dissension than a random sample of the adult female population. Yet the other two samples-one a house-to-house survey in working-class neighborhoods in South Bend, Indiana, and the other a study of women applying to an employment agency run by the Cleveland YWCA-also provide many examples of familial

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dissension and disruption. 28 These sources are unique. Most histories of working-class women rely on government studies and statistics, observations by middle-class reformers and journalists, or a small number of autobiographical accounts and oral histories. The differences in my conclusions derive in part from my using interview sources in which large numbers of working-class women documented their daily life experiences. During the Depression, women played out the theme of family cooperation in numerous ways as they attempted to stave off the effects of joblessness, poverty, and uncertainty. Housework increased dramatically. When cash income declined, housewives replaced purchasing with subsistence production. Whether they planted gardens, canned food, remade old clothing, made do with less heat, or moved into poorer housing which required extra effort to keep clean and comfortable, women worked harder. Their families apparently expected them to do so. Virtually all of the sample of South Bend working-class families utilized such strategies in the early Depression years. These families were less likely to rely on financial strategies such as using up their savings, taking out loans, going into debt for unpaid bills, or cashing in insurance policies.29 Rather, they depended on additional work from women as their first line of defense. At the same time, unemployment and economic insecurity deepened tensions and aggravated problems, creating more emotional work for women. A working-class wife, for example, might find her home occupied by her unemployed husband and sons while the utilities had been shut off for nonpayment and the kitchen stove provided the only heat for the entire house. In such situations, trying to do her housework, at the same time mediating the tensions of enforced, constant crowding was no easy task. Younger women had to throw out their expectations about life proceeding in an orderly fashion; they sacrificed education, independence, marriage, and children in order to help their families. The birth rate, for example, plummeted from an average of 98 per 1,000 women of childbearing age in 1925 to 1929, to 76 in 1933 and again in 1936.30 To soothe frightened men unaccustomed to unemployment, coordinate the activities of increased numbers of

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people living in a small number of rooms, and cope with changes in their own lives-all required women's stamina and ingenuity. Family economies also depended on women's wages more heavily during the Depression, a result, in part, of the comparative protection afforded to women by the sex-segregated labor force.31 By 1930 the female-intensive clerical and service sectors of the economy accounted for more than one-half of the female nonagricultural labor force and employed the majority of urban workingclass women, both black and white.32 Because layoffs began in production jobs, women in clerical and service occupations continued to work when male production workers lost their jobs or worked intermittently. When the men on the assembly line at Studebaker, for example, worked one partial shift every few weeks or did not work at all, their daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, and girl friends continued to work as clerical, janitorial, and food service employees in the corporate headquarters. Young, single urban women - working-class daughters-almost without exception, worked for wages. In the four cities I studied, 85 percent of single women between the ages of twenty and fortyfour were employed in 1929.33 The presumption of their families was that "when the children are grown, they can make a piece of bread for themselves," as one Russian immigrant described her father's attitude. Most lived with their parents and contributed all or most of their wages to their familes.34 The assumption of daughters' allegiance to and financial support of their parents and siblings intensified under the weight of the Depression, when the male wage earners in these families were more likely than not to be unemployed. The portion of family income provided by daughters or sisters increased dramatically. By the fall of 1932, for example, twice as many households in the South Bend sample had full-time female workers compared with those with full-time male workers.3S Women alone supported one-third of these 183 households and another one-third received one-quarter or more of their incomes from female members. Although the interviews did not detail wages prior to the Depression, there were male wage earners in 157 or 85.7 percent of the households in 1929 compared with male financial contributors in only 111 or 60.7 percent of the households in the fall of 1932. "Normally" 228 men and 259 women were employed in these households. By the fall of 1932, only 124 men were working, either part-time or full-time, a drop to 54.4

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percent of the previous group. Among women, 164 worked, 63.3 percent of the previous number. Women's financial contributions to family survival were critical. In interview after interview, young single daughters living with parents described themselves as the sole or primary source of familial support during the Depression. Although women volunteered this important information, the nature of the interviews made it less likely that they would express their emotional response to this burden. 36 The important financial contributions of daughters raised their status in some families; in others, the expectation that daughters' wages would go to their parents caused resentment among the daughters. Helen M., the daughter of Polish immigrants living in Cleveland, began to work at age fourteen, doing housework after school and on Saturdays. She quit this job at age fifteen to take "regular" work, and by sixteen, in the spring of 1933, she had left school to work full-time. Helen supported a sick mother, a father who had been out of work for two years, and four younger siblings. Earning five dollars a week for sixteen-hour days at housework, she reported, "I'm just about keeping the family."37 Many young daughters reported, sometimes proudly, sometimes resentfully, that they were contributing "every cent" they earned to their families. Familial obligation also required other kinds of self-sacrifice from young women. Many daughters, like Helen, cut short their educations, often at the behest of their parents. Although the proportion of young people graduating from high school increased during the Depression, some young women who wanted an education could not obtain it. The young women leaving high school in the early thirties who appear in my samples were more than balanced, numerically, by their younger sisters remaining in school later in the decade as government programs employed some of their fathers and as younger women found it more and more difficult to secure work. 38 A seventeen-year-old Americanborn daughter of Slovak parents described herself and her sister in 1935. 'There are hundreds of girls just like herself and me. Neither of us could finish our high school education, we had to go to work. My mother works a little, my father very little, yet he must have his tobacco and beer."39 For this young woman, who signed her letter to Frances Perkins "One of the Hundreds," her resentment of her father was unmistakable.

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For other young women, the dream of a college education had to be put aside. Ruth K., the eighteen-year-old daughter of Bohemian immigrants, had to turn down a college scholarship. Her father, a fur finisher, had little work, and her brother could not find a job when he graduated from high school in 1933. Ruth, however, had two jobs; she held a full-time position as a secretary and medical assistant to a physician and worked at a part-time clerical job three evenings a week. Her earnings, $55 a month from her full-time job and perhaps another $10 from the part-time job, provided almost the entire income for a family of six. Although Ruth could not "take advantage of" the scholarship she had won, she persevered and took a chemistry class in night school. Her comments do not make clear whether her parents insisted she go to work or whether her own feelings of responsibility framed her choice, but it is obvious that the Depression altered her plans dramatically.40 Although parents could decide that their daughters had to leave school, this strategy did not necessarily yield the desired results. Josephine and Constanti Β., Polish immigrants, employed as operatives at two different South Bend factories, had not worked fulltime since 1929. Raising four children and trying to make mortgage payments on their home, Josephine reported that she had taken her daughter Irene out of high school in 1932 because she "needed her wages." Irene worked as a domestic, "off and on," but the following fall, chafing under parental authority, Irene married and left home.41 Irene's case was not typical, however, because, during the Depression, marriage rates dropped dramatically. By 1932, only three-quarters as many people were marrying as had during the late 1920s.42 Consequently, more young women lived with their families longer into adulthood, and their responsibility for providing some, and frequently all, of the family income grew accordingly. This situation exacted a high emotional price. Daughters who lived with parents were not always happy about their circumstances, but loyalty, parental authority, or a lack of alternatives compelled them to remain. Other women chose to live on their own. Although they had many reasons for leaving home, they faced a common problem when the loss of work forced them to reconsider their futures. Some women "adrift" entertained thoughts of returning home to their parents, but not all parents would take them back.43 Grace S.

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and Margaret T., both young white women living in Cleveland, one a native-born clerical worker and the other a Canadian immigrant household worker, reported that after their mothers died, their fathers had remarried, and their stepmothers had made it clear that they were not welcome at home.144 Neither stepparents nor parents were always willing to support unemployed young adults. On the other hand, some independent daughters resisted returning to parental supervision. Helen B., a twenty-five-year-old single white woman, lived with a friend and was employed as a clerical worker in Philadelphia. When she was laid off in 1931, another friend whom she knew through a basketball club helped her to get a job at a department store. This job ended after a year. Helen searched for work for two months and, finally, nine weeks behind in her rent, applied to the Bureau of Unemployment Relief in the spring of 1933. This young woman, whose social and work relationships revolved around her peers, responded to her interviewer's suggestion that she move back home by insisting that "difficulties" made it impossible to do so.45 There are similar stories about young black women. After a year teaching school in rural Missouri, Mandolyn B. moved to Chicago in 1928 at age twenty-three. She had not been able to find work commensurate with her normal school education and had, instead, supported herself as a beautician for seven and a half years. In 1937, unemployment and lack of resources pushed her to apply for relief. She would not consider returning to Missouri, she told her interviewer, because she had "felt hindered a great deal socially in a small town."46 Older women also expressed loyalty to their families in their actions, but disappointment, anger, and bitterness over marriages and families was, if anything, more direct. Married women's participation in the wage labor force grew during the Depression, in spite of the considerable opposition to their working. Nationally, only 11.7 percent of all married women were employed in 1930, but the proportion varied dramatically by race and according to opportunities available in the particular city. One-third of black married women worked for wages, more than three times the employment rate of either native-born or immigrant white married women. 47 Despite a decade of Depression, however, by 1940 married women as a group had increased their proportional share

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of the labor force by almost one-third. Because black women lost jobs disproportionately during the 1930s, the increase of white married women's labor force participation was even greater.48 The growth of employment among married white women, despite public opinion and even legislative action seeking to restrict it, reflected more than increased consumer pressures, particularly in working-class homes.49 Married working-class women entered the labor force because their husbands and sons were unemployed and underemployed and their families needed the income. Edna H. decided to look for a job in 1931 although she had not been employed in more than twenty years since she had married. She worked sporadically at the South Bend Bait Company. Her daughter Ruth, a clerical worker, alternately worked a month and took half a month layoff. Edna's husband, Leland, a printer, had suffered an industrial accident; although he expected to receive some compensation, the amount would be quite small because he had been working only three days every other week. A younger child had not yet entered the labor force, and a grandmother planned to move to South Bend to live with them because she had lost everything in a bank failure. Edna explained, "We were having such a hard time getting along on the little the others could make, I thought I'd try to help some too." Yet women did not always assume this burden cheerfully. Emma D., an assembler at Studebaker, worked because her husband's employment was so irregular. A forty-three-year-old immigrant, she had only one child still at home, a son in high school, but she regarded housework as her responsibility and breadwinning as her husband's. Emma said that she "wished he could work more so I could stay home and tend my business."50 The additional burden of a woman's paid job strained some marital relations, and among married women of both races the breakup of marriages was a widespread phenomenon. Separations and desertions multiplied. Divorces declined in the early 1930s because of the expense, but by 1936 the divorce rate had surpassed its previous high in the late 1920s and continued to grow.sl Lack of money and the husband's unemployment often precipitated the splitup. After nineteen years of marriage, Gertrude W.'s husband had deserted his fifty-year-old white wife in 1936. With tears in her eyes, she told her interviewer that her husband had "forced" her to work to supplement his wages, and when he re-

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fused to work to "preserve his own health," she had worked too hard and could "hardly drag along." Gertrude W. attributed the breakup of their marriage to the fact that he "drank and told lies."52 Elizabeth H., a black woman of forty-nine who lived in Chicago, described her husband as a "good provider" until he lost his job in 1931. They subsequently lost their home, and Elizabeth said he "got the big head" after these crises and "dropped" her.53 A wife's unemployment could also precipitate a break. An interviewer described Mary B., a black woman, as "quite depressed and entirely through with men." Mary had married at fifteen and had supported her husband through most of their marriage. When her health broke down after years of hard physical labor, her husband was "cruel" and "mistreated" her and finally went off with another woman in 1935, when Mary was forty-six. "She has trouble avoiding tears when speaking of her husband's abuse of her when she became too ill to work, after supporting him for so many years," wrote her interviewer. Mary stated that she had "looked through her life and decided that she was too easy, that she was a fool." When questioned about whether she would marry in the future, Mary responded, there's "no next time for me—never no more for me."54 We might expect the bonds of marriage to hold people more tightly in hard times, because poverty made them more dependent on one another. For many people the family economy did serve this purpose, but for a growing number of women and men, the Depression fostered family disintegration instead. Although acrimonious breakups wreaked havoc on many women's lives, other family economies split apart by mutual agreement, albeit reluctantly, when husbands and wives decided to go their separate ways because it was not possible for them to survive financially while living together. Husbands often left wives and children to search for work, some returning to the old country, others traveling to other areas of the United States. Rose W.'s husband, for example, left South Bend because no work was available there and found a job in Kiwana, a small Indiana town, where he earned only his own keep. He was unable to contribute anything to his wife and child, so Rose and their infant moved in with her mother , ss Rose's move represents a common working-class method for coping with the Depression-the addition of more people to a household. In South Bend, between 1930 and 1932 alone, more

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than one-third of the households had doubled up at some point.56 Most frequently, a married daughter and her husband and children moved into her parents' household; less frequently, a married son's family moved in with his parents or other relatives joined the home. These doubled-up households expanded the family economy by providing more potential wage earners as well as providers of unpaid services, such as grandmothers who cared for their grandchildren while the mothers worked. Yet doubled-up households did not necessarily function harmoniously. Mary T. and her three children lived with her in-laws for two years while her husband was undergoing treatment in a tuberculosis sanitarium. She explained that they left because the children were "too lively" for their grandmother and made her "nervous."57 Similarly, in black households, various combinations of relatives and lodgers lived together in an attempt to survive the Depression-Richard Wright, his mother, brother, and aunt, for example, lived together in Chicago in the 1930s.58 Other families fell apart because there were not enough resources to enable them to stay together. Beatrice T., once a wellpaid clerical worker earning $150 a month, reduced to physically onerous, around-the-clock housework for $8 a week in 1933, mirrored in her job experiences her family's financial plight. Her Irish immigrant parents had lost their home and furniture in the spring of 1933. The entire family had scattered across Cleveland to the homes of various relatives. Beatrice's declining income must have contributed to the disaster. Retta Κ., widowed at the beginning of the Depression, worked as an attendant at Warrensville Institution and later as a housekeeper/manager at a fraternity house; both jobs provided her with lodging. She also worked as a saleswoman and a domestic and rented a place with her high school-age son during those periods. When she was unemployed, she lived with a married daughter on a farm in rural Ohio. After their home broke up, a single daughter, Doris K., a twenty-five-year-old clerical worker, had stayed with a married sister and subsequently lived with a friend of her sister. Doris reported, optimistically that "when the Depression is over we'll all get back together again." In 1933 she had no way of knowing that the Depression would drag on for another eight years.59 These stories of daughters and wives illustrate experiences that theories of family cooperation do not take into account. The

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histories of Catherine T. and Mary P. which opened this article exemplify women who existed outside nuclear families. In 1940, only three-quarters of the female population lived as wives or daughters; the other one-quarter were female heads of household, grandmothers, granddaughters, other adult relatives, lodgers, or live-in servants.60 Although social scientists of the 1930s termed "unattached" women "nonfamily" women, many of them, in fact, did have families —siblings and children—who were unable or unwilling to provide for them. The "nonfamily" women often supported their families by contributing part of their paychecks and by assuming additional responsibilities in times of crisis. Once their services were no longer necessary, their families might desert them. Mary H., a white woman born in Chicago in 1889, was nine years old when her father died. At fourteen she left school to help her mother with the laundry she took in to support the three children. Mary did not marry but continued to live at home and to help support her family. In 1928, laid off from her job at a wire company, she decided to stay at home with her invalid mother, whose ill health probably could be attributed to years of hard physical labor as a laundress. During the next six years, Mary cared for her mother, and her two younger brothers supported them. Both brothers married during the Depression; their underemployment and responsibilities for their new families ended their financial contributions to Mary and their mother, who consequently went on relief. After her mother's death in 1934, Mary could not find steady work, partly because of her own poor health; three years later her situation had not changed. Her brothers' allegiances lay with their own conjugal families.61 Although women were expected to contribute to the families in which they lived, "unattached" women-divorced, deserted, separated, widowed or single-had no one from whom they could claim support. Responsibility and sacrifice were expected and taken for granted, but reciprocal support was not necessarily forthcoming. Stories like these were not limited to adult siblings or adult children. Esther O., a young married immigrant from the Netherlands, lived with her mother, step-father, husband, and siblings in Cleveland. She voluntarily quit her job in 1929 to care for her sick mother. When her husband lost his job and was unable to contribute to the household, he moved back to his own family's home

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in Marion, Ohio. By 1933 Esther's mother's health had improved so that she no longer required constant help, and Esther's stepfather decreed that she had to "get out." Esther had voluntarily left her job and then separated from her husband to help her family; subsequently, the family rejected her.62 Thus, adult siblings, parents, and adult children, the kin most likely to provide aid in time of trouble, frequently failed to support needy women. They used women's energies when they needed them but disdained returning the favor at a later time when the women themselves were needy. Both black and white women, often in their fifties, sixties, or older, applied for relief because they could not find work and could not obtain aid from children or siblings. In 1937 there were 12,000 "unattached" women receiving relief in Chicago alone.63 Among those in my sample of this group who had once been married, approximately two-fifths had ended their marriages during the Depression. Rose W. "seemed to think that her children should have supported her when she was old," but Rose's children had "kicked out" the sixty-two-year-old Hungarian immigrant.66 Many older women tried to live with their children, but if they could not get along with them or with their sons- and daughters-in-law, they were forced to move out. Maud J., a white widow of fifty-one, cashed in her insurance policies for living expenses after losing her job. When her daughter learned that she could no longer inherit anything, she refused to take her destitute mother into her home.67 Stella P., a black woman of sixty-two, refused to live with her daughter because she disapproved of her living with her boyfriend.64 Although families relied on women's care and in some cases on their financial contributions, the "nonfamily" women learned that their families were not their most reliable sources of aid. Among the three samples of women applying for or receiving relief as "unattached" persons (who comprise 59 percent of my total sample group), the women reported receiving material aid from their friends much more frequently than from their families. In the sample of single women relief cases in Chicago in 1937, almost three-fifths had received help from friends prior to applying for relief; in contrast, less than one-fifth had gotten any support from their families.65

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Why were there so many conflicts in families during the Depression? Why did the family economy fail to meet its obligations to its members? What accounts for similarities in the experiences of black and white working-class women? The impact of the Depression, particularly on people who were either economically marginal or dependent, was cataclysmic. This was a long-term crisis. Throughout the thirties, the official unemployment rate never dropped lower than 14.3 percent; estimates of unemployment among nonfarm employees never fell lower than 21.3 percent. Despite the economic gearup for war, the nonfarm unemployment rate still remained 21.3 percent in 1940. Black women's deprivation was far more severe than that of white women, particularly with regard to jobs. There was the racial and sexual stratification of the labor force already in place, which relegated black women to a few of the worst jobs at the bottom of the occupational ladder. The Depression added endemic unemployment, employers' preferences for white women, and white women's willingness to accept jobs they previously had disdained. The result was a dismal employment situation. Black women who lived in cities like Chicago, where black communities were relatively new, were probably least likely to have nearby kinship circles on which to rely. Recent migrants left most of their kin behind in the South. Some younger black women did rely on their mothers, sisters, relatives, and friends to raise their children, sending the children South while they remained in the North where wages were higher. Women also turned to friends for help, shaping relationships of cooperation and concern from among available human resources. Blackwelder's observation that we know little about the internal workings of families deserves emphasis. Analyses of the family economy stress the economic nature of cooperation. Historians have not understood or examined the disruption to family economies because of the compartmentalization of our research. Study of the family economy usually relies on sources quite different from studies of familial discord. Pursuing the records of divorce courts or of social service agencies yields materials for students of family strife but offers little information about economic arrangements; the reverse is equally true. Although black women's labor force experiences were especially difficult, other aspects of the histories of black and white women

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were similar during the Depression. The effect of these years on family relations in the urban North and Midwest cut across the races. Families simply could not bear all the strains of the Depression, and they frequently came unglued. Cooperation is the quality that makes families work. It is also the quality whose strength is tested in hard times. Families demanded much from women members, both married and unmarried alike; all too often they gave little in return.

NOTES The author would like to express her thanks for comments on earlier versions of this article to Miriam Cohen, Joanne Meyerowitz, Mary Ryan, and anonymous reviewers from Feminist Studies. 1. Catherine T., 378, I 42, Northern, box 346: Survey Material, Bulletin 158. All interviews are contained within the records of the Women's Bureau, Record Group 86, National Archives, Washington, D.C. The Women's Bureau assigned each interview record a number. In some studies, the Women's Bureau used a single number to record each woman, but in the 1937 Chicago study, each woman was given two different case numbers, and her relief district was also noted. I have not used the last names of the women in order to protect their privacy. When the Women's Bureau conducted the studies with organizations of more well-to-do women, such as the American Association of University Women, it discarded interview records in order to protect the women's privacy. Working-class women deserve the same respect. 2. Mary P., 098, C 24, Canal, box 345: Survey Material, Bulletin 158. 3. Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott, Women, Work, and Family (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1978), 6. 4. Louise A. Tilly and Miriam Cohen, "Does the Family Have a History? A Review of Theory and Practice in Family History," Social Science History 6 (Spring 1982): 151. 5. See, for example, Linda Gordon. "Functions of the Family." in Voices from Women's Liberation, ed. Leslie B. Tanner (New York: New American Library. 1970), 181-88: Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (New York: Bantam Books. 1970): Juliet Mitciiel'., Woman s Estate (New York: Random House, 1971). 6. Rayna Rapp. Ellen Ross, and Renate Bridenthal, "Examining Family History," Feminist Studies 5 (Spring 1979): 174-200; Heidi 1. Hartmann, T h e Family As the Locus of Gender, Class, and Political Struggle: The Example of Housework," Signs 6 (Spring 1981): 376. 7. Miriam Cohen, "Changing Education Strategies among Immigrant Generations: New York Italians in Comparative Perspective," Journal of Social History 15 (Spring 1982): 447; Miriam Cohen, Italian-American Women in New York City, 1900-1950: Work and School," in Class, Sex, and the Woman Worker, ed. Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977), 122; Sarah Eisenstein, Give Us Bread but Give Us Roses: Working Women's Consciousness in the United States, 1890 to the First World War (London. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983); Tamara Κ. Hareven, Family Time and Industrial Time The Relationship between the Family and Work in a New England In-

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dustrial Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Leslie W o o d c o c k Tentler, Wage-Earning Women: Industrial Work and Family Life in the United States, ¡900-1930 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979). 8. Judith E. Smith, Family Connections: A History of Italian and Jewish Immigrant Lives in Providence, Rhode Island, 1900-1940 (Albany: State University of N e w York Press, 1985). 9. Cohen, "Changing Education Strategies among Immigrant Generations." 447, a n d "Italian-American W o m e n in N e w York City," 122. 10. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, Population, vol. 4, Characteristics by Age, pt. 1: U.S. Summary (Washington, D C . : GPO, 1943), 26. T h e Fifteenth C e n s u s (1930) offers n o comparable information about a person's relationship to the head of the household in w h i c h she/he lives. Far m o r e than one-quarter of adult w o m e n are likely to spend s o m e part of their lives in o n e of t h e s e categories. I do not intend to imply that w o m e n w h o are neither w i v e s nor daughters are never discussed in this literature, but they are certainly not its focus. Although I a m critical of the family e c o n o m y analysis, I believe it answers more historical q u e s t i o n s than either the demographic or s e n t i m e n t s interpretations of family history. See Tilly and C o h e n for a useful summary of interpretations of family history. 11. Angela Y. Davis, "Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the C o m m u n i t y of Slaves," Black Scholar 3 (December 1971). 2-16, and Women, Race, and Class (New York: Random House, 1981), 5-12. 12. U.S. Department of Labor, W o m e n ' s Bureau, Time of Change: 1983 Handbook on Women Workers, Bulletin 2 1 8 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1983), 44. 13. T h e classics of the f a m i l y disorganization school are E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States, revised and abridged edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966); Daniel P. M o y n i h a n , The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, Department of Labor, O f f i c e of Policy Planning and Research (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1965); reprinted in The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy, ed. Lee Rainwater and William L. Y a n c e y (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967), 41-124. 14. Carol Stack, All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community (New York: Harper & Row, 1974); J a m e s Borchert, Alley Life in Washington: Family, Community, and Folklife in the City, ¡850-1970 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 19801; Shepard Krech III, "Black Family Organization in the Nineteenth Century: An Ethnological Perspective," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 12 (Winter 1982): 429-52; Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, ¡750-1925 | N e w York: Pantheon, 1976); Harriet Pipes McAdoo, "Black Mothers and the Extended Family Support Network," in The Black Women, ed. LaFrances Rodgers-Rose (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1980); Jualynne Dodson. "Conceptualizations of Black Families," in Black Families, ed. Harriette Pipes McAdoo (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1981); Harriette Pipes M c A d o o and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, "Historical Trends and Perspectives of Afro-American Families," Trends in History 3 (Spring/Summer 1985): 97-111. 15. A n d r e w Billingsley, Black Families in White America (Englewood Cliffs. N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968); G u t m a n ; Elizabeth H. Pieck, "A M o t h e r s Wages: Income-Earning a m o n g Married Italian and Black W o m e n , 1896-1911." in The American Family in SocialHistorical Perspective, 2d. ed., edited by Michael Gordon (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978), 510; Davis. Women, Race, and Class, 5-12 16. Niara Sudarkasa, " I n t e r p r e t i n g t h e African H e r i t a g e in A f r o - A m e r i c a n Family Organization." in Black Families. 37-53. 17 M e a s u r i n g family d i s i n t e g r a t i o n o v e r t h e c o u r s e of t h e d e c a d e is difficult. T h e census, h o w e v e r , c o n f i r m s t h e i n t e r v i e w e v i d e n c e . C o m p a r i n g the p r o p o r t i o n of families h e a d e d by w o m e n in e a c h of the f o u r cities at the b e g i n n i n g a n d e n d of t h e d e c a d e , I f o u n d that f e m a l e - h e a d e d h o u s e h o l d s i n c r e a s e d at a rate b e t w e e n 20.9 percent in C l e v e l a n d to 25.9 p e r c e n t in South B e n d (see Table 1).

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

561

Table 1. - Increase of Female-Headed Households City

Chicago Cleveland Philadelphia South Bend

Households Headed Households Headed by Women, 1930 |%) by Women, 1940 |%) 13.6 13.4 15.9 10.8

17.1 16.2 19.5 13.6

Rate of Change 25.7 20.9 22.6 25.9

Source: Figures calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, ¡930, Population, vol. 6, Families by States, 68, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1933), Sixteenth Census of the United States, ¡940, Population, vol. 4, Characteristics by Age, pt. 1. 169; pt. 2, pp. 624, 695; pt. 4, pp. 27, 227. 18. Susan Ware, Holding Their Own: American Women in the ¡930s (Boston: T w a y n e Publishers, 1982), 13-17; Roberts. McElvaine, The Great Depression: America, ¡929-194¡ (New York: Times Books, 1984), 175-81; Lois Scharf, To Work and to Wed: Female Employment, Feminism, and the Great Depression (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), 158; Ruth Milkman, "Women's Work and the Economic Crisis: Some Lessons from the Great Depression," Review of Radical Political Economics, 8 (Spring 1976): 83; Winifred Wandersee, Women's Work and Family Values, 1920-1940 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 112. 19. E. Wright Bakke, Citizens without Work: A Study of the Effects of Unemployment upon the Worker's Social Relations and Practices (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940); Robert Cooley Angeli, The Family Encounters the Depression (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1936); Ruth Shonle Cavan and Katherine Howland Ranck, The Family and the Depression: A Study of One Hundred Chicago Families (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 19381; Mirra Komarovsky, The Unemployed Man and His Family: The Effect of Unemployment Upon the Status of the Man in Fifty-Nine Families (New York: Dryden Press. 1940). 20. Scharf; Wandersee. 21. Tentler, 147. 22. Julia Kirk Blackwelder. Women of the Depression: Caste and Culture in San Antonio, ¡929-1939 (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1984), 25-42. 23. Lois Rita Helmbold, "Downward Occupational Mobility during the Great Depression: Urban Black and White Working-Class Women." Labor History, forthcoming, 1988. 24. See the following U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau publications: WageEarning Women and the Industrial Conditions of ¡930: A Survey of South Bend, Bulletin 92 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1932); The Effects of the Depression on Wage Earners'Families: A Second Survey of South Bend. Bulletin 108 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1936); Women Unemployed Seeking Relief m ¡933, Bulletin 139 (Washington. D.C.: GPO, 1936); and Unattached Women on Relief in Chicago. ¡937. Bulletin 158 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1938). In South Bend. Indiana, the Women's Bureau conducted a house-to-house survey of employed women in working-class neighborhoods in 1930, followed by a repeat study of the same households two years later. Data were obtained from all household members, including women outside the labor force. The group was overwhelmingly white, as was South Bend in the 1930s. Only 2 of the 183 households were black. Onefifth of the 274 women workers were immigrants, mostly Polish and Hungarian, and many more were daughters of immigrants. One-half were single (mostly young

562

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

daughters), more than one-third were married, and the remainder were formerly married. Because the interviews examined the entire household, women in occupations besides clerical and service work, primarily factory operatives, were included and serve as a useful comparison for conditions in different sectors of the labor force. Although employment had been a criterion for inclusion in the first study, by 1932 the employment status of these women spanned the range of possibilities. The Cleveland study was a record of applicants for work at the Friendly Service Bureau of the Cleveland YWCA. Because the YWCA did not offer services to black or Jewish women, the sample was completely white and Christian. More than one-quarter were immigrants and many more were daughters of immigrants. Like the YWCA's clientele, tha group was predominantly young and single, but approximately threetenths were over thirty and one-quarter were married or formerly married. Although the women were seeking jobs, some were already employed and others became employed in jobs offered to them by the placement service. My sample contained 294 women. Unemployed, "unattached" women who applied to several pre-New Deal agencies for make work, relief, or other assistance in 1932 and 1933 were studied in Chicago and Philadelphia. The two groups were quite similar; about one-half were over forty-five and one-half were younger; two-thirds had been married previously. About four-tenths were black, one-tenth were immigrants, and one-half were native-born white women. All had been employed, although sometimes only briefly. Unemployment and/or the end of their marriages through death or separation had left these women without support and led them to apply for help. Although these samples contain some young women, they are most representative of middle-aged and older women living outside families. Presumably, the women lived alone, but in fact many shared living quarters with friends. The School of Social Service Administration of the University of Chicago, the Chicago Relief Administration, and the Women's Bureau investigated and interviewed a representative group of the 12,000 women receiving relief payments as single-person cases in Chicago in January 1937. In my sample of 219, half were black, one-third were native-born whites, and the rest were immigrants. This group was the oldest of the five samples: one-half were fifty or older. Only one-fifth had never married. 25. Young, single biack women and married black women do appear in the samples, but not in proportion to their share of the population. The two samples that contained the bulk of young, single white women and married white women. South Bend and Cleveland, contain few black women. I was unable to locate another source that provided a comparable group of black women. 26. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States. 1930, Population, vol. 2. General Report. Statistics by Subjects (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1933), 118, 120, 127, 129. 27. Abraham Hoffman, Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great Depression: Repatriation Pressures, 1929-1939 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974), 119-20. Blackwelder (p. 112) found that San Antonio relief administrators discriminated against both black and Mexican applicants. 28. Furthermore, the interviewers and the interviewees were separated by class and sometimes by race. An encouraging and sympathetic interviewer might gain more detailed information about her subject s life and emotions. Yet the interviewers made many negative judgments, revealing racist and classisi attitudes in their notes. The original purposes of the studies did not concern familial relations, the interviewer/interviewee dynamic in many cases militated against personal information being revealed, and yet we have widespread evidence of familial distress and destruction. 29. Of the households studied, 77.3 percent used three or more strategies that demand-

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

563

ed additional labor from women. Only 37.6 percent of the households relied on as many as three financial strategies. 30. Figures were calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, pt. 1 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1975), 49. 31. There are no reliable national unemployment data enumerated by sex. Having examined various regional data and estimates of national data, Milkman (pp. 75-81) has concluded: "the available data clearly indicate that, insofar as their paid labor force participation was concerned, women were less affected than men by the contraction." 32. Figures were calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census. 1930, Population, vol. 5, Occupations, General Report, (Washington, D C.: GPO, 1933). 74. 33. Figures were calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census, 1930 Population, vol. 2, 954, 955, 965, 1005; vol. 4, Occupations, by States, (Washington, D.C.: GPO. 1933), pp. 454. 510, 1301, 1425: vol. 5, p. 274. The census constructed age groups of fifteen to nineteen, twenty to twenty-four, and twenty-five to forty-four. I would have preferred to examine the experience of women aged eighteen to thirty-five, but that was not possible. Single black women between the ages of twenty and twenty-four were slightly less likely to work for wages than white women in three of the four cities. In Philadelphia, the city characterized by the longest-standing black community, young black women's labor force participation rates were the same as those of young white women. Nationally, the average was lower; urban residence caused all young single women to be more likely to be employed. 34. Pauline H.. 261, box 306: Survey Materials. Bulletin 139. 35. Of the households studied. 40.4 percent reported having full-time female workers, compared with only 20.2 percent having full-time male workers. 36. In Cleveland, brief interviews were conducted at the YWCA Friendly Service Bureau and were oriented primarily to the job-finding functions of the bureau. In South Bend, the interviews lasted longer and covered more areas of daily life, but they were conducted in the homes of the women. Other family members were often present, possibly inhibiting the women interviewed. 37. Helen Μ , 435. box 306. 38. Overall, school attendance of sixteen-year-old and seventeen-year-old women and men increased greatly between 1930 and 1940. Slightly more than one-half of sixteenyear-old and seventeen-year-old women attended school in South Bend and Cleveland in 1930; by 1940 over three-quarters of the age group was in school. The men in these cities followed the same pattern but were a few percentage points more likely to be in school in both years. See U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, Population, vol. 2, Characteristics of Population, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1943), pt. 2, p. 822; pt. 5, p. 711. Women between fourteen and nineteen lost 43.6 percent of their share of the female labor force between 1929 and 1940. See Helmbold. 39. One of the Hundreds to Frances Perkins. 28 July 1935, Cleveland, Ohio, box 926: Correspondence - Household (Domeslic) File, File: Household Employees, 1934-35, Records of the Women's Bureau, Record Group 86, National Archives. 40 Ruth K.. 351. box 306. 41. Josephine B., Irene B., 0850. box 253: Household Schedules. Matched with 1930 Schedules. Bulletin 108 "Matched with 1930 Schedules" refers to interview schedules from South Bend in 1932 which were matched up with interview schedules for the same people from 1930. (There were two separate studies of South Bend, 1930 and 1932.) This contrasts with some archival boxes that contain only the 1930 schedules, for people the interviewers could not locate in 1932. 42. Samuel A Stouffer and Lyle M. Spencer. "Marriage and Divorce in Recent Years," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 18 (November 1936): 58.

564

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

U.S. Bureau of t h e Census, Historical Statistics of the U.S., pt. 1, p. 64. No breakdowns by class or race are available. 43. See Joanne J. Meyerowitz, Women Adrift: Wage-Earning Women Apart from Family in Chicago, 1880-1830. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming, 1988). Social w o r k e r s a n d social scientists of t h e period used t h e t e r m "adrift" to describe any w o m a n not moored to a family or at least to a h u s b a n d . They also used the terms "unattached" and "nonfamily" for t h e same p u r p o s e . 44. Grace S., 617, box 305; Margaret T., 663, box 305. 45. Helen B.. 0201, box 589: Survey Materials. Bulletin 139. 46. Mandolyn B., 296, J 11, O a k w o o d , box 344: Survey Materials. Bulletin 158. 47. U.S Bureau of t h e Census, Fifteenth Census, 1930, Population, vol. 5, p. 329. Of black married w o m e n , 33.2 percent w o r k e d for wages, compared with 9.8 percent of nativeborn white and 8.5 percent of immigrant white married w o m e n . This national pattern held true in the four cities I studied. 48. In 1940, 14.3 percent of married w o m e n w e r e employed, an increase of 22.2 percent a n d an increase of 28 percent of their s h a r e of the female labor force. The Sixteenth C e n s u s did not c o m p a r e women's e m p l o y m e n t status with both their race and their marital status at the same time, to m a k e possible comparisons with 1929 by specific groups. Black w o m e n ' s labor force participation declined from 43.3 percent to 33.5 percent between 1929 a n d 1940. Fifteenth Census, 1930, Population, vol. 5, p. 274; Sixteenth Census, 1940, Population, vol. 2, pt. 1. pp. 44, 47; vol. 3, pt. 1. p. 18. See Helmbold. 49. For the c o n s u m e r theory, see Scharf. 147-53; a n d Wandersee, 1-54. Their conclusions may be accurate for middle-class homes. W a n d e r s e e avoids dealing with the class nature of this issue by using the t e r m "middle income." Her definition of middle income w a s $1,000 or m o r e a year. See Winifred D. W a n d e r s e e Bolin, T h e Economics of Middle-Income Family Life: Working W o m e n during the Great Depression," Journal of American History 65 (June 1978): 63. Only 30 percent of the working-class households in the South Bend sample would have qualified for this middle-income range, based on a one-month's report of income during t h e fall of 1932. 50. Edna H., 0538, box 255 and E m m a D., 0665, box 256: Household Schedules. Matched with 1930 Schedules, Bulietin 108. 51. Although there are no official data for an unofficial end to marriages, contemporary reporters offered this observation. See Historical Statistics of the United States, pt. 1, p. 64. No data are available by class or race. 52. G e r t r u d e W.. 474, Κ 26, Union Park, box 346. 53. Elizabeth H., 056. Β 20, Bridgeport, box 347: Survey Materials, Bulletin 158. 54. Mary B.. 430. J 45, Oakwood. box 344. 55. Rose W., 0284, box 263: Household Schedules. Matched with 1930 Schedules, Bulletin 108. 56. Thirty-five percent lived doubled up. 57. Mary T., 0243. box 260: Household Schedules, Matched with 1930 Schedules, Bulletin 108. 58. Richard Wright. American Hunger. (New York: Harper & Row. 1977). The Chicago and Philadelphia samples containing black w o m e n have anecdotal evidence about doubling up. but these studies provide no systemic detail comparable to that presented in the South Bend sample. 59 Beatrice T., 661, box 305 60. Retta Κ.. 311. Doris Κ . 309. box 306. Figures calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census. 1940. Population, vol. 4, p. 169. 61. Mary H.. 262. G 16, Lawndale, box 346 62. Esther O.. 483. box 306. 63. Women's Bureau, Unattached Women on Relief. 1937

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

565

64. Rose W., 216, F 7. Irving Park, box 344. Maud J., 365, box 304. Stella P., 514, L 11, Washington Park, box 345. 65. In this sample of single women, 58.9 percent had received help from friends, but only 18.7 percent had received any aid from their families. A significant proportion of these women had become "unattached" during the Depression, either through the death of their spouses or through the dissolution of their marriages. 66. Historical Statistics of the United States, pt. 1, p. 126; Sixteenth Census, 1940, Population, vol. 3, Labor Force, pt. 1, U.S. Summary, p. 18.

566

HISTORY O F W O M E N IN THE UNITED STATES

The Economics of Middle-Income Family Ufe: Working Women During the Great Depression WINIFRED D . WANDERSEE BOLIN

Τ

J L H E history of women and work is becoming an increasingly fertile field of research for historians, and the interest in this topic has generated a great deal of valuable scholarship. If there is one theme that emerges, it is that women's work outside of the home has been an extension of their family role and a reflection of their economic need. From the historian's point of view, the "pin-money theory" is dead.1 Long before the depression of the 1930s, married women left their homes to work in the factories and fields, in the homes of other women, and, increasingly during the twentieth century, in clerical and service occupations. In the decade between 1930 and 1940, the number of married women in the labor force increased by nearly 50 percent, while their numbers in the population increased by only 15 percent. By 1940 married women were 35 percent of the female labor force, in comparison to 29 percent in 1930 (see Table 1). Thus, in spite of the oversupply of labor and the underemployment of the population as a whole, married women workers made substantial numerical gains during the depression decade. It would be a mistake to suggest that the 1930s represented a new direction; rather, the labor force behavior of these years was a continuation of long-term trends that had been developing since the turn of the century. In fact, the gains of Winifred D. Wandersee Bolin, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received a Ph.D. in American history at the University of Minnesota. 1 Several historians discuss the "pin-money theory" in the context of broader social issues. See Clarke A. Chambers, Seedtime of Reform: American Social Service and Social Action, 1918-1933 (Minneaplis, 1963). 6 2 - 6 3 ; and William H. Chafe, The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970 (New York, 1972), 6 2 - 6 5 . The relationship between work and family is the basic theme of several recent studies in women's history: Virginia Yans McLaughlin, "Patterns of Work and Family Organization: Buffalo's Italians," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 11 (Autumn 1971), 2 9 9 - 3 1 4 , Daniel J. Walkowitz, "Working-Class Women in the Gilded Age: Factory, Community, and Family Life among Cohoes, New York, Cotton Workers," Journal of Social History, 5 (Summer 1972), 4 6 4 - 9 0 ; Joan W. Scott and Louise A. Tilly, " W o m e n ' s Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17 (Jan. 1975), 3 6 - 6 4 ; and Thomas Dublin, " W o m e n , Work, and the Family: Women Operatives in the Lowell Mills, 1 8 3 0 - 1 8 6 0 , " Feminist Studies, 3 (Fall 1975).

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

567

TABLE 1 Number and Proportion of Women 15 Years Old and Over, Gainfully Occupied, by Mariai Condition, for the United Sates, 1890-1940 Percent

% Distr. of Gainfully Occupied

3.7 2.5 0.5 0.7

18.9 40.5 4.6 29.9

100.0 68.2 13.9 17.9

24.2 7.6 13.8 2.8

5.0 3.3 0.8 0.9

20.6 43.5 5.6 32.5

100.0 66.2 15.4 18.4

30.0 9.0 17.7 3.4

7.6 4.6 1.9 1.2

25.4 51.1 10.7 34.1

100.0 60.2 24.7 15.0

35.2

8.3

23.7

100.0

13.9 21.3

6.4 1.9

46.4 9.0

77.0 23.0

1930 Females 15 and over Single and unknown Married Widowed and divorced

42.8 11.4 26.2 5.3

10.6 5.7 3.1 1.8

24.8 50.5 11.7 24.4

100.0 53.9 28.9 17.2

1940 Females 14 and over* * Single Married Husband present Husband absent Widowed and divorced

50.5 13.9 30.1 28.5 1.6 6.5

12.8 6.3 4.6 3.8 0.8 1.9

25.3 45.0 15.3 13.3 46.9 29.2

100.0 49.4 35.5 29.6 5.9 15.1

Census Year and Marital Status

Total Number*

1890 Females 15 and over Single and unknown Married Widowed and divorced

196 6.3 11.1 2.2

1900 Females 15 and over Single and unknown Married Widowed and divorced 1910 Females 15 and over Single and unknown Married Widowed and divorced

Gainfully Occupied Number*

1920 Females 15 and over Single, widowed, divorced and unknown Married

" Numbers in millions. * " 1940 age category differs from other census years. Source: 16th Census of the United States, 1940, Population. Vol. Ill: The Labor Force: Industry, Employment, and Income. Part I: United States Summary (Washington, 1943), Table 9, Ρ 26; 15th Census of the United States, 1930, Population. Vol. V: General Report on Occupations (Washington, 1933), Table I, 272; and Gertrude Bancroft, The American Labor Force: Its Gtowth and Changing Composition (New York, 1958), Table 25, p. 45.

the 1930s were not nearly as dramatic as those of two earlier decades— 1900 to 1910 and 1920 to 1930. What is significant is that they were made at a time of economic stagnation—at a time when women were under a great deal of public pressure to leave the labor market in order to avoid competing with men for the short supply of jobs.

568

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

The majority of married women workers during these years were working because of economic necessity. The investigations conducted by the Women's Bureau were devoted to proving that point, and even a cursory glance at the census data on the female labor force would support the bureau's interpretation. For instance, in 1930, about 3.9 million women combined the roles of homemaker and wage earner; TABLE 2 Family Income Distribution, 1929 Income Level (in dollars)

No. of Families (in thousands)

Percent at Each Level

Cumulative Percent

Under 0 0 to 500 500 to 1,000 1,000 to 1,500 1,500 to 2,000 2,000 to 2.500 2.500 to 3,000 3,000 to 3,500 3,500 to 4.000 4,000 to 4,500 4,500 to 5,000 Over 5,000 Total

120 1,982 3,797 5,754 4,701 3.204 1,988 1,447 993 718 514 2,256 27,474

0.4 7.2 13.8 21.0 17.1 11.6 7.2 5.3 3.6 2.6 1.9 8.2 100.0

0.4 7.6 21.5 42.4 59.5 71.2 78.4 83.7 87.3 899 91.8 100.0

Source: Maurice Leven, Harold G. Moulton, and Clark Warbunon, America's Consume (Washington, 1934), 54.

Capacity to

TABLE 3 Family Income Distribution, 1 9 3 5 - 1 9 3 6 Income Level (in dollars)

No. of Families (in thousands)

Percent at Each Level

Cumulative Percent

Under 250 250 to 500 500 to 750 750 to 1,000 1,000 to 1,250 1,250 to 1.500 1.500 to 1,750 1,750 to 2,000 2,000 to 2.250 2,250 to 2,500 2,500 to 3.000 3.000 to 3.500 3,500 to 4.000 4,000 to 4.500 4.500 to 5,000 Over 5,000 Total

1.163 3,015 3.799 4,277 3,882 2,865 2,343 1,897 1,421 1,044 1,314 744 438 250 153 793 29,400

4.0 10.3 12.9 14.6 13.2 9.8 8.0 6.5 4.8 36 4.5 2.5 1.5 .9 .5 2.7 100.0

4.0 14.2 27.1 41.7 54.9 64.6 72.6 79.1 83.9 87 4 91 9 94.4 95.9 96.8 97.3 100.0

Source: "Incomes of Families and Single Persons, 1935-36: Summary," Monthly Review, 47 (Oct. 1938), 730.

Labor

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

569

nearly one million were from families with no male head. In that year, nearly 38 percent of all married working women were either foreign born or black, and practically one-fourth were in domestic and personal service.2 Much attention has been given to the working women of lowerincome families by the Women's Bureau, by social workers, and by recent historians. 3 But there has been a tendency to overlook another demographic characteristic of the 1930s: the rather substantial number of married women from middle-income* families who were also gainfully employed. By 1940, over 40 percent of the gainfully employed homemakers who lived with their husbands, were married to men who had earned $1,000 or more in 1939 (see Table 4). This statistic has little meaning unless placed into the context of family economics during these years. Tables 2 and 3 give the family income distribution for two different time periods, 1929 and 1935-1936. Neither of these time periods corresponds to 1939, a year for which there are no figures on income distribution. 1939 was probably a somewhat better year than 1935-1936, but not as good as 1929. In 1935-1936, the median family income was $1,160; 50 percent of all families made between $500 and $1,500 a year. Thus, an annual wage or salary of $1,000 or more could place a family in the middle-income range. But what did it mean to be a "middle-income family" in the 1930s? It did not mean that the family had a large surplus income, but it did suggest a fairly comfortable standard of living. In the years between the 1890s and 1920s, average annual money earnings and the purchasing power of these earnings increased substantially for many classes of American society.4 Thus, it would seem that married women in spite of * The term "middle-income" will be used as opposed to "middle-class," which is a term much more difficult to define. ' There were numerous studies done by the Women's Bureau during the 1920s and 1930s that were expressly devoted to disproving the "pin-money theory." For a summary of the census data cited above, see Mary Elizabeth Pidgeon, " T h e Employed Woman Homemaker in the U.S.: Her Responsibility for Family Support," Women's Bureau, Bulletin, No. 148 (Washington, 1936), 17, 21. See also 15th Census of the United States, 1930, Population. Vol. V: General Report on Occupations (Washington, 1933), Table 8, p. 275. ' In addition to the studies already mentioned, see Robert W. Smuts, Women and Work in America (New York, 1959), 51-58. Several recent collections of documents give attention to working women of low-income status. See W. Elliot Brownlee and Mary M. Brownlee, eds., Women in the American Economy: A Documentary History, 167} to 1929 (New Haven, 1976); Rosalyn Baxandall, Linda Gordon, and Susan Reverby, eds., America's Working Women (New York, 1976); and Gerda Lemer, ed., The Female Experience: An American Documentary (Indianapolis, 1977). 4 Paul H. Douglas, Real Wages in the United States, 1890-1926 (New York, 1930), 584. For a good description of affluence in the 1920s, see William E. Leuchtenburg. The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1931 (Chicago, 1958), 178-203.

570

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

evidence of economic need, were entering the labor market in the greatest numbers during a period of relative affluence. Although the statistics indicate that most gainfully-employed married women were working because of need, the number of working women from middleincome families was also increasing. The increase was related to complex social, demographic, and technological developments; to changes in the economic function of the family as it became town-based rather than rural; and to the factor explored in this article—the changing definition of economic need. By the 1920s, American economic and social life reflected an awareness of what was compionly referred to as " t h e American Standard of Living."* The average American may have been unable to describe the precise iheaning of this term, but nearly everyone agreed that it was attainable, highly desirable, and far superior to the standard of any other nation. Its nature varied according to social class and regional differences, but no matter where a family stood socially and financially, members set their aspirations beyond their means. A family defined its standard of living in terms of an income that it hoped to achieve rather than by the reality of the paycheck. Thus, the American standard of living, influenced by the availability of consumer goods and mass advertising, gave the term "economic need" a new definition. Instead of referring merely to food, clothing, and shelter, economic need came to mean anything that a particular family was unwilling to go without. When the American dream of prosperity came to an end in 1929, American families at all economic levels were hard hit. For those at the bottom, the Great Depression was an extension and intensification of the hard times they had always suffered. Families that had been marginally independent were pushed across the line into poverty and dependency. But even relatively affluent middle-class families saw their accustomed standard of living greatly diminished. Expectations with respect to standards of living remained high, but the means to achieve these expectations declined. Some families borrowed, while others simply did not pay their bills. Some moved in with relatives and some went on relief. The most logical way to meet the economic crisis was to cut back expenditures; and although this measure was forced upon most families, many nevertheless managed to maintain a remarkably high level of consumption during the depression. 1 Royal Meeker, " W h a t is the American Standard of Living?" Monthly Labor Review, IX (July 1919), 1.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

571

Even in the face of unemployment, wage reductions, and general economic insecurity, people of middle incomes clung to certain material goods and life-styles that had become important elements in the new definition of economic need. In 1935-1936, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Home Economics, in cooperation with the National Resources Committee and the Central Statistical Board, did a national study on incomes and expenditures (hereafter referred to as the Consumer Purchases Study). The study was a random sample of about 336,000 families and a smaller sample of about 53,000 families to provide information on the consumption patterns of families not on relief and at different income levels. Since the information was being obtained primarily to provide a basis for indexes of living costs, it was felt that the information should not reflect the distorted spending of families whose incomes had been abnormally low or irregular. 6 The Consumer Purchases Study revealed that postwar changes in family expenditures occurred during the 1920s—not the 1930s—and that these changes had had a profound effect upon consumption patterns of the 1930s, in spite of the decline of income during the depression. Faith Williams of the Bureau of Labor Statistics observed that most families of wage earners and clerical workers had higher standards of living in 1 9 3 4 - 1 9 3 6 than families of comparable income in the years 1917-1919: " T h e i r diets more nearly approach the recommendation of specialists in human nutrition; they have homes with better lighting; many of them are able to travel more because they have automobiles. The change in the ideas of these workers as to how they ought to live has resulted in fundamental changes in their expenditure patterns." 7 Comparisons were made in view of the price realignments that had occurred between the 1 9 1 7 - 1 9 1 9 study and the Consumer Purchases Study. The purchasing power of the worker's dollar was, on the average, slightly higher in 1 9 3 4 - 1 9 3 6 than it had been in 1 9 1 7 - 1 9 1 9 . Food prices were consistently lower by as much as 16 percent to 38 percent in each of the cities covered by both studies. Clothing prices were also lower by 5 percent to 31 percent. Differences in the cost of rent, fuel, and light varied greatly from city to city. Furnishings and household equipment generally cost less in the later period, but miscellaneous items were more expensive in every city. The Bureau of Labor Statistics eliminated these price differences by applying the cost of items in the 'Faith M. Williams, "Changes in Family Expenditures in the Post-War Period," Labor Review, 47 (Nov. 1938), 968. 'Ibid., 979.

Monthly

572

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

1934-1936 period to the average expenditures of the families studied in 1917-1919. 8 The basic change in expenditure at all economic levels was a shift away from essential items—food, clothing, and shelter—toward the miscellaneous items that signify an over-all higher standard of living; The pattern of change was very similar in each city. For instance, in twenty-four out of thirty-five cities, average expenditures for food were lower in the later period. This was because food prices were lower, enabling families to eat as well or better on less money. The average amount spent for clothing was down for each city, but expenditures for housing, which included fuel, light, and refrigeration, were higher in every city except one. A large proportion of the 1934-1936 families had electric lighting and modern plumbing, which accounted for the higher costs. Expenditures for furniture and furnishings varied from city to city. Finally, two-thirds of the cities showed a higher average expenditure on miscellaneous items, or everything not included under the above items.® Economists, home economists, and even social workers, tended to be critical of the buying habits of American families; some suggested that Americans created their own economic problems through love of luxury and ignorance of money management. A home economist, Day Monroe, felt that even low-income families could improve their standards of living by wise spending, a criticism that should probably have been directed at middle-income families.10 Although more intelligent buying habits might have resulted in a higher standard of living for some families, the problem was primarily related to changing values. While American families of all income levels raised their expectations, the expenditure pattern of an individual family depended on personal values rather than on the sophisticated opinions of economists and social workers. Many families, especially those in the middle- to upper-income groups, made a conscious effort to plan their expenditures in response to wage reductions or changes in employment. Women's magazines and popular journals had special sections on budgeting. They published articles written by housewives who were budgeting and even ran contests for those who wished to devise the perfect budget. That this was 'Ibid., 973. 'Ibid., Table 1, 9 6 9 - 7 2 , 973. For detailed information on family consumption, see "Family Expenditures in Selected Cities, 1 9 3 5 - 3 6 , " Vols. I-V1I, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin, No. 6 4 8 (Washington, 1941). 10 Day Monroe, "Levels of Living of the Nation's Families," Journal of Home Economics, 29 (Dec. 1937), 670. For a fictional account that reflects a similar bias, see Josephine Lawrence, If I Had Four Apples (New York, 1935).

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

573

definitely an upper-middle-class phenomenon is indicated by the incomes that these families had to budget—the lowest was $1,200, and they ranged to $3,000 and even $5,000. Most of the women (and it was always women) who wrote personal accounts of their budgeting experience, did so in a manner that was both light-hearted and smug. Obviously there was something good and clean—even fun—in returning to the "plain living" of grandma's day, especially when that plain living was sustained on a $2,500 a year salary." In the mid-1930s, an income of $2,500 placed a family in the upper 12 percent income bracket (see Table 3). Even in 1929, at the height of affluence, only about 29 percent of all American families made more than $2,500. A budget imples that there is room for flexibility with respect to expenditures, and, although most families established priorities through the simple act of buying, few had a surplus requiring conscious decision or varied choices. As humorist Will Cuppy observed, "In order to run a budget, you have to have money. . . . I don't feel that I can afford one right now—there are so many other things I need worse." Many Americans would have agreed with Cuppy: " I ' m not good at figures, but I know when I'm ruined, and I don't have to write it down on a piece of paper. " u Since about 42 percent of all American families were living on a marginal income basis, that is, below $1,000 a year, how did they manage to piaintain a relatively high standard of consumption during the depression? The lower cost of living was one factor. Combined money income in 1931 was approximately seven-tenths that of 1929, but the cost of living for a workingman's family declined about 15 percent during the same period. This was not equal to the decline in money income, but the necessities of life, food, in particular, showed the most striking decreases.13 Moreover, the rate of consumption did fall off considerably, especially during the early years of the depression. But for some, installment buying remained an important means of maintaining a facsimile of the standard they wished to achieve. Although consumption of durable goods fell off steeply during the early 1930s, by 1936 about " See, for instance. Alice O'Reardon Overbeck, "Back to Plain Living," Forum, LXXXVIH (Nov. 1932), 302-06; H.M.S., "The Family Problem: Two Salary Cuts Have Taught Us What a Budget's For," American Magazine, CXVI (Sept. 1932), 120-21; "How We Live on $2,500 a Year," Ladies' Home Journal, XLVUI (Oct. 1930), 104; and H. Thompson Rich, "How to Uve Beyond Your Means," Reader's Digest, 34 (May 1939), 1-4. " Will Cuppy, " I ' m Not the Budget Type," Scribner's Magazine, C1I (Dec. 1937), 21, 20. 1J William A. Berridge, "Employment, Unemployment, and Related Conditions of Labor," American Journal of Sociology, XXXVII (May 1932), 903-04. The Monthly Labor Review ran a regular monthly account of the rise or decline in the cost of living with respect to particular commodities during the 1930s.

574

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

$6 billion worth of automobiles, radios, and other goods were purchased on installment—an increase of 20 percent over 1929. 14 Many families were able to maintain an acceptable standard of living by placing "additional workers" in the labor force. In spite of traditional American values that have supported the ideal of the one wage earner family, most families have always depended upon the economic contributions of several members. Sometimes this contribution took the form of "unpaid family work," as in the case of the agricultural family or of the family that ran its own business. But wage earning and salaried families abo were often dependent on the efforts of all members able to work. There is evidence to suggest a direct relationship between income level and number of family earners. Many middleincome families of the 1930s derived their status from the efforts of several family members. At the very low wage and salary levels—under $800—fewer than one out of five families had an extra wage earner, but nearly one out of four families earning $800 to $1,600 relied on an extra wage earner. A substantially larger ratio of families with extra earners occurred above $1,600. These categories did not represent an insignificant number of families; 22 percent of all urban and rural non-farm families had wage or salary incomes between $ 1,600 and $2,500 in 1939, and over one-third of these relied upon several family earners. ,s Thus, many American families owed their middle-class status not to adequate wages for one person, but to the presence of several wage earners in the family. Most of the extra family wage earners were not wives and mothers, but other relatives of the head of the house, usually sons. In fact, even males under the age of eighteen were more likely to be listed as being in the labor force than were wives. But the nature of their employment suggests that young boys were less likely to bring in an extra paycheck than were married women workers: 47 percent were listed as "unpaid ,4 Henry F. Pringle, "What do the Women of America Think About Money?" Ladies' Home Journal, LV (April 1938), 100. See also Blanche Bernstein, The Pattern of Consumer Debt, 1935-36 (New York, 1940), 10, 113-16. Blanche Bernstein argues that consumer credit was particularly important in expanding the purchasing power of lower-income families. Other studies that consider the broader effects of the relationship between consumer credit and the economy during the 1930s are: Gottfried Haberler, Consumer Instalment Credit and Economic Fluctuations (New York, 1942); Duncan McC. Holthausen. Malcolm L. Merriam, and Rolf Nugent, The Volume of Consumer Instalment Credit, 1929-38 (New York, 1940). 15 16th Census of the United States, 1940, Population. Families: Family Wage or Salary Income in 1939: Regions and Cities of 1,000,000 or More (Washington, 1943), 3 2 - 3 3 . These figures are for families with no other income than wage or salary.

575

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

family workers" in comparison to 8 percent of all working wives and 22 percent of working girls under the age of eighteen.1* Thus, by 1940, married homemakers were more likely to be making an economic contribution through paid employment than were their children, either male or female, under the age of eighteen. The rapid decline of child labor during the twentieth century was probably a related factor in this development, but it is difficult to determine the direction of the causal relationship, assuming that there was one. That is, did women enter the labor market because older children no longer worked, or did older children remain out of the labor market, possibly in school, because their mothers were working? The increased participation of married women in the work force reflected a variety of developments, including the decline of child labor, economic need at the poverty level, relative need at every other level, and the availability of more desirable jobs. There is no way of determining which of these factors predominated. The relationship of economic need to the gainful employment of married women was an issue that could not be resolved because it was a matter of individual interpretation. That is, each family decided for itself at which point it was willing to accept the inconvenience of a working wife and mother in order to achieve a better standard of living. But the investigations of working women that were conducted in the 1920s and 1930s were generally sympathetic to women and their right to work. Therefore, the investigators sometimes overstated the case for "economic need" by accepting at face value the reasons for work given by the women themselves. A study in 1932 by Cecile T. LaFollette for Columbia University reflects this tendency to accept perhaps too wholeheartedly the economic need of working women. The group surveyed included 652 women of the business and professional class; 438, or 67 percent, gave economic necessity as their reason for working. Many of the other reasons given were really economic in character—to educate children, make payments on the house, pay for sickness or other debts, and raise standards of living. For instance, 320, or 49 percent, worked in order to provide the "extras" that would not have been possible on the husband's salary alone.17 Many of the women who gave the reason "economic " 16th Census of the United States, Employment and Personal Characteristics 137. " Cecile Tipton LaFollette. A Study Women Homemakers (New York, 1934),

1940, Population. The Labor Force (Sample Statistics), (Washington, 1943), Table 26, p. 133, and Table 27, p. of the Problems 29.

of 652 Gainfully

Employed

Married

576

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

TABLE4 Wage or Salary Income in 1939 of Husbands, for Married Women, 18 to 64 Years Old, with Husband Present, by Labor Force Status, in March, 1940* Percent of Wives

% Distr. of Gainfully Employed 7.1 1.7 3.9 5.6 14.8 20.3 12.6 6.5 1.7 74.4 25.6

% of Wives in Labor Force Wage or Salary Income 4.8 None and not reported 24.3 1.0 27.6 $1 to $199 24.2 $200 to $399 2.6 22.7 4.0 $400 to $599 $600 to $999 11.2 21.7 18.8 $1,000 to $1,499 17.5 14.0 14.6 $1,500 to $1,999 $2.000 to $2,999 11.5 9.2 $3.000 and over 5.6 5.0 72.2 16.7 Husbands without other income 27.8 Husbands with other income 14.9 * Data drawn from metropolitan areas of 100,000 or more. Source: 16th Census of the United Sutes, 1940, Population: The Labor Force (Sample Statistics) Employment ami Family Characteristics of Women (Washington, 1943), Table 23, pp. 133-35.

necessity" probably stretched the term to include some of these items. But LaFollette felt that the incomes of the husbands offered ample evidence that most of these women had to work. What she did not seem to realize was that most of these families were far better off than their contemporaries. Only 6 percent of them made less than $1,000 a year, compared to about 42 percent of all American families who made less than that in 1935-1936. About 32 percent had husbands earning less than $2,000 a year, but nearly 80 percent of all American families were under that income level. The median income of husbands in LaFollette's sample was $2,094, or about $1,000 more than the median for all families.1* Values, rather than absolute need, made the women in the LaFollette sample willing to go to work, in spite of the relatively high earnings of their husbands. These business and professional women were hardly representative of working women as a whole, however, and there is no question that there was a strong relationship between low income and married women in the labor force. Table 4 indicates that the women whose husbands were in the lower-income groups were over-represented in the work force. For instance, in metropolitan areas, about 23 percent of all husbands earned under $1,000 a year in 1939, but the wives of this income group contributed about 33 percent of the married women work force. In smaller urban areas, wives of husbands with low income were even more heavily over-represented. " Ibid, 31.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

577

TABLE 5 Employment Status and Major Occupation Group of Husband, for Married Women 18 to 64 Years Old, with Husband Present, by Labor Force Status in the United Sutes 1940 Occupation and Employment Status of Husband Tota! Husband Employed (excluding emergency work) Professional & semi-prof. Farmers & farm managers Proprietors, managers, 8c officials, excl. farm Clerical, sales, & kindred workers Craftsmen, foremen, & kindred workers Operatives & kindred workers Domestic service workers Protective service Service workers, excluding domestic and protective Farm laborers & foremen Laborers, excluding farm Occupation not reponed Husband on emergency work and seeking work Not in labor force

No. of Married Women Husband Present*

No. of Wives in Labor Force

%of Wives in Labor Force

% Distr. of Gainfully Employed

26.6

3.7

13.8

100.0

22.3 1.3 3.8

3.0 .2 .2

13.7 13.7 4.4

100.0 4.8 4.6

2.7

.4

15.2

11.7

2.7

.5

17.0

12.5

3.8 4.1 .06 .4

.5 .7 .03 .04

12.4 16.8 56.4 10.9

12.7 18.9 .9 1.1

.8 .8 1.7 .1

.2 .1 .3 .01

25.3 11.6 163 14.4

5.6 2.4 7.8 .5

2.8 1.6

.4 .25

13.6 15.7

10.2 6.8

* Numbers in millions. Source: Census, 1940, Employment and Family Characteristics of Women, 164.

The earnings of working wives could sometimes lift the family of a low-level wage earner into the middle class, but in most cases their wages were very low, undoubtedly because employment was often temporary or part time. The census data of 1940 reveal that low-paid women were most often married to low-paid men, and the more a woman earned, the less she needed it. Over a third of all married women workers were in families in which the husband made less than $ 6 0 0 . " In contrast, over half of these women—56.3 percent—had husbands who made from $600 to $2,000; over one-fourth of the husbands earned between $1,200 and $ 2,000. J 0 It is in this broad middle range that values, rather than need began to influence decisions regarding work. The decision must have been a complex one, related to personal family circumstances, including number and age of children, desired standard of living, and availability of suitable work; but it cannot be seen as a case of absolute need. " Census, 1940, Population Families: Family Wage or Salary Income in 1939, Table 12, p. 151. "Ibid.

578

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Another way to estimate the economic status of married women workers is to relate employment to occupational grouping and employment status of the husband. Occupational group is not as effective as the use of income level, because there is often a wide range of salaries paid to workers in a particular occupational field. Also, workers in certain kinds of work—skilled labor, for instance—often had values that prevented or inhibited wives from working, in spite of economic need. But, in a sense, that is exactly the point being made: values, as well as economic need, influenced the decision of women to work. In 1940 women who were married to men in low-paying, low-prestige jobs, were more likely to be in the labor force than the wives of men in "middle-class" or white-collar occupations (see Table 5). For instance, over half of the wives of domestic service workers were in the labor force, probably as domestic workers themselves. Over one-fourth of the wives of service workers, excluding those in domestic and protective services, were in the labor force; but these two groups did not contribute a very large share of the female labor force, because there were not many husbands in these occupations. The column showing distribution reveals that 55.8 percent of all working wives were married to men who were proprietors, managers and officials; clerical and sales workers; craftsmen and foremen; or factory operatives. All but the last of these four categories could be considered middle class, two of them being white collar, and the third being skilled work requiring experience and bestowing a certain amount of prestige. Thus, although women with husbands in low-paying jobs were more likely to be in the labor force, a large proportion of married working women were married to men in "middle-class" occupations—a fact that suggests that the occurrence of working wives was fairly widespread socially, even though it still affected only a minority of families in each occupational field other than domestic service. There is no single answer to the question of why women worked during the 1930s. A number of related factors can be suggested, including the decline of child labor, the decline in the birth rate, the changing economic function of the home, economic distress, and desire to maintain a particular standard of living. Given the low incomes of the 1920s and especially the 1930s, and the rising expectations with respect to the standard of living, it is not surprising that married women were entering the labor force. What is surprising is that they remained a small minority. By 1940 there were over 4 million married women workers over the age of 14, but they still represented only 15 percent of all

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

579

married women (see Table 1). Even at the lowest income levels, only one married woman in four was working. Since the great majority of Americans were living on low incomes during the depression, the question is not so much why a small minority accepted the employment of married women, but why such a large majority did not, in spite of the fact that they too experienced unsatisfied economic needs as a result of inadequate wages. The answer lies partly in the cultural values held by most American families, by the poor as well as by the middle class. One group that did not share the dominant value system, black families, had a much higher proportion than whites of wives and mothers in the labor force at all economic levels. For most white Americans, a working wife placed a stigma upon the husband and the family—a stigma that could not be easily removed, but one that might be justified by the presence of economic necessity. Also, during the 1930s many women simply did not have job opportunities, particularly those women of lower-income families who were less likely to have skills to sell on the labor market. Many housewives found it physically impossible to run a household and maintain a paying job. Over half of all housewives spent forty-eight hours a week at work in the home. An additional third spent over fiftysix hours a week. The "modern conveniences" argument has been greatly overworked with respect to its effect upon the amount of physical labor involved in keeping house.21 Nonetheless, the fact that there was an increase in the number and proportion of married women in the labor force between 1920 and 1940 indicates that traditional values were gradually breaking down in the face of other, more concrete, changes. That most families resisted change, in spite of their economic straits, reflects their basic conservatism in the face of economic and social developments of enormous consequence. But the public discussion of women's roles in the family and in the broader community strongly suggests that an important minority of women and their families were willing to accept a new life-style in response to a personal recognition of economic realities. To the extent that these women were from middle-income families, where they could make choices, they were influenced by values as well as absolute need in their 11 Hildegarde Kneeland, " W o m a n ' s Economic Contribution in the Home," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, CXLII1 (May 1929). 33-40; and Hildegarde Kneeland, "Is the Modern Housewife a Lady of Leisure?" Survey, LXII (June 1929), 3 0 1 - 0 2 . For a recent interpretation, see Ruth Schwanz Cowan, " A Case Study of Technological and Social Change: The Washing Machine and the Working Wife," Mary Hartman and Lois W. Banner, eds., Clio's Consciousness Raised: New Perspectives on the History of Women (New York, 1974), 245-53.

580

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

determination to work. This does not contradi« the assumption that many, if not most, married women worked because of economic need; but economic need is a relative concept, and it becomes a reality for different families at different levels of experience. Most women could argue that they worked because they had to work, but they defined their needs differently from the non-working wives whose husbands had similar incomes. The life-styles adopted by working women continued to be based on traditional family values. The women who worked were working in response to their understanding of family need. Although they carried their economic role beyond the confines of their homes, the relationship between home, self, and job remained constant. That is, the work of the married woman usually reflected the primacy of her home life. She was working to pay for a home, keep her children in school, help her husband with his business, or pay for the "extras." It would be a mistake to assume that her home life remained unchanged, however. The question of the working wife's role and status within the family, and the extent to which they evolved in response to the economic "necessities" of the depression is another topic that must be given further consideration if scholars are to understand the real impact of the 1930s upon American women.

581

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

Mary E. Cookingham

Working after Childbearing in Modern America The rise in married women's labor force participation—across all age and educational levels—is one of the most notable economic events in the twentieth century. The magnitude of the change itself and of its impact on households and the economy is startling. In 1890, 4.6 percent of the married women in the United States were in the labor force and they constituted 13.9 percent of the total female labor force. B y 1977, 47.1 percent of all married women worked; as a group, they formed 61.3 percent of the female labor force. By 1980, more than 50 percent of all married women were in the labor force.' Scholars in a number of academic disciplines have sought to explain this rise in married women's labor force participation. Economists in particular have debated the extent to which women were pulled (as opposed to pushed) into the labor force by economic factors. Monographs using aggregate time-series data have been followed by numerous cross-sectional analyses of individual data. The data gathered in the 1960s and 1970s vary widely in both the nature of the sample population and the survey questions asked. But the central research question has remained the same: What factors are associated with women's presence in the labor force? This disaggregate approach, however, has constrained analyses of women's labor force participation to the 1960s and 1970s: little survey information on women working between 1900 and i960 is readily available. This article begins to close the gap in the historical analysis of women's labor force participation by using college alumnae records to study the employment behavior of married, childbearing women over the age of forty-five, primarily in the two decades, 1940 to i960. 2 M a r y E . C o o k i n g h a m is A s s i s t a n t P r o f e s s o r o f E c o n o m i c s at M i c h i g a n State 0022-1953/84/040773-20 ©

$02.50/0

1 9 8 3 b y T h e M a s s a c h u s e t t s Institute o f T e c h n o l o g y a n d the e d i t o r s o f The Journal

Interdisciplinary 1

Julie A

M a t t h a e i . " C o n s e q u e n c e s o f the R i s e o f the T w o - E a r n e r F a m i l y : T h e Economic

Review,

F o r a n a l y s i s o f t i m e - s e r i e s , see G e r t r u d e B a n c r o f t . The American

and Changing

of

History.

d o w n o f the S e x u a l D i v i s i o n o f L a b o r . " Amtrican 2

University.

Composition

(New

York,

1958); John

D.

Durand,

LXX

(1980).

Labor Force: The

Labor

Break-

198-208 Its

Force

Growth in the

582

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Between the years 1940 to i960, married women's labor force participation rate rose from 13.8 (1940) to 2 1 . 6 (1950) to 30.6 (i960). Thus rates more than doubled between 1940 and i960. However, this rise was not spread evenly across all age groups but was much more marked for women aged forty-five and over. The labor force participation of all women (age fourteen and over) rose 1 2 1 . 7 percent in the period 1940 to i960; the corresponding rates of women aged forty-five to fifty-four and fifty-five to sixtyfour rose 254.0 percent and 254.9 percent, respectively. Table I displays both labor force participation rates and rates of change for various time periods and age groups. The age pattern exhibited in Table I led Oppenheimer to conclude that a new female labor force emerged after World War II, a labor force characterized by large proportions of older, married women rather than young, single women. Further, she argued that this rise in labor force participation among older women was primarily in response to changes in demand for workers in traditionally female occupations, especially teaching and clerical work, after the war. 3 In contrast, Durand contended that supply factors were the primary cause of the j u m p in women's labor force participation after 1940. Each succeeding cohort o f women was more willing to work when young than the preceding group, and each subse-

United Stales, 1S90—1960 ( N e w Y o r k , 1948); Clarence L o n g , The Labor Force Under ing Income and Employment

Chang-

(Princeton, 1958); Valerie K . Oppenheimer, The Female

Force in the United States (Berkeley, 1970); Leila J . R u p p , Mobilizing

Labor

Women for War (Prince-

con. 1978). F o r cross-sectional analysis of individuals, see William B o w e n and T . Aldrich Finegan. The Economics of Labor Force Participation Labor Force Participation ojMarried

(Princeton, 1969); G l e n C . C a i n ,

The

Women (Chicago, 1966); Henry A . G o r d o n and Kenneth

C . K a m m e y e r , " T h e G a i n f u l E m p l o y m e n t of W o m e n with Small C h i l d r e n , " Journal Marriage

and the Family,

X L I 1 (1980),

of

1 5 1 - 1 7 0 ; Michael Hout. " T h e Determinants of

Marital Fertility in the United States, 1 9 6 8 - 1 9 7 0 : Inferences f r o m a D y n a m i c M o d e l . " Demography,

X V (1978). 1 3 9 - 1 5 9 ; Linda D. M o l m . " S e x Role Attitudes and the E m p l o y -

ment o f M a r r i e d W o m e n : T h e Direction of C a u s a l i t y , " The Sociological

Quarterly,

XIX

(1978), 5 2 2 - 5 3 3 ; Frank L. M o t t , "Fertility, Life C y c l e Stage and Female Labor Force Participation in R h o d e Island: A Retrospective O v e r v i e w , " Demography,

I X (1972), 173—

185; Lynn S m i t h - L o v i n and A n n R . Tickamver, " N o n r e c u r s i v e M o d e l s of Labor Force Participation, Fertility B e h a v i o r , and Sex Role Attitudes." American

Sociological

Review,

X L I 1 I (1978), 5 4 1 - 5 5 7 ; Linda J . W a n e . " W o r k i n g Wives: 1 9 4 0 - 1 9 6 0 , " ibid., X L I (1976), 6 5 - 8 0 ; Waite and Ross M . Stolzenberg, "Intended Childbearing and L a b o r Force Participation of Y o u n g W o m e n : Insights f o r N o n r e c u r s i v e M o d e l s , " ibid., X L I (1976), 2 3 5 - 2 5 2 . 3

O p p e n h e i m e r , Female Labor

Force.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE Table ι

583

Labor Force Participation Rates and Percentage Changes b y A g e Group and Census Year(s) for Married Women (Husband Present) LABOR FORCE

P E R C E N T C H A N G E IN LABOR

PARTICIPATION RATE

FORCE PARTICIPATION RATE

i960

1940-50

1950-60

1940-60

41-7 34.0

121.7

108.6

31.1

50.3

19.6

79.8

22.1

26.8

195

21.3

44-9

17.6

22.5

29.0

27-8

28.9

64.8

15-3

26.5

365

73-2

37-7

138.6

45-54

II.I

23.0

39-3

107.2

70.9

254.O

55-64

7-1

13.1

25.2

84.5

92.4

254-9

2.8

4-5

6.8

60.7

51.1

142.8

AGE G R O U P

1940

1950

14 a n d

13.8

21.6

30.6

56.5

9-3

19.4

26.0

25-29

17-3 18.5

26.0

30-34 35-44

over

14-19 20-24

65 a n d

over

SOURCE: O p p e n h e i m e r , The Fanale

179-6

Labor Force, Tables 1.4, 1 . 7 .

q u e n t c o h o r t m a i n t a i n e d this higher p r o p e n s i t y t h r o u g h o u t their lives. O p p e n h e i m e r rejected D u r a n d ' s thesis as insufficient. She a r g u e d that his " p r o c e s s o f s u c c e e d i n g g e n e r a t i o n s " c o u l d o n l y e x p l a i n a s l o w u p w a r d m o v e m e n t in w o m e n ' s labor f o r c e participation rates, s u c h as o c c u r r e d b e t w e e n 1900 and 1940, not the sharp c h a n g e in a g e - s p e c i f i c e m p l o y m e n t rates that t o o k place after W o r l d W a r II. R e c e n t l y Q u i n l a n and S h a c k e l f o r d f o u n d little support for O p p e n h e i m e r ' s demand explanation f r o m pooled census data. H e n c e , the a b r u p t rise in o l d e r w o m e n ' s labor f o r c e participation d u r i n g t h e p e r i o d 1940 to i 9 6 0 requires further e x amination.4 T h i s article r e f o r m u l a t e s D u r a n d ' s thesis and then tests this v e r s i o n w i t h data o n i n d i v i d u a l w o m e n . T h e m a j o r h y p o t h e s i s a n a l y z e d here is that the e m p l o y m e n t b e h a v i o r o f older married w o m e n during and after W o r l d War II w a s largely a f u n c t i o n o f their earlier labor f o r c e b e h a v i o r . W o m e n w h o w o r k e d as y o u n g w i v e s w e r e m o r e likely to w o r k after c o m p l e t i n g their childbearing. C o n f i r m a t i o n o f this h y p o t h e s i s s u g g e s t s that, in order t o

4

D u r a n d . Labor Force in the United

Stales,

1 2 3 - 1 2 4 . D a n i e l C . Q u i n l a n and Jean A .

S h a c k e l f o r d , " L a b o r Force Participation Rates o f W o m e n and the Rise o f the T w o - E a r n e r F a m i l y . " American Economic Review,

L X X (1980). 2 0 9 - 2 1 2 .

584

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

explain adequately the rise in older women's labor force participation in the 1940s and 1950s, one must first understand the rise in young women's employment rates in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. The basic theoretical model underlying most studies of women's labor force participation is that utilized by Mincer, Cain, and Bowen and Finegan. In this model, couples are assumed to behave so as to maximize their lifetime utility functions with respect to work, leisure, and housework. On the one hand, an increase in the husband's income shifts the marginal productivities of man and wife, leading to the withdrawal (or reduction) of the women's participation in the labor force. The more children a couple has, the greater are the benefits to the woman remaining at home. On the other hand, a rise in the woman's labor market return increases the probability or extent of her participation in the labor force, ceteris paribus.5 Numerous economists, sociologists, and demographers have adapted this theoretical framework to fit different data sets and to test the importance of various factors in explaining which women are in the labor force at certain dates. Most scholars have followed the methodology of Bowen and Finegan, and Cain: labor force participation is modelled as a dichotomous decision with fertility as one of the determining characteristics. Recently however, childbearing and labor force decisions are seen as simultaneous. With these models the list of explanatory variables has expanded to include the nature of family decision-making in the woman's family of origin, a woman's beliefs about mothering, a couple's sex role orientation, contraceptive use, religion, a w o m an's number of siblings, and the woman's previous labor market experience. 6 The conclusions of the various economic, demographic, and sociological studies differ most notably on the effect of child-

5

See B o w e n and Finegan, Economics of Labor Force Participation,

C a i n , Labor Force Par-

ticipation. J a c o b Mincer, " L a b o r Force Participation of Married Women: A Study o f Labor S u p p l y , " in H a r o l d G . L e w i s (ed.). Aspects of Labor Economics (Princeton, 1962). 6

For a g o o d discussion o f methodological problems see J a m e s C . C r a m e r , "Fertility

and Female E m p l o y m e n t : P r o b l e m s of Causual D i r e c t i o n , " American X L V (1980), 1 6 7 - 1 9 0 .

Sociological

Review,

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

585

bearing on the woman's labor force participation. Some find that the presence o f children has little impact on married women's employment; others conclude that it is a very significant explanatory factor. All find that it has a negative effect. T h e wide variations in the strength of the relationship between fertility and employment are the likely result of differences in the w a y both variables are specified in the models. The labor force variable used in studies has been whether the woman was working at some one date,7 whether the woman worked during some fixed interval, 8 and whether the woman planned to be in the labor force at age thirty-five. 9 The childbearing variable used has been the number of children under six years o f age, the number of pre-school children, a series of dummy variables for children of various ages, and the expected number of children by the end of the woman's childbearing years. Given the variety of independent and dependent variables that are used, it is not surprising that the relationship between childbearing and labor force participation differs across studies. The husband's income earning ability (or permanent income) consistently has a large and negative impact on married women's labor force participation. It is almost always the variable with the most explanatory power. About half of the recent studies include some measure of a women's previous labor market experience. Prior labor force participation has a positive and generally large effect on the probability of a woman being in the labor force in a given year or period. However, few analyze the importance of the timing of a woman's previous labor force participation on her later labor market involvement. T h e articles by Smith-Lovin and Tickamyer, and by Cramer and Mott are exceptions. All include a variable measuring a woman's employment before marriage. Only Mott, and Gordon and Kammeyer evaluate the effect of employment

7

M o l m , " S e x R o l e Attitudes"; C a i n , Labor

Forte Participation,

B o w e n and Finegan,

Economics of Labor Force Participation·, J a m e s A . Sweet. " L a b o r F o r c e Re-entry b y Mothers of Y o u n g C h i l d r e n . " Social Science Research, II (1972). 1 8 9 - 2 1 0 . 8

G o r d o n and K a m m e y e r . " G a i n f u l E m p l o y m e n t o f W o m e n " ; H o u t . "Determinants o f

Marital Fertility"; Waite, " W o r k i n g W i v e s " ; Sheldon Danziger, " D o W o r k i n g Increase Family Income Inequality?" Journal 9

Wives

of Human Resources, X V (1980), 4 4 4 - 4 5 1 .

Waite and Stolzenberg, "intended C h i l d b e a r i n g "

586

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

after marriage on labor f o r c e participation at later points in the w o m a n ' s childbearing y e a r s . 1 0 T h i s article isolates the specific e c o n o m i c and social characteristics associated w i t h a high probability o f a college-educated w o m a n w o r k i n g when middle-aged during the 1940s and 1950s. In keeping w i t h a standard household utility f r a m e w o r k , the influence of a w o m a n ' s education, fertility, and husband's income are investigated. In addition, a w o m a n ' s socioeconomic background and the nature o f her previous labor force experience are incorporated. U n l i k e the articles discussed above, the central focus of this study is the timing o f a w o m a n ' s labor force participation. It is predicted that w o m e n w h o w e r e e m p l o y e d after their marriage but before having children h a v e a higher probability o f w o r k i n g after the completion o f their families. W o m e n w h o w o r k e d as y o u n g w i v e s had previously combined labor market w o r k and marriage, unlike w o m e n w h o quit w o r k i n g upon marriage. T h e f o r m e r g r o u p o f w o m e n had not experienced marriage and e m p l o y m e n t only as separate occupations when y o u n g adults. T h e nature and timing o f a w o m a n ' s labor force experience is h y p o t h esized to have an independent effect on her behavior when middleaged. L i k e w o m e n w h o w e r e e m p l o y e d after marriage but prior to bearing children, w o m e n w h o w o r k e d before marriage are predicted to be m o r e likely to be e m p l o y e d after having children. T h i s effect, h o w e v e r , is expected to be less important than the one discussed in the preceding paragraph. A w o m a n ' s income earning potential is dependent on her education. A l l other things constant, the more education a w o m a n has, the higher are the w a g e s she can command. A n d , w o m e n with high potential w a g e s should have a higher probability of being in the labor force at a particular time. T h e decades 1940 to i960 are not expected to be different f r o m i960 to 1980 in this regard.

10

Mott

e v a l u a t e s the e f f c c t o f a w o m a n ' s e m p l o y m e n t

e m p l o y m e n t in s u b s e q u e n t c l o s e d b i r t h i n t e r v a l s

m the first interval o n

her

G o r d o n and K a m m e y e r e v a l u a t e the

e f f e c t o f a w o m a n ' s e m p l o y m e n t in the first birth i n t e r v a l on her e m p l o y m e n t in o n e f i x e d i n t e r v a l a f t e r the c h i l d ' s birth.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

587

The husband's income is also included in this model as in other models of women's labor force participation. The expected relationship is a negative one: the higher the spouse's income, the lower the probability of the alumna working after bearing children or in i960. Women with large families have a higher productivity in the home and, hence, are less likely to work at any time. In this model three children or more constitute a large family. Mothers of such families are expected to be less prone to return to work after their children's births. Only childbeanng women were included in this sample, and all women were over the age of fortyeight by i960. Their childbearing was exogenous with respect to their labor force participation in i960 since few women over the age of forty-eight are able to bear children. Hence, simultaneity bias is not a problem in this model. 1 1 The financial background of the woman's family of origin is also tested for its independent effect on the employment of women after having children. The alumna's family income when she was a teenager is indicated by the receipt of a loan or scholarship during college. Women w h o had one or both forms of financial aid are classified as relatively needy. Such women are predicted to be more likely to work after childbearing because of a stronger commitment to utilize their hard-earned education in the labor force all through their lives. 1 2 To test the above hypotheses regarding the importance of various socioeconomic characteristics on the probability of a woman working after completing her childbearing, two logit models are used. In the first model, the dependent variable indicates whether a woman was in the labor force after completing her family but prior to the death of her husband (EAFTKID). In the second, the dependent variable reflects the labor force participation of each woman in i960 (EMPL6O). In both cases, the dependent variable is one if the woman worked, zero if she did not. Besides testing the significance of specific characteristics, logit results can

π

T h e youngest w o m e n in the sample (those w h o were graduated in 1932, 1933, or

1934) were aged 48. 49, and 50 in i960. 12

S m i t h - L o v i n and T i c k a m y e r , in " N o n r e c u r s i v e M o d e l s , " also include a measure o f

the income level o f the w o m a n ' s f a m i l y of origin.

588

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

be used to deduce the predicted probabilities of labor force participation by using the formula, Pr(EAFTKID o r EMPL60) =

-—;—-α-βχ

1 + e

where β Χ , is the sum of the logit coefficients times the values of the independent variables for the ith women. For both versions of the model, only married women who bore one or more children are included since Oppenheimer, Bancroft, and Long have all shown that changes in the employment rates of childless and single women explain only a small proportion of the observed change in general and age-specific labor force rates. 13 The sample consists of 6ι ι women who were graduated from Mount Holyoke College between 1905 and 1935. The data were compiled from the college's extensive and well-maintained alumnae records. Alumnae were surveyed eleven times between 1914 and i960; the 1914, 1923, 1936, and i960 surveys contain employment, marriage, and childbearing information that permits analysis of women's employment at various intervals in the life cycle. Prior to the compilation of this data set, such detailed information on women's employment histories was unavailable for women born before 1915. Response rates on these alumnae questionnaires were high by today's survey standards. They varied between 60 percent and 80 percent. 14 Table 2 lists the specific variables used and presents their mean values for the sample. Table 3 shows the logit estimates for the dependent variable EAFTKID. The estimated coefficients, standard errors, and t-statistics

13 For a g o o d discussion of qualitative response models including logit. see Takeshi A m e m i y a . "Qualitative Response Models: A S u r v e y , " Journal oj Economit Literature, X I X (1981), 1 4 8 3 - 1 5 3 6 . Oppenheimer. Female Lahor Forcc, Bancroft, American Labor Force, Long. Labor Force. T h e remarkable changes in married w o m e n ' s labor force participation after World War II occurred among childbearing women, and are the changes one most wants to explain; hence they are the ones analyzed here. If childless w o m e n had been included, the relationship between employment as a young w i f e and employment when middle-aged would have been much stronger, as many of the w o m e n w h o had no children in this sample were employed with few, if any, interruptions—or not at all. 14 See C o o k i n g h a m , " T h e Demographic and Labor Force Behavior of Women College Craduates, 1865 to 1 9 6 5 , " unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1980).

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE Table 2

Variable Names, Means, and Definitions

VARIABLE

MEAN

NAME

VALUE

EAFTKID

EMPL6O

HUBY

EBEFKIU

589

.42

•25

= I

if a l u m n a w o r k e d a n y t i m e a f t e r the b i r t h o f h e r last c h i l d but b e f o r e the d e a t h o f her h u s b a n d

= 0

otherwise

= I

if a l u m n a w a s w o r k i n g in i 9 6 0

= 0

otherwise

38.6

• 27

a l u m n a ' s h u s b a n d ' s a n n u a l i n c o m e in 1 9 3 6 d i v i d e d b y 100 1 = I

if a l u m n a w o r k e d a f t e r m a r r i a g e b u t b e -

= 0

otherwise

—

n u m b e r o f y e a r s that the a l u m n a w a s e m -

f o r e the b i r t h o f h e r first c h i l d

•8*

HI

CHILD3

43

ADVDEC

•25

SCHLOANS

.28

DI3

• 19

p l o y e d b e f o r e her m a r r i a g e b if a l u m n a h a d at least t h r e e c h i l d r e n = 0

otherwise

= I

if a l u m n a r e c e i v e d an a c a d e m i c d e g r e e a f t e r h e r o r i g i n a l B.A.

= 0

otherwise if a l u m n a r e c e i v e d a l o a n o r s c h o l a r s h i p w h i l e in c o l l e g e

= 0

otherwise

- 1

if a l u m n a w a s a m e m b e r o f the g r a d u a t i o n class o f 1 9 1 2 , 1 9 1 3 , o r

= 0 DI8

•17

D23

.20

- I

= 0

1914

otherwise if a l u m n a w a s a m e m b e r o f the g r a d u a t i o n class o f 1 9 1 7 , 1 9 1 8 , o r 1 9 1 9 otherwise if a l u m n a w a s a m e m b e r o f the g r a d u a t i o n class o f 1 9 2 2 , 1 9 2 3 , o r 1 9 2 4

= 0 D28

D

a

33

M

otherwise if a l u m n a w a s a m e m b e r o f the class o f 1927, 1928, or 1929

.20 = 0

otherwise

= I

if a l u m n a w a s a m e m b e r o f the class o f 1 9 3 2 . 1 9 3 3 . OR 1 9 3 4

= 0

otherwise

Survey question asked for income in 1936; the husband's occupation was also asked.

Information on unemployment was not solicited. Presumably, those w h o were subject to frequent bouts of unemployment reported lower incomes than those w h o were not. b

H i is unconditional on the w o m a n having been employed at all prior to her marriage.

590

H I S T O R Y OF W O M E N IN THE UNITED S T A T E S

Table 3

Logit Estimation Results with Dependent Variable EAFTKID

HUBY

LOGIT

STANDARD

T-

ESTIMATE

ERROR

STATISTIC

-.OI9

.OO5

HI

.OO7

EBEFKID

.628

•O55 • 200

ADVDEG

•525 -.122

CHILD3

.119 3.14

.186

2.57 -.656 2.46

• 494 .051

.201

DI3 DI8

.485 •553

•372 .366

1.31

D23 D28

• 378

•372

1.02

D

33 CONSTANT

385 -.410

PERCENT C O R R E C T L Y P R E D I C T E D LIKELIHOOD RATIO INDEX* LIKELIHOOD RATIO STATISTICB a

UL 00

SCHLOANS

.204

- 4 0 8

• 370

395 377

1.51

•975 -1.09

67.3 .115

97.3

T h e likelihood ratio index is analogous to the multiple correlation coefficient, R J . It is _ log likelihood at c o n v e r g e n c e log likelihood at zero.

b T h e likelihood ratio statistic is a g o o d n e s s o f fit statistic that is asymptotically distributed as a C h i Square w i t h 1 2 degrees o f f r e e d o m . It is z(log likelihood at convergence — log likelihood at zero), and tests the hypothesis that all parameters are zero

are reported along w i t h test statistics f o r the regression as a whole. A positive coefficient on a variable indicates that possession of that characteristic increases the probability o f a w o m a n working, and a negative o n e reflects the opposite. A t-statistic in excess of 1.65 implies that the hypothesis o f the variable having no effect can be rejected at . 1 0 . Table 4 provides estimated probabilities for several values o f the variables o f major interest, E B E F K I D and H U B Y , by graduation class. T h e variable o f central interest to the analysis is E B E F K I D . In the preceding section the a r g u m e n t w a s advanced that women w h o w o r k e d after marriage but before bearing children would have had a higher probability o f returning to the labor force after the birth o f their children. T h e logit results support this hypothesis. W o m e n w h o w o r k e d between marriage and childbearing had

WORK AND FAMILY UFE

591

a greater probability of w o r k i n g after completing their families: E B E F K I D is significantly different from zero at the ι percent level. For a member of the classes o f 1922 to 1924, the predicted probability o f working after having had children is .36 if the woman did not w o r k after marriage and .51 if she did—a 42 percent higher probability in the latter case. Similar results hold for graduates of all the sampled classes after 1 9 1 5 : there is an almost 50 percent chance of a w o m a n working in middle-age if she worked prior to bearing children, and only a 33 percent probability if she did not (Table 4). Table 4

Estimated Probabilities of E A F T K I D for Various Values of and H U B Y by Graduation Class

EBEF-

KID

G R A D U A T I O N CLASSES 1905-07

EBEFKID* HUBY b

a

I

1912-14

1917-18

1922-24

1927-29

1932-

(DI3=l)

(Dl8=l)

(D23 = I)

(D28=I)

II

VALUE

C+Ï

VARIABLE

•37 .24

38

•49

-47

25

•34

•5« .36

.46

0

• 32

•32

25

•44

56

•57

35

39

•45 .40

•35

36

•53 .48

53 .48

45

•51 .46

•53 .48 •43

•44

HI, ADVDEC, CHILD3, and SCHLOANS a r c all a s s u m e d t o e q u a l O in these estimates, HUBY

is set equal to its mean v a l u e , 39. b

Hi, ADVDEC, CHILD3, and SCHLOANS are all a s s u m e d t o equal o m these estimates.

EBEFKiD is set equal to 1.

As hypothesized, employment before marriage does not have the same size effect on the probability of a woman returning to work after bearing children. The number o f years that a woman was in the labor force before marriage has a positive but insignificant coefficient. For this sample o f w o m e n 85 percent worked before marriage; of these, only 33 percent worked after childbearing. Hcnce, the nature and the timing of a women's labor force participation when y o u n g seems to be an important determinant of her participation when middle-aged, E B E F M A R has little or no effect, but working after marriage before childbearing—or when married and childless—has a large effect. A full explanation of women's labor force behavior when aged thirty-five to sixtyfive appears to be linked to their behavior when aged twenty-two to thirty.

592

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

A husband's income is an important factor in predicting which women returned to work. Women whose husbands earned the most (holding both graduation class, and, hence, age constant), were least likely to work after completing their families: h u b y is negative and significant by standard t-tests (Table 3). As the columns in the bottom half of Table 4 show, the predicted probability of a woman working after bearing children falls as income rises for each of the six sampled cohorts. 15 These findings with regard to income are especially interesting given the nature of this sample population. Each woman had a minimum of four years of college education and in effect social class is held constant; women attending Mount Holyoke College were white, Protestant, and predominantly upper middle class. Since income remains significant, the conclusions of other scholars are confirmed and refined; husband's income is an important determinant of labor force participation, independent of social class. It appears, then, that families with equal family sizes but unequal incomes tried to compensate for this income disparity by having the wife work. Even among college-educated women (who, one might have supposed, a priori chose to work depending on their desire for non-household fulfillment) financial need was a very strong determinant. Advanced collegiate d e g r e e s — m . a . , m . s . , p h . d . , m . s . w . , m.d.—also have a positive impact on the estimated probability. Women with such degrees were more likely to work after forming families. Presumably, the opportunity cost of not working over an extended period of time was larger for these women, and they returned to the labor force more frequently than their less highly trained classmates. 16 Another economic variable, a woman's financial background, has the expected effect. Women from poorer backgrounds were, 15

In an earlier version of the model reported in Tables 3 and 5 a relative income measure

w a s used in p l a c e o f H U B Y . I n c o m e was measured relative to the class mean. T h i s variable, H Y , was s i g n i f i c a n t at the 1 % level but left the magnitude, signs, and significance of the other e x p l a n a t o r y variables basically unchanged. Hence, these results are not reported in this article, b u t are available f r o m the author

Here, age effects should be captured by

graduation class variables ( D 1 3 , D i 8 , D23, D28, and D33); e m p l o y m e n t behavior is being c o m p a r e d to that o f the classes o f 1 9 0 5 - 1 9 0 7 . 16

T h e p o s i t i v e effect of a w o m a n ' s w a g e and the negative e f f e c t o f a husband's income

on w o m e n ' s l a b o r force participation are well established in the theoretical and empirical literature. B e c a u s e it is considered one o f the prime determinants o f a w o m a n ' s wage, education is fre-quently used as a p r o x y . H u m a n capital theory predicts that w o m e n with

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

593

on average, m o r e likely to return to work after completing their families than were their classmates w h o were better o f f while in college. This result, like that regarding husbands' incomes and women's education, is consistent with the results of other empirical studies. The presence or absence of a large family (as defined by three children) has no predictive ability in this model. The coefficient on CHILD3 is negative, but the standard error exceeds it. This result differs f r o m some of the previously cited research where family size was found to have a large negative influence on w o m en's employment. The j u m p in probabilities with the classes of 1917 displayed in the r o w s o f Table 4 reflects the independent influence of age and graduation class. Holding all other variables constant, women in the last four groups of classes had a higher probability of working between the ages of thirty-five and seventy than did women in the earlier classes: class variables (other than D13) were positive with a t-statistic of about 1. Women in different cohorts were "at risk" o f middle-age employment in different time periods. Specifically, w o m e n in the first two groups were in their forties during the 1930s, whereas the latter classes reached middleage in the 1940s and 1950s. Thus, the positive signs of DI8, D23, D28, and D33 may be capturing differences in the demand for female labor that existed over time. In particular, the post-World War II period has been described as one in which there was a shortage o f young female workers. Increasing opportunities for older female workers may have encouraged women in these later classes to w o r k independently of their husband's income and their own previous employment experience. The predictive ability of these graduation variables, however, is weak when compared to that of E B E F K I D , H U B Y , and A D V D E G . 1 7

the greatest investment in education will have the highest productivity and thus be paid more than less-educated w o m e n and be more likely to w o r k . However, the possibility exists that an unspecified factor, like distaste for housework, affects both education and labor force participation. If this were the case, a theoretically more pleasing model would consist of a simultaneous system with both education and labor force participation being endogenous. T h e nature of the available data on women college graduates, however, precludes use o f such a model. 17 See Richard A . Easterlin, Birth and Fortune ( N e w Y o r k , 1980); Oppenheimer, Female Labor Force A m o r e extended discussion of the inter-relationships between the demand and supply of older w o r k e r s is contained in the next section of this article.

594

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN T H E UNITED S T A T E S

Table 5

Logit Estimation Results with Dependent Variable

EMPLÓO

LOGIT

STANDARD

T-

ESTIMATE

ERROR

STATISTIC

HUBY

-.019

.006

-.103

-319

HI

.077

ADVDEC

.219 .229

- I

•355 .081

CHILD3

.016

.214

SCHLOANS

.271

.221

DI3

.964

. 811

123 I.19

EBEFKID

33 1.62 •356 .074

DI8

1.94

•772

2.52

D23

2.52

.760

3 32

D28

2.34

•763

3.06

D33 CONSTANT

2.54

•772

3.29

-2.64

•774

P E R C E N T CORRECTLY PREDICTED L I K E L I H O O D R A T I O INDEX* L I K E L I H O O D R A T I O STATISTIC 0 a

- 3 4 1 75-8 •2991 253-4

This likelihood ratio index is analogous to the multiple correlation coefficient. R*. It is _ loR likelihood at convergence log likelihood at zero.

b

T h e likelihood ratio statistic is a goodness of fit statistic that is asymptotically distrib-

uted as Chi Square with 12 degrees of freedom. It is 2(log likelihood at convergence log likelihood at zero), and tests the hypothesis that all parameters are zero.

Table 5 s h o w s the results of logit analysis w h e n E M P L Ó O is the dependent variable. Information on the current employment status o f all w o m e n in the sample w a s available f o r i960. In this m o d e l the dependent variable is again d i c h o t o m o u s — 1 if the w o m a n w o r k e d in i960 and o if she did not. Here only H U B Y and variables denoting a w o m a n ' s graduation year are significant at the ι percent level. A husband's high income again decreases the probability that a w o m a n returned to the labor force. T h e importance o f graduation class variables is not surprising. B y i960, the classes o f 1905, 1906, and 1907 were over seventy years old and hence had a very l o w probability o f being in the labor force. Indeed, only 24.9 percent of the sample actually w o r k e d in i960 and the estimated probability o f labor force participation for a m e m b e r o f one o f the youngest classes (1932, 1 9 3 3 , or 1934)

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

595

who worked before the birth of her first child and whose husband made the mean income of S3900 was only .38. 1 8 However, in keeping with the main hypothesis of thys article, the variable of special interest is EBEFKID. Its coefficient is positive and significant at about the 12 percent level, unlike all the socioeconomic variables except husband's income. Hence, the EMPLÓO results support the main tenet of this essay. The estimated probability of a woman working in i960 if she was employed between marriage and childbearing is .34 for an alumna in the class of 1928 and .26 if she did not work upon marriage. Such women were fifty-five years old in 196ο. 19 The previous section provides cross-sectional evidence to support the proposition that college women's labor force behavior after they had completed their families moved with their immediate post-nuptial behavior. Women w h o worked before bearing children had a significantly higher propensity to return to work and to work in i960 than did their classmates, all other factors held constant. The logit results support the thesis that supply-side factors explain a larger proportion of the rapid rise in older w o m en's labor force participation in the post-World War II period than previously suggested. College-educated women w h o were older and married in these years had had different labor force experience when young and married than had the generations which preceded them. Although the cross-sectional evidence supports such an argument, time series data permit only indirect tests of these same relationships. Aggregate census data were not tabulated by age, and marital and employment status until 1940. Linking employment behavior when young to employment behavior when old for cohorts of women born before 1920 or so requires that one ignore marital status. Table 6 shows labor force participation rates by age and census years from 1890 to 1950 for white women in the United States. 2 " IS

T h i s e s t i m a t e d p r o b a b i l i t y w a s c a l c u l a t e d u s i n g the results in T a b i c 5 w i t h D 3 3 =

Hi. S C H L O A N S . A D V E G . and C H I L D 3 = o; E B E F K I D = 19

1; a n d H U B Y =

1.

39

T h e estimated probabilities w e r e calculated f r o m T a b l e 5 w i t h D 2 8 =

1; H U B Y

=

States B u r e a u o f the C e n s u s did not c o l l e c t i n f o r m a t i o n o n y e a r s

of

39; and H i . S C H L O A N S , A O V D E G , a n d C H I L D 3 = o 20

The

United

education until 1 9 4 0 . H c n c c . b r e a k d o w n s o f l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n rates by e d u c a t i o n are not p o s s i b l e either.

596

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

Table 6

Labor Force Participation Rates by A g e for White Women 1890-1950

ACE

1950

1940

1930

1920

1900

14 and over 14-19 20-24

28.4 23.6

¿4-5 18.7 45-8 31.8 25.2 20.8

21.8

20.7

21.9 41.4

27-5 36.7 21.5 16.5 15-4 12.6 6.1

17.2 23.8 29.4 16.8 12.2 II.3 10.2 6.7

25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 6 j and over

44-1 30.5 33-7 32.0 23.1

15-7 5-5

7-7

SOURCE: B a n c r o f t , American

Labor

24-9 19.7 17-3 13.8 6-5

Force, T a b l e 1 8 ,

I890 I5.8 22.3

27.9 U-5 9-9 98 9-3 6.0

U

T h e s e data are c o n s i s t e n t w i t h t h e a r g u m e n t o f this article. In 1920, the l a b o r f o r c e rate o f t w e n t y t o t w e n t y - f o u r y e a r olds w a s 3 6 . 7 . In 1950, w h e n these w o m e n w e r e fifty to f i f t y - f i v e , the l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n rate o f f o r t y - f i v e t o

fifty-four

y e a r olds

w a s 32.0. In 1930, t h e l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n rate o f t w e n t y to t w e n t y - f o u r years o l d s w a s 4 1 . 4 ; w h e n these w o m e n w e r e forty t o f o r t y - f o u r in 1950, their l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n rate w a s 33.7 ( f o r all t h i r t y - f i v e t o f o r t y - f o u r y e a r olds). L a b o r f o r c e participation rates f o r t h e s e b r o a d a g e c a t e g o r i e s s u p p o r t a h y p o t h e s i s that increases in t h e p r o p o r t i o n o f w o m e n w h o w o r k e d as y o u n g adults c o u l d e x p l a i n t h e later i n c r e a s e s in the p r o p o r t i o n o f w o m e n w h o w o r k e d in m i d d l e age. In t h e 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s more a n d m o r e w o m e n w o r k e d w h e n a g e d t w e n t y t o t w e n t y - f o u r and h e n c e h a d j o b e x p e r i e n c e ( s o m e w h e n m a r r i e d ) w h e n t h e y were o l d e r and c o n t e m p l a t i n g a r e t u r n t o the l a b o r f o r c e in t h e 1940s a n d 1950s. R o b i n s o n has r e w o r k e d data f r o m the U.S. censuses o f 1890 t o 1970 i n t o c o h o r t l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n rates that c o n t r o l for marital status. For all w h i t e w o m e n in the b i r t h c o h o r t s o f 18961900 t o 1 9 2 6 - 1 9 3 0 , a c o h o r t ' s l a b o r f o r c e rate w h e n a g e d t w e n t y t o t w e n t y - f o u r is a v e r y g o o d p r e d i c t o r o f its rate w h e n f o r t y five t o f o r t y - n i n e . F o r m a r r i e d w o m e n o n l y , l a b o r f o r c e particip a t i o n rates o f t w e n t y t o t w e n t y - f o u r year o l d s as a p e r c e n t a g e

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

597

of labor force participation rates of forty-four to forty-nine year olds vary between 40 and 60 percent. 21 When w e compare cohorts, the biggest j u m p in labor force participation rates of f o r t y - f i v e to forty-nine year olds occurs with the birth cohort 1896 to 1900. Unfortunately labor force participation rates for twenty to twenty-four year-old white or married women in the previous cohort cannot be calculated to see if the jump in labor force participation rates of forty-five to forty-nine year olds is a reflection o f a similar break in the labor force participation rates of twenty to twenty-four year olds in the 1910s and 1920s. Robinson views his cohort analysis as support for Durand's thesis about the process o f succeeding generations before and after World War II, with an across-the-board shift up in all labor force participation rates between 1941 and 1945. Evidence on women college graduates, linking individuals not just cohorts, further demonstrates the strong, positive relationship between married women's labor force participation when young and when old. Given these findings, arguments focused only on World War II or predominantly on demand factors in the 1940s and 1950s appear insufficient. A more complete explanation of the rise in older women's labor force participation would place greater emphasis on demand-side factors in the 1910s and 1920s and on supplyside elements in the post-World War II period. In this manner the theses of Oppenheimer, R u p p , Durand, and Easterlin can be synthesized.

21

T h e ratios o f c o h o r t s ' labor f o r c e participation rates f o r married w o m e n w h e n 20 to

24 years old to rates w h e n 45 to 49 are as follows: 1896-1900

.42

1901-1905

.47

1906-1910

.44

1911-1915

.41

1916-1920

.42

1921-1925

.58

1926-1930

.57

Data underlying these figures c o m e f r o m J . G r e g o r y R o b i n s o n , " L a b o r Force Participation Rates o f C o h o r t s o f W o m e n in the U n i t e d States: 1890 to 1 9 7 9 , " paper presented at the Population Association o f A m e r i c a meeting (1980). Table 5.

598

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

In the 1910s and 1920s a variety of changes generated increased demand for women workers. The most obvious of these was World War I. Between 1 9 1 7 and 1919 three million young men served in the United States armed forces, and additional workers were needed to replace them. Rapidly rising nominal wages and unemployment rates of 1.4 percent reflect the tightness of the j o b market at this time. B y 1920, 1.9 million women were in the labor force compared with 769,000 thousand in 1900, with the greatest changes occurring among young women between the ages of twenty and forty-four. Moreover, in 1900 only 15.4 percent of the married women aged fifteen or over worked; by 1920, 23 percent did so. A significant proportion of these increases can be credited to the impact of the war. Therefore, World War I, like World War II, encouraged the growth of women's labor force participation. The importance of World War I in changing labor force behavior should not be surprising in light of the welldocumented rapid rise in black employment in northern industry. 22 It is important to note, however, that World War I was not the only cause of the marked rise in women's labor force participation in the 1910s and 1920s. Other changes in the female labor market occurred both before and after the war. Clerical jobs expanded dramatically in the 1920s, increasing the aggregate number of positions open to women. Teaching posts were also readily available in these years. Enrollments in kindergarten, elementary, and secondary schools increased by 20 percent between 1910 and 1920 and by another 22 percent between 1920 and 1930. The number of female teachers rose at a similar rate in the 1920s, and at a much greater rate in the 1910s (47 percent). At the same time, court cases reduced the incidence of discriminatory practices against the employment of married women tcachers. Combined with these changes, immigration laws passed in the 1920s restricted the number of foreign-born workers entering the American labor force and intensified the demand for low-paid female

22 or

U n f o r t u n a t e l y , data g a t h e r e d in the 1 9 1 0 c c n s u s arc not c o m p a r a b l e to either the 1900 1920 counts

T h e l y i o f i g u r e s are w e l l k n o w n as o v e r - e s t i m a t e s w i t h r e g a r d to the

e m p l o y m e n t o f w o m e n . T h e lack o f c o n t i n u i t y in the statistics m a k e s it d i f f i c u l t to pinpoint the u p t u r n s i n w o m e n ' s l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n Statistici

of the United States

Colonial

Times

S e e B u r e a u o f the C e n s u s ,

to 1970 ( W a s h i n g t o n , D C ,

Historical

1 9 7 5 ) . 1 3 3 . fn 3

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

599

workers. Lastly, social and legislative changes, such as the s u f f r a g e and birth control m o v e m e n t s o f the 1 9 1 0 s , began to challenge the traditional v i e w that middle-class married w o m e n should not participate in the labor force. H o w e v e r , although b u o y a n t during the 1910s and 1920s, e c o n o m i c opportunities for y o u n g w o m e n — especially educated w o m e n — e r o d e d during the 1930s, and o p position to the e m p l o y m e n t o f married w o m e n intensified. 2 3 With World War II, conditions again changed; this time young men and older w o m e n benefited. According to Easterlin, the small size o f the generation born in the late 1920s and 1930s allowed y o u n g couples to m a r r y , have children, and accumulate some savings; the steady progression o f the husband's income seemed assured. A s a result, y o u n g w o m e n ' s labor f o r c e participation leveled o f f , and the d e m a n d for older w o m e n ' s labor in traditionally female occupations increased. 2 4 Thus, the argument here unites Oppenheimcr's, Easterlin's, and Durand's explanations o f the rise in the labor force participation o f w o m e n aged f o r t y - f i v e and over by adding an important new element: demand factors in the 1 9 1 0 s and 1920s created a pool o f y o u n g married w o m e n with j o b experience w h o could react to the e c o n o m i c stimulus during and after World War II b y returning the the labor force in middle age. Since these w o m e n had labor market experience w h e n young and married, their m i d life e m p l o y m e n t w a s less revolutionary f o r them than it w o u l d have been f o r their mothers' or grandmothers' generations. This article demonstrates that there was a clear, longitudinal link between the e m p l o y m e n t behavior of college-educated w o m e n before and after childbearing. O l d e r w o m e n w h o had previous employment cxpcricncc while married but still childless, as well as those w o m e n w h o had the greatest financial need, w e r e m a r k edly more likely to return to the labor force later in life. These findings, especially when incorporated with cohort and timeseries analyses, integrate changes in the demand for female w o r k -

23

For a longer discussion o f w o m e n ' s

l a b o r market o p p o r t u n i t i e s in the

1910s

and

1920s, sec C o o k i n g h a m , " D e m o g r a p h i c a n d L a b o r F o r c e B e h a v i o r , " ch. 3. 24

T h e most concise statement of Easterlin's argument regarding y o u n g e r and older

w o m e n ' s l a b o r f o r c e p a r t i c i p a t i o n rates a f t e r W o r l d W a r II is c o n t a i n e d in his Birth Fortune, 6 6 - 7 4

and

600

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

ers in the second and third decades o f this century with changes in the 1940s and 1 9 5 0 s . T h e earlier period is all too often overlooked, and various stages of w o m e n ' s lives are too frequently studied in isolation. It is hoped that this study will stimulate more research on the interaction between w o m e n ' s labor force participation at different points in the life cycle—especially for cohorts born between 1 8 8 0 and 1920. Such w o r k should yield n e w insights into the striking changes in the structure of the female labor force that took place in the middle decades of this century. 2 5 25

O n e such recent article is Claudia G o l d m . " T h e C h a n g i n g E c o n o m i c R o l e o f Women:

A Quantitative A p p r o a c h , "Journal

of Interdisciplinary

History, X I I I (1983), 7 0 7 - 7 3 3 - Goldin

utilizes a lifecycle f r a m e w o r k to analyze the b e h a v i o r o f various age groups f r o m :89ο to 1900. Cross-sectional and time-series ccnsus data are pooled to explain variations in w o m e n ' s labor f o r c e participation rates; education and fertility variables are used to capture the influence o f a cohort's past. Although unable to measure previous w o r k experience, G o l d i n suggests that such factors, which are f r e q u e n t l y o v e r l o o k e d , may be an important part o f any explanation o f the observed changes in w o m e n ' s labor force participation rates in the twentieth century T h e research findings on w o m e n college graduates reported here support such a hypothesis.

601

W O R K A N D F A M I L Y LIFE

A PROMISE FULFILLED: Mexican Cannery Workers in Southern California VkkJ L. Ruiz

Women cannery norkrri

at the California

Sanitary Canning Company, circa

Í936.

Vicki L. Ruiz is an assistant professor in the Department of History. University of California, Davis. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1982. This article is taken from a chapter in her forthcoming monograph. Building Bridges: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 (tlew Mexico).

HISTORY O F WOMEN IN T H E UNITED STATES INCE 1930 approximately one-quarter of all Mexican women wage earners in the Southwest have found employment as blue collar industrial workers [25.3% (1930), 25.6% ( 1980)]. 1 These women have been overwhelmingly segregated into semi-skilled, assembly line positions. Garment and food processing firms historically have hired Mexicanas for seasonal line tasks. Whether sewing slacks or canning peaches, these workers have generally been separated from the year-round, higher paid male employees. This ghettoization by job and gender has in many instances facilitated labor activism among Mexican women. An examination of a rank and file union within a Los Angeles cannery from 1939 to 1945 illuminates the transformation of women's networks into channels for change. On August 31, 1939, during a record-breaking heat wave, nearly all of the four hundred and thirty workers at the California Sanitary Canning Company (popularly known as Cal San), one of the largest food processing plants in Los Angeles, staged a massive walk-out and established a twenty-four hour picket line in front of the plant. The primary goals of these employees, mostly Mexican women, concerned not only higher wages and better working conditions, but also recognition of their union — The United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, Local 75 — and a closed shop. The Cal San strike marked the beginning of labor activism by Mexicana cannery and packing workers in Los Angeles. This essay steps beyond a straight narrative, chronicling the rise and fall of UCAPAWA locals in California. It provides a glimpse of cannery life — the formal, as well as the informal, social structures governing the shop floor. An awareness of the varying lifestyles and attitudes of women food processing workers will be developed in these pages. No single model representing either the typical female or typical Mexicana industrial worker exists. Contrary to the stereotype of the Hispanic woman tied to the kitchen, most Mexican women, at some point in

S

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE their lives, have been wage laborers. Since 1880, food processing has meant employment for Spanish-speaking women living in California, attracted to the industry because of seasonal schedules and extended family networks within the plants. 2 During the 1930s, the canning labor force included young daughters, newly-married women, middle-aged wives, and widows. Occasionally, three generations worked at a particular cannery —daughter, mother, and grandmother. These Mexicanas entered the job market as members of a family wage economy. They pooled their resources to put food on the table. "My father was a busboy," one former Cal San employee recalled, "and to keep the family going . . . in order to bring in a little more money . . . my mother, my grandmother, my mother's brother, my sister and I all worked together at Cal San." 3 Some Mexicanas, who had worked initially out of economic necessity, stayed in the canneries in order to buy the "extras" — a radio, a phonograph, jazz records, fashionable clothes. These consumers often had middle-class aspirations, and at times, entire families labored to achieve material advancement (and in some cases, assimilation), while in others, only the wives or daughters expressed interest in acquiring an American lifestyle. One woman defied her husband by working outside the home. Justifying her action, she asserted that she wanted to move to a "better" neighborhood because she didn't want her children growing up with "Italians and Mexicans." 4 Some teenagers had no specific, goal-oriented rationale for laboring in the food processing industry. They simply "drifted" into cannery life; they wanted to join their friends at work or were bored at home. Like the first women factory workers in the United States, the New England mill hands of the 1830s, Mexican women entered the labor force for every conceivable reason and for no reason at all. Work added variety and opened new avenues of choice. 5 In one sense, cannery labor for the unmarried daughter represented a break from the traditional family. While most young Mexicanas maintained their cultural identity, many yearned for more in-

HISTORY O F W O M E N I N T H E U N I T E D STATES dependence, particularly after noticing the more liberal lifestyles of self-supporting Anglo co-workers. Sometimes young Mexican women would meet at work, become friends, and decide to room together. Although their families lived in the Los Angeles area and disapproved of their daughters living away from home, these women defied parental authority by renting an apartment. 6 Kin networks, however, remained an integral part of cannery life. These extended family structures fostered the development of a "cannery culture." A collective identity among food processing workers emerged as a result of family ties, job segregation by gender, and working conditions. Although women comprised seventy-five percent of the labor force in California canneries and packing houses, they were clustered into specific departments — washing, grading, cutting, canning, and packing — and their earnings varied with production levels. They engaged in piece work while male employees, conversely, as warehousemen and cooks, received hourly wages. 7 Mexicana family and work networks resembled those found by historian Thomas Dublin in the Lowell, Massachusetts, mills in the ante-bellum era. California canneries and New England cotton mills, though a century apart, contained similar intricate kin and friendship networks. Dublin's statement that women "recruited one another . . . secured jobs for each other, and helped newcomers make the numerous adjustments called for in a very new and different setting" can be applied directly to the Mexican experience. Mexican women, too, not only assisted their relatives and friends in obtaining employment but also initiated neophytes into the rigor of cannery routines. For instance, in the sorting department of the California Sanitary Canning Company, seasoned workers taught new arrivals the techniques of grading peaches. "Fancies" went into one bin; those considered "choice" into another; those destined for fruit cocktail into a third box; and finally the rots had to be discarded. Since peach fuzz irritated bare skin, women shared their cold cream with the initiates, encouraging

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE them to coat their hands and arms in order to relieve the itching and to protect their skin from further inflammation. 8 Thus, as Dublin notes for the Lowell mills, one can find "clear evidence of the maintenance of traditional kinds of social relationships in a new setting and serving new purposes."' Standing in the same spots week after week, month after month, women workers often developed friendships crossing family and ethnic lines. While Mexicanas constituted the largest number of workers, many Russian Jewish women also found employment in southern California food processing firms. 1 0 Their day-to-day problems (slippery floors, peach fuzz, production speed-ups, arbitrary supervisors, and even sexual harassment) cemented feelings of solidarity among these women, as well as nurturing an "us against them" mentality in relation to management. They also shared common concerns, such as seniority status, quotas, wages, and child care. Child care was a key issue for married women who at times organized themselves to secure suitable babysitting arrangements. In one cannery, the workers established an off-plant nursery, hired and paid an elderly woman who found it "darn hard . . . taking care of 25 to 30 little ones." During World War II, some Orange County cannery workers, stranded without any day care alternatives, resorted to locking their small children in their cars. These particular workers, as UCAPAWA members, fought for and won management-financed day care on the firm's premises, which lasted for the duration of World War II. 11 Cooperation among women food processing workers was an expression of their collective identity within the plants. At Cal San many Mexican and Jewish workers shared another bond — neighborhood. Both groups lived in Boyle Heights, an East Los Angeles working-class community. Although Mexican and Jewish women lived on d i f f e r e n t blocks, they congregated at street car stops during the early morning hours. Sometimes friendships developed across ethnic lines. These women, if not friends.

HISTORY O F WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES were at least passing acquaintances. Later, as UCAPAWA m e m b e r s , they w o u l d b e c o m e mutual allies. 12 Cannery workers employed a special jargon when conversing among themselves. Speaking in terms of when an event took place by referring to the fruit or vegetable being processed, workers knew immediately when the incident occurred, for different crops arrived on the premises during particular months. For instance, the phrase "We met in spinach, fell in love in peaches, and married in tomatoes" indicates that the couple met in March, fell in love in August, and married in October. 13 Historians Leslie Tentler and Susan Porter Benson, studying women workers on the east coast, have also documented the existence of female work cultures. However, unlike the women Tentler studied, Spanish-speaking cannery workers were not waiting for Prince Charming to marry them and take them away from factory labor. Mexican women realized that they probably would continue their seasonal labor after marriage. Also in contrast, Benson, delineating cooperative work patterns among department store clerks from 1890 to 1940, asserted that women experienced peer sanctions if they exceeded their "stint" or standard sales quota. 1 4 Mexican cannery workers differed from eastern clerks in that they did not receive a set salary, but were paid according to their production level. Collaboration and unity among piece rate employees attested to the strength of the cannery culture. Although increasing managerial cont r o l at o n e l e v e l , g e n d e r - d e t e r m i n e d j o b segmentation did facilitate the development of a collective identity among women in varying occupations and of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Of these work-related networks, the cannery culture appeared unique in that it also included men. Comprising twenty-five percent of the labor force, men also felt a sense of identity as food processing workers. Familial and ethnic bonds served to integrate male employees into the cannery culture. Mexicans, particularly, were often related to

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE women workers by birth or marriage. In fact, it was not unusual for young people to meet their future spouses inside the plants. Cannery romances and courtships provided fertile chisme which traveled from one kin or peer network to the next. 15

T

HE CANNERY CULTURE was a curious blend of Mexican extended families and a general women's work culture, nurtured by assembly line segregation and common interests. Networks within the plants cut across generation, gender, and ethnicity. A detailed examination of the California Sanitary Canning Company further illuminates the unique collective identity among food processing workers. Cal San, a one plant operation, handled a variety of crops — apricots and peaches in the summer, tomatoes and pimentoes in the fall, spinach in the winter and early spring. This diversity enabled the facility, which employed approximately four hundred people, to remain open at least seven months a year. 16 Female workers received relatively little for their labors due to the seasonal nature of their work and the piece rate scale. In the Cal San warehouse and kitchen departments, exclusively male areas, workers received an hourly wage ranging from fiftyeight to seventy cents an hour. On the other hand, in the washing, grading, cutting and canning divisions, exclusively female areas, employees earned according to their production level.17 In order to make a respectable wage, a woman had to secure a favorable position on the line, a spot near the chutes or gates where the produce first entered the department. Carmen Bernal Escobar, a former Cal San employee, recalled: There were two long tables with sinks that you find in old-fashioned houses and fruit would c o m e down out of the chutes and we would wash them and put them out on a belt. 1 had the first place so I could work for as long as I w a n t e d . W o m e n in the m i d d l e hoarded fruit because the work w o u l d n ' t last forever and the w o m e n at the end really suffered. Sometimes they would stand there

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES for hours before any fruit would come down for them to wash. They just got the leftovers. Those at the end of the line hardly made nothing.

Although an efficient employee positioned in a favorable spot on the line could earn as much as one d o l l a r an hour, most w o m e n w o r k e r s averaged thirty to thirty-five cents. Their male counterparts, however, earned from $5.25 to $ 6 . 2 5 per day. Though wages were low. there was no dearth of owner paternalism. Cal San's o w n e r s . George and Joseph Shapiro, took personal interest in the firm's operations. Both brothers made daily tours of each department, inspecting machinery, opening cans, and chatting with personnel. S o m e t i m e s a favored employee — especially if young, f e m a l e , and attractive — would receive a pat on the cheek or a friendly hug; or as one informant stated, " a good pinch on the butt."-" While the Shapiros kept close watch on the activities within the cannery, the foremen and floor ladies exercised a great deal of autonomous authority over workers. They assigned t h e m positions on the line, punched their time cards and even determined where they could buy lunch. Of course, these supervisors could fire an employee at their discretion. One floor lady earned the unflattering sobriquet " S a n Q u e n t i n . " Some workers, in order to make a livable wage, cultivated the friendship of their supervisors. One favored employee even had the luxury of taking an afternoon nap. Forepersons also hosted wedding and baby showers for " t h e i r girls." While these " p e t s " enjoyed preferential treatment, they also acquired the animostity of their co-workers. T h e supervisors (all Anglo) neither spoke nor understood Spanish. T h e language barrier contributed to increasing tensions inside the plant, espec i a l l y w h e n m a n a g m e n t had t h e a u t h o r i t y to discharge an employee for speaking Spanish. Foremen also took advantage o f t h e situation by altering production cards of workers who spoke only Span-

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE ish. O n e f o r e m a n , for example, was noted for routinely cheating his Mexicana mother-in-law out of her hard-earned wages. Some women sensed something was w r o n g but either could not express their suspicions or were afraid to d o so. Bilingual employees, c o g n i z a n t of m a n a g e m e n t ' s indiscretions. were threatened with d i s m i s s a l . " In general, low wages, tyrannical forepersons, and the " p e t " system prompted attempts at unionization. In 1937 a g r o u p of workers tried to establish an A m e r i c a n Federation of L a b o r union, but a stable local failed to develop. Two years later Cal San employees renewed their trade union efforts, this time under the b a n n e r of UCAPAWA-CIO. 2 '

HE UNITED CANNERY. Agricultural. Packing and Allied Workers of A m e r i c a has long been a n o r p h a n of twentieth-century labor history even though it was the seventh largest C I O affiliate in its day. Probable reasons for this neglect include the union's relatively short life — 1937-1950 — a n d its eventual expulsion f r o m the C I O on the g r o u n d s of alleged c o m m u n i s t domin a t i o n . UCAPAWA's leadership was left-oriented, although not directly connected to the C o m m u n i s t Party. M a n y of the executive o f f i c e r s and organizers identified themselves as M a r x i s t s , but others could be labeled N e w Deal liberals. A s o n e U C A PAWA n a t i o n a l v i c e - p r e s i d e n t , L u i s a M o r e n o , stated, " U C A P A W A was a left union not a c o m munist u n i o n . " Union leaders s h a r e d a vision of a n a t i o n a l , decentralized labor u n i o n , one in which p o w e r flowed f r o m below. Local m e m b e r s controlled their own meetings, elected their o w n off i c e r s and b u s i n e s s agents. N a t i o n a l and state o f f i c e s helped c o o r d i n a t e the individual n e e d s and endeavors of each local. Moreover. UCAPAWA's deliberate recruitment of Black, M e x i c a n , a n d female labor o r g a n i z e r s and subsequent unionizing c a m p a i g n s aimed at minority workers reflected its leaders' c o m m i t m e n t to those sectors of the working-class g e n e r a l l y ignored by t r a d i t i o n a l c r a f t unions. 2 " 1

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This CIO affiliate, in its policies and practices, closely resembled the nineteenth-century Knights of Labor. Like the Knights, UCAPAWA leaders publicly boasted that their organizations welcomed all persons regardless of race, nationality, creed, or gender. Both groups fostered grass roots participation as well as local leadership. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the official UCAPAWA motto "An Injury To One Is An Injury To AH" paraphrased the Knights' " A n Injury To One Is The Concern Of All." 2 5 In California, UCAPAWA initially concentrated on organizing agricultural workers, but with limited success. The union, however, began to make inroads among food processing workers in the Northeast and in Texas. Because of its successes in organizing canneries and packing houses, as well as the inability of maintaining viable dues-paying unions among farm workers, union policy shifted. After 1939, union leaders emphasized the establishment of strong, solvent cannery and packing house locals, hoping to use them as bases of operations for future farm labor campaigns. 26 One of the first plants to experience this new wave of activity was the C a l i f o r n i a S a n i t a r y C a n n i n g Company. In July 1939, Dorothy Ray Healey, a national vice-president of UCAPAWA, began to recruit Cal San workers. Healey, a vivacious young woman of twenty-four, already had eight years of labor organizing experience. At the age of sixteen, she participated in the San Jose, California, cannery strike as a representative of the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union (C&AWIU). Healey had assumed leadership positions in both the C&AWIU and the Young Communist League. 27 Dorothy Healey's primary task involved organizing as many employees as possible. She distributed leaflets and membership cards outside the cannery gates. Healey talked with workers before and after work, and visited their homes. She also encouraged new recruits who proselytized inside the plants during lunch time. As former Cal San employee Julia Luna Mount remembered, "Enthusiastic people like myself would take the literature

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE and bring it into the plant. We would hand it to everybody, explain it, and encourage everybody to pay attention." Workers organizing other workers was a common trade union strategy, and within three weeks four hundred (out of 430) employees had joined UCAPAWA. This phenomenal membership drive indicates not only worker receptiveness and Healey's prowess as an activist but also the existence of a cannery culture. Membership cards traveled from one kin or peer network to the next. Meetings were held in workers' homes so that entire families could listen to Healey and her recruits. 28 The Shapiros refused to recognize the union or negotiate with its representatives. On August 31, 1939, at the height of the peach season, the vast majority of Cal San employees left their stations and staged a dramatic walk-out. Only thirty workers stayed behind and sixteen of these stragglers joined the picket lines outside the plant the next day. Although the strike occurred at the peak of the company's most profitable season and elicited the support of most line personnel, management refused to bargain with the local. In fact, the owners issued press statements to the effect that the union did not represent a majority of the workers. 29 In anticipation of a protracted strike, Healey immediately organized workers into a number of committees. A negotiating committee, picket details, and food committees were formed. The strikers' demands included union recognition, a closed shop, elimination of the piece rate system, minimal wage increases, and the dismissal of nearly every supervisor. Healey persuaded the workers to assign top priority to the closed shop demand. The striking employees realized the risk they were taking, for only one UCAPAWA local had secured a closed shop contract. 30 The food committee persuaded East Los Angeles grocers to donate various staples such as flour, sugar, and baby food to the Cal San strikers. Many business people obviously considered their donations to be advertisements and gestures of goodwill toward their customers. Some undoubtedly acted

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out of a political consciousness since earlier in the year East Los Angeles merchants had financed El Congreso De Pueblos Que Habían Español, the first national civil rights assembly among Latinos in the United States. 31 Whatever the roots of its success, the food committee sparked new strategies among the rank and file. Early in the strike, the unionists extended their activities beyond their twenty-four hour, seven days a week picket line outside the plant. They discovered a supplementary tactic — the secondary boycott. Encouraged by their success in obtaining food donations from local markets, workers took the initiative themselves and formed boycott teams. The team leaders approached the managers of various retail and wholesale groceries in the Los Angeles area urging them to refuse Cal San products and to remove current stocks from their shelves. If a manager was unsympathetic, a small band of women picketed the establishment during business hours. In addition, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters officially vowed to honor the strike. It proved to be only a verbal commitment, for many of its members crossed the picket lines in order to pick up and deliver Cal San goods. At one point Mexicana union members became so incensed by the sight of several Teamsters unloading their trucks that they climbed onto the loading platform and quickly "depantsed" a group of surprised and embarrassed Teamsters. The secondary boycott was an effective tactic — forty retail and wholesale grocers abided by the strikers' request. 12 Action by the National Labor Relations Board f u r t h e r raised the morale of the striking employees. T h e NLRB formally reprimanded the Shapiros for refusing to bargain with the UCAPAWA affiliate. However, the timing of the strike, the successful b o y c o t t , and favorable governmental decisions failed to bring management to the bargaining table. After a two and a half month stalemate, the workers initiated an innovative technique that became, as Healey recalled, "the straw that broke the Shapiros' back." 1 1

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE

Luisa Moreno, union leader of the ClO's Untied Cannery. Agricultural. Packing and Allied Worktrz of America, circa 1940.

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Both G e o r g e and Joseph Shapiro lived in affluent sections o f Los Angeles, and their wealthy neighbors were as surprised as the brothers to discover one morning a small group o f children conducting orderly picket lines on the Shapiros' front lawns. These malnourished waifs carried signs with such slogans as "Shapiro is starving my M a m a " and " I ' m underfed because my Mama is underpaid." Many of the neighbors became so moved by the sight o f these children cohducting what became a twenty-four hour vigil that they offered their support, usually by distributing f o o d and beverages. And if this was not enough, the owners were reproached by several members o f their synagogue. A f t e r several days o f c o m m u n i t y pressures, the Shapiros finally agreed to meet with Local 75's negotiating team. 3 ' The strike had ended. A settlement was quickly reached. Although the workers failed to win the elimination o f the piece rate system, they did receive a five cent wage increase, and many forepersons found themselves unemployed. More importantly. Local 75 had become the second U C A P A W A affiliate (and the first on the west coast) to negotiate successfully a closed shop contract. 35 The consolidation of the union became the most important task facing Cal San employees. A t poststrike meetings, Dorothy Healey outlined election procedures and general operating by-laws. M a l e and female workers who had assumed leadership positions during the confrontation captured every major post. For example. Carmen Bernal Escobar, head of the secondary boycott committee, became "head shop steward of the w o m e n . " 3 6 Soon U C A P A W A organizers Luke Hinman and Ted Rasmussen replaced Dorothy Healey at Cal San. These two men, however, concentrated their organizing energies on a nearby walnut packing plant and, thus, devoted little time to Cal San workers. In late 1940, Luisa Moreno, an U C A P A W A representative, took charge of consolidating Local 75. Like Dorothy Healey, Moreno had a long history of labor activism prior to her tenure with U C A P A W A . A s a professional organizer for the A F o f L and later for the

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE CIO, Moreno had unionized workers in cigar making plants in Florida and Pennsylvania." Luisa Moreno helped insure the vitality of Local 75. She vigorously enforced government regulations and contract stipulations. She also encouraged members to air any grievance immediately. On a number of occasions, her fluency in Spanish and English allayed misunderstandings between Mexicana workers and Anglo supervisors. Participation in civic events, such as the annual Labor Day parade, fostered worker solidarity and union pride. The employees also banded together to break certain hiring policies. With one very light-skinned exception, the brothers had refused to hire blacks. With union pressure, however, in early 1942, the Shapiros relented and hired approximately thirty blacks. By mid-1941, Local 75 had developed into a strong, united democratic trade union and its members soon embarked on a campaign to organize their counterparts in nearby packing plants. 38 In 1941, Luisa Moreno, recently elected vicepresident of UCAPAWA, was placed in charge of organizing other food processing plants in southern California. She enlisted the aid of Cal San workers in consolidating Local 92 at the California Walnut Growers' Association plant, and Elmo Parra, president of Local 75, headed the Organizing Committee. Cal San workers also participated in the initial union drive at nearby Royal Packing, a plant which processed Ortega Chile products. Since ninety-five percent of Royal Packing employees were Mexican, the Hispanic members of Local 75 played a crucial role in the UCAPAWA effort. They also organized workers at the Glaser Nut Company and Mission Pack. The result of this spate of union activism was the formation of Local 3. By 1942, this local had become the second largest UCAPAWA union. 59 Mexican women played instrumental roles in the operation of Local 3. In 1943, for example, they filled eight of the fifteen elected positions of the local. They served as major officers and as executive board members. Local 3 effectively enforced contract stipulations and protective legislation, and

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES its members proved able negotiators during annual contract renewals. In July, 1942, for example, UCAPAWA News proclaimed the newly-signed Cal San contract to be "the best in the state." Also, in 1943, workers at the Walnut plant successfully negotiated an incentive plan provision in their contract. The local also provided benefits that few industrial unions could match — free legal advice and a hospitalization plan. 4 0 Union members also played active roles in the war effort. At Cal San, a joint labor-management production committee worked to devise more efficient processing methods. As part of the "Food for Victory" campaign. Cal San employees increased their production of spinach to unprecedented levels. In 1942 and 1943, workers at the California Walnut plant donated one day's wages to the American Red. Cross. Local 3 also sponsored a successful blood drive. Throughout this p e r i o d , worker solidarity remained strong. When Cal San closed its doors in 1945, the union arranged jobs for the former employees at the California Walnut plant. 41 The success of UCAPAWA at the California Sanitary Canning Company can be explained by a n u m b e r of factors. Prevailing work conditions heightened the union's attractiveness. Elements outside the plant also prompted receptivity among employees. These workers were undoubtedly influenced by the wave of CIO organizing drives being conducted in the Los Angeles area. One woman, for example, joined Local 75 primarily because her husband was a member of the CIO Furniture Workers Union. 42 Along with the Wagner Act, passage of favorable legislation, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Public Contracts Act, and the California minimum wage laws (which set wage and hour levels for cannery personnel), led to the rise of a strong UCAPAWA affiliate. 43 Workers decided that the only way they could benefit from recent protective legislation was to form a union with enough clout to force management to honor these regulations.

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ORLD WAR II also contributed to the development of potent UCAPAWA food proc e s s i n g l o c a l s , n o t o n l y in s o u t h e r n California, but nationwide. To feed U.S. troops at home and abroad, as well as the military and civilian population of America's allies, the federal government issued thousands of contracts to canneries and packing houses." 4 Because of this increased demand for c a n n e d goods and related products, management required a plentiful supply of content, hard-working employees. Meanwhile the higher-paying defense industries began to compete for the labor of food processing personnel. Accordingly, canners and packers became more amenable to worker demands than at any other time in the history of food processing. Thus, during the early 1940s, cannery workers, usually at the bottom end of the socio-economic scale, had become "labor aristocrats" due to wartime exigencies. 45 They were in an atypical position to gain important concessions from their employers in terms of higher wages, better conditions, and greater benefits. As UCAPAWA members, women food processing workers utilized their temporary status to achieve an improved standard of living. 46 Of course, the dedication and organizing skills of UCAPAWA professionals Dorothy Ray Healey and Luisa Moreno must not be minimized. While Healey played a critical role in the local's initial successes, it was under Moreno's leadership that workers consolidated these gains and branched out to help organize employees in neighboring food processing facilities. The recruitment of minority workers by Healey and Moreno and their stress on local leadership reflect the feasibility and vitality of a democratic trade unionism. Finally, the most significant ingredient accounting for Local 75's success was the phenomenal degree of worker involvement in the building and nurturing of the union. Deriving strength from their networks within the plant. Cal San workers built an effective local. The cannery culture had, in effect, become translated into unionization. Furthermore.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE UCAPAWA locals provided women cannery workers with the crucial "social space" 4 7 necessary to assert their independence and display their talents. They were not rote employees numbed by repetition, but women with dreams, goals, tenacity, and intellect. Unionization became an opportunity to demonstrate their shrewdness and dedication to a common cause. Mexicanas not only followed the organizers leads but also developed strategies of their own. A fierce loyalty developed as the result of rank and file participation and leadership. Forty years after the strike. Carmen Bernal Escobar emphatically declared, "UCAPAWA was the greatest thing that ever happened to the workers at Cal San. It changed everything and everybody." 48 This pattern of labor activism is not unique. Laurie Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and Emily Honig in their study of the Farah Strike documented the close bonds that developed among Mexican women garment workers in El Paso, Texas. Anthropologist Patricia Zavella has also explored similar networks among female electronics workers in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and food processing workers in San Jose. 4 * But while kin and friendship networks remain part of cannery life, UCAPAWA did not last beyond 1950. After World War II. red-baiting, the disintegration of the national union. Teamster sweetheart contracts and an indifferent NLRB spelled the defeat of democratic trade unionism among Mexican food processing workers. Those employees who refused to join the Teamsters were fired and blacklisted. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, moreover, deported several UCAPAWA activists, including Luisa Moreno. , 0 In the face of such concerted opposition. Local 3 could not survive. Yet, the UCAPAWA movement demonstrates that Mexican women, given sufficient opportunity and encouragement, could exercise control over their work lives, and their family ties and exchanges on the line became the channels for unionization.

620

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES NOTES: 1. Vicki Ruiz, "Working For Wages: Mexican Women in the American Southwest. 1930-1980," Southwest Institute for Research on Working Women, Paper No. 19 (1984): 2. 2. Albert Camarillo. Chícanos in a Changing Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 92, 137. 157. 221; Pedro Castillo, "The Making of a Mexican Barrio: Los Angeles. 1890-1920," (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of California. Santa Barbara, 1979), p. 154; Ruiz, "Working For Wages" p. 17. 3. Paul S. Taylor, "Women in Industry," Field Notes for his book. Mexican Labor in the United States. 19271930, Paul S. Taylor Collection. Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA; Heller Committee for Research in Social Economics of the University of California: and Constantine Panuzio. How Mexicans Earn and Live (University of California Publication in Economics. 13. No. I, Cost of Living Studies V) (Berkeley. CA: University of California. 1933). pp. 12. 15. Interview with Julia Luna Mount. November 17. 1983, by the author. The term family wage economy first appeared in Louise Tilly and Joan Scott, Women. Work, and Family (New York, NY. Holt. Rinehart and Winston. 1978). 4. Taylor. Field Notes. 5. Taylor. Field Notes; Caroline F. Ware. The Early New England Cotton Manufacture (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1931; rpt. ed.. New York, NY: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1966), pp. 217-219. 6. Douglas Monroy, "An Essay on Understanding the Work Experience of Mexicans in Southern California, 1900-1939." Avian 33 (Spring 1981): 70; Taylor, Field Notes. 7. U. S.. National Youth Administration, State of California . A η Occupational Study of the Fruit and Vegetable Canning Industry in California. Prepared by Edward G. Stoy and Frances W. Strong, State of California (1938), pp. 15-39. My thoughts on the development of a cannery culture derive from oral interviews with former cannery and packing house workers and organizers, and from the works of Patricia Zavella. Thomas Dublin, and Louise Lamphere. δ. Thomas Dublin. Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell. Massachusetts. 1826-1860 (New York. NY: Columbia University Press, 1979), pp. 41-48; interview with Carmen Berna! Escobar, February 11, 1979 by the author; Mount interview; letter from Luisa Moreno dated March 22, 1983. to the author.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE 9. Dublin, p. 48. 10. Mount interview; Escobar interview. 11. "Interview with Elizabeth Nicholas" by Ann Baxandall Krooth and Jaclyn Greenberg published in Harvest Quarterly. Nos. 3-4 (September-December 1876): 15-16; interview with Luisa Moreno. August 5, 1976, by Albert Camarillo. 12. Howard Shorr, "Boyle Heights Population Estimates: 1940" (unpublished materials); David Weissman. "Boyle Heights — A Study in Ghettos." The Reflex 6 (July 1935): 32; Mount interview; interview with Maria Rodriguez. April 26. 1984, by the author. Note: Maria Rodriguez is a pseudonym used at the persons request. 13. Interview with Luisa Moreno, July 27, 1978, by the author. 14. Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Wage Earning Women: Industrial Work and Family Life in the United States. 1900-1930 (New York. NY: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 71-75; Escobar interview; Susan Porter Benson, '"The Customers Ain't God': The Work Culture of Department Store Saleswomen, 1890-1940," in Working Class America, eds. Michael H. Frisch and Daniel J. Walkowitz (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 197-198. 15. N. Y. A. Study, pp. 15-39; Castillo, p. 54; Moreno interview, July 1978; Rodriguez interview, April 1984. Note Chisme means gossip. 16. California Canners' Directory (July 1936), p. 2; Escobar interview; UCAPAWA News. September 1939; Economic Material on the California Cannery Industry, prepared by Research Department, California CIO Council, (February 1946), p. 18; California Governor C. C. Young. Mexican Fact-Finding Committee, Mexicans in California (October 1930) (San Francisco, CA: California State Printing Office, 1930; reprinted by R and E Research Associates, San Francisco, CA, 1970) pp. 4954, 89; interview with Dorothy Ray Healey, January 21, 1979, by the author; Escobar interview; letter from Luisa Moreno dated July 28, 1979, to the author. 17. U. S., Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, Application of Labor Legislation to the Fruit and Vegetable Preserving Industries (Bulletin of the Women's Bureau, No. 176) (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1940), p. 90; Escobar interview. N. Y. A. Study. pp. 15-39. 18. Escobar interview; Rodriguez interview. 19. Escobar interview; Ν. Y. A. Study, pp. 15-39. 20. Escobar interview; Mount interview. 21. Escobar interview; Healey interview.

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HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES 22. Escobar interview. 23. Victor B. Nelson-Cisneros, "UCAPAWA and Chícanos in California: The Farm Worker Period," Aztlan 6 (Fall 1976): 463. 24. Interview with Luisa Moreno. September 6, 1979, by the author; Healey interview; Moreno interview, August 1976; Moreno interview, July 1978; Report of Donald Henderson, General President to the Second Annual Convention of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (San Francisco, CA, December 12-16, 1938), pp. 14, 22, 32-33; Proceedings. First National Convention of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America (Denver, CO, July 9-12, 1937), p. 21; The New York Times, November 24, 1938; Proceedings, Third National Convention of United Cannery, Agricultural, focking and Allied Workers of America (Chicago, IL, December 37, 1940), pp. 60-66. 25. Philip S. Foner, Women and the American Labor Movement (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1979), pp. 190-94, 197-98, 211-12; Susan Levine, "Labor's True Woman: Domesticity and Equal Rights in the Knights of Labor," Journal of American History 70 (September 1983): 323-339; Sidney Lens, The Labor Wars (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. 1974), p. 65; Constitution and By-Laws, as amended by the Second National Convention of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied^Workers of America. Effective December 17, 1938, pp. 2, 26-7. 26. Sam Kushner. Long Road to Delano (New York, NY: International Publishers, 1975), pp. 90-91; Nelson-Cisneros, pp. 460-67, 473; Proceedings, Third UCAPAWA Convention, p. 10; Executive Officers' Report, pp. 9-10. 27. Nelson-Cisneros, p. 463; Healey interview; UCAPAWA News, October 1939. 28. Healey interview; Escobar interview; UCAPAWA News, September 1939; Mount interview. 29. Escobar interview; Healey interview; UCAPAWA News, September 1939; Los Angeles Times, September 1, 1939. 30. Healey interview; Escobar interview. 31. Escobar interview: Moreno interview, August 1976: Albert Camarillo, Chícanos in California (San Francisco, CA: Boyd & Fraser, 1984), pp. 61-63. 32. UCAPAWA News, September i939; UCAPAWA News. December 1939; Escobar interview. 33. UCAPAWA News, September 1939; Healey interview. 34. Healey interview; UCAPAWA News, September 1939; UCAPAWA News, December 1939.

WORK AND FAMILY LIFE 35. Healey interview; Escobar interview; UCAPAWA News, December 1939. 36. Escobar interview; Healey interview; Moreno letter, July 1979. 37. Moreno interview, September 1979; Moreno interview August 12-13, 1977 with Albert Camarillo; Escobar interview; Moreno interview, July 1978. 38. Escobar interview; Moreno interview, September 1979; Moreno letter, July 1979. 39. UCAPAWA News, August 25, 1941; Moreno interview, September 1979; Moreno letter, July 1979; UCAPAWA News, November 17, 1941; UCAPAWA News, December 1, 1941. 40. UCAPAWA News, February 1, 1943; UCAPAWA News, July 15, 1942; UCAPAWA News, December 15, 1943; UCAPAWA News, June 15, mi, UCAPAWA News, July 1, 1944. 41. UCAPAWA News, April 10, 1942; UCAPAWA News, April 1, 1943; UCAPAWA News, March 11, 1942; UCAPAWA News, May 15, \943, FTANews, January 1, 1945; Moreno interview, September 1979; Moreno letter, July 1979. 42. Escobar interview; for more information concerning other CIO campaigns, see Luis Leobardo Arroyo, "Chicano Participation in Organized Labor: The CIO in Los Angeles, 1938-1950," Aztlan 6 (Summer 1975): 277303. 43. Women's Bureau Bulletin,.pp. 3-8, 102-03. 44. Vicki L. Ruiz, "UCAPAWA, Chicanas, and the California Food Processing Industry. 1937-1950," (Ph.D dissertation. Stanford University, 1982), pp. 164, 194. 45. The term labor aristocracy first appeared in E. J. Hobsbawm's Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (New York, NY: Basic Books, Ine, 1964). Other historians have refined the applicability and criteria for the term. 46. Ruiz, "UCAPAWA, Chicanas." pp. 151-176. 47. Sara Evans has defined "social space" as an area "within which members of an oppressed group can develop an independent sense of worth in contrast to their received definitions as second-class or inferior citizens." Personal Politics (New York. NY: Vintage Books, 1980), p. 219. 48. Escobar interview. 49. Laurie Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and Emily Honig, "Women at Farah: An Unfinished Story," in Mexican Women in the United States, eds. Magdalena Mora and Adelaida Del Castillo (Los Angeles, CA: Chicano Studies Research Publications, 1980); Patricia Zavella, "Sup-

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES port Networks of Young Chicana Workers," paper presented at the Western Social Science Association Meeting. Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 29, 1983; Patricia Zavella, "Women, Work and Family in the Chicano Community: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley," (Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley, 1982). 50. For more information on the Teamster take-over, see Ruiz, "UCAPAWA, Chicanas," pp. 206-243.

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The Impact of "Sun Belt Industrialization" on Chicanas PATRICIA ΖAVELLA

This article, like the previous one, challenges the belief that choices about women's work are determined by traditional ethnic values. While di Leonardo uses a case-study approach to demonstrate variety in the choices made by women of one ethnic group, Patricia Zavella uses the sociological survey to explore the work choices of Chicanas. Zavella surveyed Chicanas who had young children and who worked in the Albuquerque electronics and apparel industries in the 1970s and 1980s to discover why they worked, how they balanced work and family, and how they felt about their choices. This look at the twentieth-century "urban frontier" of women's wage work takes into account changes in the occupational structure as well as the personal meaning of the decision to work outside the home. Zavella reveals a variety offeelings, not the uniform response that would result if a single and unified set of cultural values were the sole determinant of Chicana behavior. This way of looking at the impacts of ideology and economics on cultural change in the modern West reveals women as important actors who help shape their culture.

Historically, Mexican-American women have had lower labor-force participation rates than Anglo or black women. In 1960 only 24.4 percent of Chicanas were employed, as compared to 34.5 percent of Anglo women. 1 Explanations of these disparities have relied on a model of cultural determinism that identified traditional cultural values and norms as the causal factors. Many authors assume that traditional family values alone determine whether Chicanas will enter the labor market, and that Chicanas violate those values when they work outside the home. According to the "traditionalist" model, Chicano "machos" prefer that their wives not work; since Chicanas value their homemaker roles over taking jobs, they submit to their husbands' wishes. A corollary notion is that acculturation occurs when Chicanas are employed and, consequently, they lose traditional family values.2 Over the last two decades, however, Chicanas have rapidly moved into the paid work force. Between 1960 and 1970, for example, married Chicanas entered the labor force at a national rate of 15 percent higher than their white and black counterparts.5 In 1970, the gap in labor-force partici-

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San Antonio cigar factory workers on strike, 1933. Courtesy San Antonio Light Collection, Institute of Texan Cultures.

pation rates had narrowed; 43 percent of all women worked as compared to 36 percent of Chicanas. By 1980, the gap between Chicanas and other women workers nearly disappeared: 52 percent of all women worked while 49 percent of Spanish-origin women were employed.4 At the same time, Chicanas consistently have had higher unemployment rates than Anglo women. In 1970, 14 percent of women of Mexican origin in the United States were unemployed, compared to 9 percent for all women. By 1980 Chicana unemployment decreased to 10 percent while that for Anglo women was 8 percent.5 Technically, the unemployed are persons who are actively seeking jobs and are available for work. TTie official unemployment rate, of course, does not include the many "discouraged workers"—those who have completely given up the search for work. Groups with high unemployment rates usually also have higher numbers of discouraged workers.6 The historically high Chicana unemployment rates, whether official or not, indicate that more Chicanas would work if they could find jobs. In addition, since Chicanas tend to have larger families than Anglo women, the availability of child-care facilities may have a greater influence on their ability to remain in the work force. The traditionalist approach neither predicted nor explained these trends. Instead of using the data to challenge the traditionalist perspective, adherents of the model merely modified it and claimed that declining family values explained Chicanas' recent entrance into the labor force. Most au-

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thors who support cultural determinism do not actually examine Chicanas' values and beliefs. A recent empirical study, however, investigated how traditional values affect Chicana and Anglo women's labor-force participation. Vilma Ortiz and her colleagues found that "the cultural argument was not supported; traditional attitudes did not have a stronger impact for Hispanic females." 7 In addition, these researchers found that the significant factor influencing Chicanas' commitment to the labor force was prior work experience. Women with unskilled, low-paying jobs tend to prefer homemaking, while those who have more stable jobs want to continue working. Ortiz argues that the availability of jobs, not traditional culture, determines whether Chicanas are committed to the labor force or not.8 The traditionalist approach is ahistorical and does not consider variations or changes in regional economies. Yet regional economies are the products of distinct patterns of accumulation and industrial development. Storber and Walter show how the "spatial division of labor," or the regional variation in industrial location, is the product of managerial strategies for minimizing production costs. Managers choose locations for their industries with lower labor costs to allow for new, less costly ways of organizing production and workers.9 Uneven regional development provides varied work opportunities for women workers. For example, two studies show that even though Chicanas are generally segregated into the lowest-paying jobs in most communities, there is regional variation in the types of jobs they hold, in their employment rates, and in discrimination.10 The traditionalist argument also assumes that values determine behavior by viewing the lack of employment as voluntary. Analyses of Chicana unemployment rates help to further illuminate the model's deficiencies. Rather than assuming that culture determines whether Chicanas enter the labor force, a more fruitful approach is to examine changes in local labor markets, structural defects in the regional economies, and the impact of women's work on their families. Such an approach provides a corrective to the traditionalist perspective which perpetuates the stereotype of the reclusive, passive Mexican woman who devotes herself to motherhood, housework, and her man. Instead, I argue that Chicanas have always placed a high value on work outside the home. This article analyzes data from a research project on women's work and family strategies in the context of "Sun Belt industrialization" in Albuquerque, New Mexico." In-depth interviews with twenty-two married Chicana workers were conducted;12 informants were employed in either electronics or apparel factories, and had at least one child under the age of six. These women had a mean age of twenty-nine and an average of two children. Most of the women were entry-level electronics assemblers or sewing-machine operators who had worked at their jobs for about three years. Two related processes affected the relationship between work and family life foe these women. Recent industrialization in Albuquerque created jobs primarily for women. The state of the local labor market, including

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the availably of jobs women consider to be good ones and the instability of men's jobs, was the primary reason Chicanas chose to enter and to remain in the labor force. Concurrently, women's work dramatically altered Chicano farailies. The evidence does not indicate a decline in family values, but a more complicated adaptation to new circumstances. The impact of women's vork on Chicano families depended on factors such as the ages of children, the availability of child care, and the relative need for the women's wages. Furthermore, traditional values and norms should be viewed as family ideology, a set of values and beliefs which prescribe proper behavior for women and men and which are symbolically opposed to the world of work.13 Women's views about being working mothers respond to the prevalent family ideology. All these related individual and familial processes must be viewed in the larger context of regional industrialization. SUN BELT

INDUSTRIALIZATION

The state of New Mexico has been slow to industrialize. As late as 1970, manufacturing jobs accounted for only about 6 percent of total employment. The service sector (including trade, finance, and public administration) provided over 60 percent of New Mexico's jobs. 14 Between 1960 and 1970, however, important changes began turning New Mexico into a southwestern industrial center. Significant growth of industrial jobs in the state has occurred because of the expansion of two industries: apparel and electrical machinery. Growth in both industries was dramatic; employment in electrical machinery manufacturing grew by 353 percent15 and it quadrupled in the apparel industry. Most of the recent industrial growth took place in Albuquerque, the state's largest city. Prior to industrialization, Albuquerque's economy was based on "guns and butter"—the military and related enterprises—and the public sector.16 Besides the state of New Mexico, other large employers included Sandia Laboratories, Kirtland Air Force Base, the Veterans Hospital, and Air Force Special Weapons Center. Albuquerque, as the commercial center of the state, also provided a large number of sales and service jobs. Albuquerque attracted manufacturers for several reasons.' 7 A low wage scale existed, especially for women's jobs. The median pay for female manufacturing jobs during the 1970s was 44 percent of the wages for jobs held by males. In electrical machinery, for example, women earned about 44 percent of the wages of men, while in apparels women earned almost 70 percent of men's wages.18 Taking inflation into consideration, average earnings in Albuquerque were almost 10 percent lower than national levels." Few manufacturing plants are unionized, which partially accounts for lower wage rates. Another reason manufacturers chose Albuquerque was the available labor force, especially women.20 In Bernalillo County, the unemployment rate of Anglo women was only 5 percent in 1960, but the figure grew to 6 percent in 1970 and to over 7 percent in 1979. During

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the same years, Spanish-surnamed women had unemployment rates of 5 percent, 8 percent, and 9 percent, respectively.2' The recent national recessions notwithstanding, Albuquerque has become a center of "Sun Belt industrialization.22 Beginning in the late 1960s several companies—GTE Lenkurt, Singer Fridan, Levi Strauss, and Ampex—opened plants in or near the city. Subsequently, other firms such as Motorola, Digital, Honeywell, General Electric, Signetics, Sperry Flight Systems, and Ethicon built plants in Bernalillo County. Between 1969 and 1979 employment in manufacturing in Albuquerque grew more than 100 percent, while total employment increased only 60 percent.23 By 1980 manufacturing was the third largest sector of Bernalillo County's economy, employing over 218,000 workers.24 Changes in industrial employment affected men and women differently. The bulk of new jobs were "women's jobs." In electronics the female labor force grew 680 percent; by 1970, women constituted 46 percent of the total electronics labor force. In the traditionally female apparel industry, the number of women employed increased fourfold, while male employment increased only 300 percent. By 1970, women formed 82 percent of the apparel labor force. These increases in women's employment occurred during a period when total manufacturing in the state dropped by 4 percent between 1960 and 1970. Male jobs, however, accounted for 16 percent of the decrease, while female employment increased by 58 percent. Women grew from 16 percent of the total manufacturing labor force in 1960 to almost 27 percent in 1970.25 In sum, while manufacturing declined in the state as a whole, the electronics and apparel industries, which employed increasingly greater proportions of women, grew tremendously.26 While the growth of industrial jobs in Albuquerque primarily benefited women, Chicanas were affected the most. In the period of pronounced industrial growth, a large number of Chicanas entered the labor force. Between 1960 and 1970, the labor-force participation rate of Anglo women increased 18 percent while that of Chicanas rose by 66 percent.27 The employment rate of Anglo women was 43 percent in 1970 and 40 percent for Spanish-surnamed women. By 1980, 52 percent of white women and 50 percent of Hispanic women were in the Albuquerque labor force.24 Clearly, a significant proportion of Chicanas entered Albuquerque's labor market once industrial expansion began. The women interviewed for this study entered the labor force during this time of rapid growth in the labor market. However, they were interviewed in 1982-1983 during a period of economic recession. Questions focused on two points: How has industrial employment affected these women? Have their family values changed? W O M E N ' S D E C I S I O N S TO SEEK

WORK

Our informants entered the labor force, as women increasingly are doing, when their children were under the age of six. The women had to secure

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satisfactory child-care arrangements; in addition, they struggled with the demands of caring for young children after work and the ideology that mothers—especially those with young children—should not work. According to the traditionalist viewpoint, we would expect these women to leave the labor force as soon as they could; but we instead found a more complicated situation. When the women originally decided to seek wage work, most of them were in difficult financial situations and their primary motivation for seeking work was economic. While a few were working when they married, most started work after marriage. Many of the women entered the labor force when their husbands were either unemployed or earning low wages. The common refrain was: "The way it is now, everything's too high and we can't make it on one check." In the majority of couples, both husband and wife agreed that the woman should work. Eight of these husbands preferred that their wives not work, but agreed with the decision. In these cases, women's wage work was an economic strategy for families which had little choice. Five of the twenty-two women wanted a job primarily to get out of the house; generally their spouses supported their decision. These women were critical of the boredom of housewifery. "I decided it (homemaking) wasn't for me," one woman noted. Sometimes they wanted personal satisfaction. One very independent woman said simply, "I'm a self-supporter." W O M E N ' S WORK

HISTORIES

An examination of the women's work histories and family circumstances sheds light on the question of declining familism. Most of the women moved through a succession of low-paying, dead-end jobs as waitresses, fast-food workers, or cashiers before they acquired their current jobs. The apparel workers Usually knew someone, often a relative, who already worked in the plant and notified them when the company was hiring; some of these women had not worked at a factory before. Electronics workers, however, had longer work histories and a wider base of comparison. These women tended to have had prior work experience in electronics production (as well as in apparel factories) and often had some technical training. Electronics workers usually applied for their present jobs without prior knowledge that the company was hiring and without the help of someone who was already employed there. These women heard through their training or through social networks that electronics factories pay better and provide good benefits. Electronics employees had worked less time on the job than apparel workers. Compared to previous jobs, these women achieved job mobility in terms of pay, benefits, and job security. The benefits of factory work in particular, especially medical insurance and paid maternity leaves, were great improvements over their previous fringe-benefit packages. Women often received better job benefits than their husbands, so couples relied on the woman's medical insurance, for example.

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Many women believed that their factories were relatively good places to work. Several women compared their present jobs to previous ones or to the general Albuquerque labor market. They were aware that in general, as one informant appropriately stated, "Albuquerque's (jobs are) always underpaid-" However, women characterized the wages in electronics as "the best you can find in Albuquerque." Women recounted news stories regarding new firms offering employment, in which job seekers numbering in the hundreds waited for hours for the privilege of submitting jobapplication forms. Referring to these stories, or to the experiences of relatives who were chronically unemployed, one woman summed up the general view: "There's no place else. It's hard to get a job and I feel lucky to have this one." THE ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION

OF

WOMEN'S

WAGES

It is important to emphasize the financial contribution that these women made to their families; their wages cannot be seen as supplemental. Electronics workers earned an average S5.2S an hour, and generally were the best paid blue-collar women in Albuquerque. There was considerable variation in wage rates for apparel workers, however, since they were paid on the piece-rate system. Depending on how fast they sewed, apparel workers earned between $4.00 and $7.00 an hour. On the average, electronics workers earned about $12,000 a year, while apparel workers earned about $9,500 annually. One-third of our informants earned more than their husbands earned. These women were the economic mainstays of their households, since they earned over 60 percent of the total family income. The other women earned between 30 and 59 percent of the family income. Clearly, all these women made significant contributions to the support of their families. But more than the amount of money that they contributed, women's wages were pivotal in terms of the families' economic stability. When both husband and wife were working, the family was relatively secure. Unfortunately, many of the women's husbands, particularly those who worked in construction, were periodically unemployed. These families were continually moving between the stability of two incomes and the hardship of having one wage. Therefore, the woman's income saved the family from financial disaster when husbands were laid off, and assured relative stability when he was employed. The family incomes of the informants were slightly lower than those of other dual-worker families in Albuquerque, averaging $24,425 and ranging from $13,500 to $40,000 a year. The mean income of all families with two or more workers in Albuquerque was $26,846 in 1979.N However, compared to the rest of the state, where the median family income was $16,930 in 1979, our informants were relatively well-off. New Mexico Hispanics had a median family income of only $13,800 at this time, a significant disparity from other ethnic groups.30 The lives of the Chicanas surveyed in Albuquerque contrasted sharply

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with those of their mothers. The majority were born and raised in Albuquerque, while their parents were born in rural areas and later migrated to the city. Further, most of the women's mothers were housewives. When they compared their standards of living with those of their kin from rural areas, our informants' higher incomes were probably quite noticeable. It is important to recall, however, that these were relatively young families with great economic needs. The men had not yet reached their peak earnings, and many of them received low wages which were eroded by inflation. Several of the women had recently taken maternity leaves which considerably lowered the families' incomes. Since most of these couples were buying or constructing homes, they had large payments to make. When husbands went to work after periods of unemployment, there was usually a time when the couples had to catch up on previously unmet needs. Given the fluctuations and loss of real wages by husbands, the women's wages were essential for family survival. These couples were caught up in a national trend, in which the proportion of families with two or more wage earners is increasing.31 Most of our informants resigned themselves to the fact that, as one woman said, "Nowadays, both people have to work." Rather than diminished devotion to the family, changes in the economy pushed these women into the labor force. Taking jobs to provide financial support for the family could be seen as an expression of traditional family values. But the women's economic contribution to their families was but one aspect of their commitment to the labor force. Another important factor was the satisfaction they received from their jobs. JOB

SATISFACTION

To gauge job satisfaction, informants were asked a number of questions: what they liked and disliked about their jobs and their advantages and disadvantages; they were also asked to rank ten qualities of the job. Generally, the women believed that job security was the most important aspect of a job, and most of them believed they had secure jobs. The women chose pay as the second most important feature, and all of the women believed they had good pay. Most also believed they had good benefits, as illustrated by one woman who observed, "That's the main reason I went back to electronics." The women were generally satisfied with the economic features of their jobs. Beyond issues of remuneration, though, there were important differences between electronics and apparel workers' views regarding their jobs. These differences, of course, stem from the distinct production processes.32 Electronic workers, particularly those who did not work as assemblers, had higher job satisfaction than apparel workers. In terms of the work process, two-thirds of the women believed they could work at their own pace. Unfortunately, because of production quotas in both industries, which women generally considered a disadvantage of their jobs, self-pacing meant that women pressured themselves to work

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fast. Assemblers lamented the physical discomforts (such as eyestrain, backaches, and headaches) resulting from the fast pace and the monotony. Apparel workers who sewed fast and who produced more than the production quota had more job satisfaction. These women believed that the piecerate system allowed them to make good money. Women who missed or barely made their quotas disliked the pressure of the piece-rate system. Those women not meeting production quotas were either pressured to quit or, after a series of warnings, were fìred. It is not surprising that the women found their work challenging. Virtually all of the women in both industries believed their work place was safe. Furthermore, all of them said that their supervisors were good, and that there were ample opportunities to converse with co-workers. The jobs had several disadvantages. Apparel workers had shortened work weeks during the 1982 recession, which most disliked. They preferred a forty-hour week so they could make steady wages. In addition, most of the women believed they were not paid well enough for the work performed, and some of them would have liked more appreciation for a job well done. Only half of the women believed they had opportunities for promotions. Despite these reservations, however, the majority of the women liked their jobs, but for varied reasons. An assembler said: "I enjoy it. It's easy." A machine operator reported, "I like the work; I think it's interesting." A materials handler liked the autonomy of her job because "No one bothers me." An inspector cherished the opportunity to interact with friends and co-workers; "I like going to work," she said, "I get to talk to different people. It makes me forget half of my problems." Another assembler made an analogy between her department and home, saying, "It's like a family." A quality control worker could find nothing wrong with her job, claiming, "1 like everything about that job." These comments were not unusual; on the whole, the women valued their jobs. W O M E N ' S V I E W S ON B E I N G W O R K I N G

MOTHERS

Women's views on their status as working mothers reflected the contradictions between economic circumstances, on the one hand, and family obligations and ideology on the other. Traditional family ideology asserts that women should stay home and care for their families, especially young children. Finding the balance between these "competing urgencies" is difficult and filled with frustrations." In an attempt to understand their values and attitudes, women were asked to indicate whether they agreed or disagreed with several statements regarding gender roles and women's work. The women's responses to these statements illustrated both how they construct the meaning of family and how their circumstances tempered their beliefs and values. Probably the most striking aspect of the women's views was their variation; they ranged from traditional to egalitarian viewpoints; some were ambivalent and even inconsistent. Given the state of Albuquerque's economy, with inflation and relatively

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high male unemployment, it was not surprising that virtually all the women agreed with the following statement: "Women need to work to help their families with the high cost of living." Their responses to other economic issues, however, were less clear. Most of the women disagreed with the notion that it is better for a marriage if a husband earns more money than his wife; of the six who agreed, only two earned more than their husbands. Apparently, even if a woman earned higher wages than her husband, she did not necessarily believe that he should earn more. In addition, the majority of the women disagreed with the more general view that men should get most of the higher-paying jobs because they have families to support. These women's experience with relatively high-paying jobs led them to reject the view that men should be primary breadwinners. According to several women, "Women have to support families too." Child-care arrangements profoundly affected the women's views on being working mothers. Two-thirds of the women had their husbands or female kin to care for their children. Others took their children to a private baby sitter or a day-care center. Many of these women had frequently changed child-care providers and had bad experiences with former baby sitters. When we interviewed them, though, most were generally satisfied with their child-care arrangements. Despite this satisfaction, some women felt sorrow and guilt about leaving their young children in child care. The statement that elicited the most responses was: "Working mothers miss the best years of their children's lives. " Most of the women agreed with this statement, and believed that by going to work while their children were young, they missed those important "first steps" in the children's development. Several of the women delayed entering the labor force, not only because they did not want to leave infants with a sitter, but because they wanted to enjoy their children's developmental progress. For example, Mrs. Armijo 34 wanted to wait until her daughter was one year old before going back to work, but circumstances forced her into the labor force for three months when her daughter was six months old. Mrs. Montoya was defensive on this issue. When her baby-sitter informed her that her son said the word "cookie," she replied: "Yeah, I know, I taught him how." She went on, "I felt like I heard it first." Working while having young children placed certain demands on women's time. Women had to miss work to take their children for medical care. Many women indicated that the hardest aspects of a working mother's life were the lack of time to accomplish everything that needs to be done at home and their fatigue from working and parenting very active youngsters. It is understandable, then, that the majority of women agreed with the statement: "It would be much better all around if a woman can stay home and take care of her family instead of having to work." Regarding the household division of labor, we found variation. Five of the women had relatively egalitarian divisions of housework with their husbands. Couples in these households either divided the work (she washed clothes while he took out the garbage, for example), or both performed the same chores. Several of these couples negotiated a more equi-

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table division of labor after the women complained they were doing too much. A second group of nine women performed most of the housework. The remaining couples fell between these extremes, with women taking on a greater share of housework. However, three-quarters of the couples divided the child-care chores equitably. These differences between the sharing of housework and of child care was reflected in the women's responses to several statements. Every woman agreed that "taking care of the children should be shared equally between husband and wife." Furthermore, most of the women agreed that "sometimes I think that I cannot do enough for my family when I work," and "that sometimes I feel it is unfair that I have to work and also spend so much time taking care of my home and my children."" Finally, women were asked if they ever thought of quitting their present jobs. Most of them had considered leaving, but for varied reasons, usually the frustrations or boredom of the work itself, the pressures of the piece rate or of managing home duties and a job, and the desire for higher wages (especially by apparel workers). Only a few of the women wanted to stay home and rear their children. The others wanted better opportunities, specifically a job that paid more and allowed some advancement. Most of the electronics workers who wanted better jobs preferred to remain in the electronics industry. One woman's statements illustrated how most women vacillated between their desires to support their families and to care for their young children at home. When asked whether she ever thought of quitting, she stated: "I always wanted to work, it's a habit I have. I can't be without work. I can't stay home; it's so boring. I have to work or else I won't be happy." Later, however, when asked whether she would quit if she did not have to work, she contradicted herself: "It's kind of hard. I do like to work, but I think my family is more important." She realized she was contradicting herself, so she joked: "Maybe I like to work because I need the money." Whether or not these employed Chicanas held traditional views regarding family, the economic needs of their families often took precedence. Each family must ñnd the balance in meeting these competing needs, and women constructed meanings for their decisions that took each need into consideration. Thus, despite the women's misgivings about not being able to spend time with their children, most agreed that: "Working is an important part of my life that would be hard for me to give up," and "Even if I didn't need the money, I would continue to work." Finally, virtually all of the women believed that their work did not conflict with family responsibilities. An analysis of the changing local economy—including job opportunities for women—and its multiple effects on women and, in turn, on the family economy, must be examined before traditional norms can be interpreted as labor-force determinants. Contrary to the traditionalist viewpoint, those Chicanas interviewed for this study indicated a strong commitment to their jobs. Women's employment had a significant positive effect on the family

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economy. The impact on family ideology, however, was more complex. Once Chicanas entered the labor market, some of their views regarding family changed, while others remained the same. The extent to which women accepted the prevalent ideology or constructed a new meaning depended on their particular work histories and job satisfaction, their economic contribution to family economic status, and the demands at home. In other words, rather than continuing an ideological separation between work and family, based on the assumption that family values determine women's labor-force participation, one must investigate the reciprocal effects of work and the family on women employees. Clearly, a combination of factors determines whether Chicanas prefer to continue wage work or not, factors similar to those that influence other American workingclass women.

Notes I want to thank Micaela di Leonardo, Denise Segura. Elizabeth Jameson, and Albert Camarillo for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 1. Rosemary S an tana Cooney, "Changing Labor Force Participation of Mexican American Wives: A Comparison with Anglos and Blacks," Social Science Quarterly 56, no. 2 (1975). 2. See Elizabeth M. Almquist and Juanita L. Wehrle-Einhorn, "The Doubly Disadvantaged: Minority Women in the Labor Force," in Ann H. Stromberg and Shirley Harkess, eds.. Women Working, Theories and Facts in Perspective (Palo Alto: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1978); Walter Fogel, Mexican Americans in Southwest Labor Markets, UCLA, Mexican American Study Project, Advance Report 10, 1967; Roberta V. McKay, "Employment and Unemployment among Americans of Spanish Origin," Monthly Labor Review, April 1974; Cooney, "Changing Labor Force Participation"; Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., Walter Fogel, and Fred H. Schmidt, The Chicano Worker (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977). For a full critique see Patricia Zavelia, "Women, Work and Family in the Chicano Community: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley" (Ph.D. diss.. University of California, Berkeley, 1982). 3. Cooney, "Changing Labor Force Participation," p. 253. 4. U.S. Department of Labor. Employment and Training Report of the President (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982); ¡970 Census of Population, Persons of Spanish Origin. PC(2)-1C (Washington. D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973); 1980 Census of Population, Provisional Estimates of Social, Economic and Housing Characteristics, PHC80-S1-1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982). Statistics on women of Mexican origin only were not available at the time of this writing. 5. U.S. Bureau of Census, "Persons of Spanish Origin in the United States: March 1976," Current Population Reports, Series P-20, no. 310 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982); 1980 Census of Population, Provisional Estimates of Social. Economic, and Housing Characteristics. PHC80-S1-1 (Washington, D C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982). 6. U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Report of the President (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982). Discouraged workers have neither worked nor looked for work during the four-week period before an unemployment survey. Nearly 75 percent of the recently discouraged workers cite labor-market factors as the reason for not looking for work. 7. Vilma Ortiz, Rosemary S an tana Cooney, and Ronald Ortiz, "Sex-Role Attitudes and Labor Force Participation: A Comparative Study of Hispanic Females and Non-Hispanic

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White Females," paper presented at the American Sociological Association meetings, 7 Sept. 1982, p. 13. 8. A 1979 study by the Census Bureau found that Hispanic women left their careers for family reasons at about the same rate as white women. San Francisco Chronicle, 18 July, 1984. 9. Michael Storber and Richard Walter, "The Spatial Division of Labor Labor and Location of Industries," in Larry Sawers and William K. Tabb, eds., SunbeltlSnowbelt (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984). 10. Laura Arroyo, "Industrial and Occupational Distribution of Chicana Workers," Aztlan 4, no. 2 (1973); Tacho Mindiola, "The Cost of Being a Mexican Female Worker in the 1970 Houston Labor Market." Aztlan 11, no. 2 (1980). 11. Special thanks go to Louise Lamphete and Peter B. Evans, the principal investigators. This project is sponsored by National Science Foundation grant no. BNS8112726. 12. Both the women and their husbands were interviewed twice. The total sample includes Chicano and Anglo dual-worker couples, as well as Chicana single parents, who are not discussed here. Informants were not randomly selected, but were referred to us from a variety of sources. Since we interviewed women in a particular stage of the life cycle, it is unclear how representative they are of the total female work force in Albuquerque. Other research shows variation in family strategies depends on women's age, marital status, skills, and the nature of the labor market. See Louise Lamphere. Filomena M. Solva, and John P. Sousa, "Kin Networks and Family Strategies: Working Class Portuguese Families in New England," in Linda S. Cordell and Stephen Beckerman, eds.. The Versatility of Kinship (New York: Academic Press, 1980); Zavella, Women. Work and Family. 1982. 13. Rayna Rapp, "Family and Class in Contemporary America: Notes Toward an Understanding of Ideology," Science and Society 42, no. 3 (1978); Jane Collier, Michelle Z. Rosal do, and Sylvia Yanagisako, "Is There a Family? New Anthropological Views," in Banie Thome and Marilyn Yalom. eds.. Rethinking the Family, Some Feminist Questions (New York: Longman. 1982). 14. ¡970 Census of Population, General Social and Economic Characteristics. PC (1)C33, cited in Peter B. Evans, "Comparisons of Labor Force Structures of New Mexico and Rhode Island" (manuscript, n.d.). 15. Evans, "Comparisons of Labor Force Structure." 16. Joseph V. Metzgar. "Guns and Butter Albuquerque Hispanics, 1940-1975," New Mexico Historical Review 56, no. 2 (1981). 17. Recent studies indicate that a good business climate and right-to-work laws are the most important motivations for new plant location. See Roger Schmenner, The Manufacturing Location Decision (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1982), cited in Bennett Harrison, "Regional Restructuring and 'Good Business Climates': The Economic Transformation of New England Since World War Π," in Sawers and Tabb, eds., SunbeltlSnowbelt. 18. Evans, "Comparisons of Labor Force Structure." 19. City of Albuquerque, "Social Profile of Albuquerque" (Manuscript, Department of Human Services, n.d.). 20. The city of Albuquerque provided tax incentives to attract new manufacturing plants to the area and is considered to have a good business climate. Albuquerque is only a fourhour flight from California's "Silicon Valley," which makes it relatively inexpensive to transport materials. Other features include a relatively good housing market, especially an interesting cultural environment—with a history of Indian, Spanish, and Anglo settlement—and proximity to the art center of Santa Fe. These features make Albuquerque a good place either to start new plants or, like GTE Lenkurt, relocate the firm's headquarters. 21. Figures for 1960 and 1970 are from Patrick H. McNamara, "A Social Report for Metropolitan Albuquerque," Albuquerque Urban Observatory, Studies in Urban Affairs. no. 16 (1973). Figures for 1979 are from New Mexico Employment Security Department, "Affirmative Action Information," Research Statistics Section (1979), p. 2. 22. Other new industrial centers include Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Tucson, Phoenix, Colorado Springs, El Paso, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Increasingly, high-tech

638

HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

firms are relocating from Silicon Valley. See Anna Lee Saxenian, "The Urban Contradictions of Silicon Valley: Regional Growth and the Restructuring of the Semiconductor Industry." in S awen and Tabb, eds., SunbeltlSnowbelt; "High Technology Companies are Making Moves," Washington Post, 26 Dec. 1982. 23. Evans, "Comparisons of Labor Force Structure." 24. U.S. Bureau of Census, County Business Patterns, New Mexico, 1980 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981). 25. Evans, "Comparisons of Labor Force Structure." 26. The feminization of the working class in Albuquerque can be seen in the following table: Anglo men

Chícanos

Anglo women

Chicanas

LFPR* %U +

LFPR *>U

LFPR %V

LFPR %U

76.8 5.7 62.1 8.7

42.9 6.5 51.8 6.3

40.2 8.3 49.8 7.8

Year 1970 1980

77.6 64.0

4.5 6.3

Source: 1980 Census of Population: Central Social and Economic Characteristics, New Mexico (Washington. D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1983). pp. 105. 129; 1970 Census of Population: Characteristics of the Population. New Mexico (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1973). p. 151. * LFPR = labor force participation nte. * %U = unemployment rate

Between 1970 and 1980, Anglo and Chicano men declined in their labor-force participation rates while Chicanas and Anglo women increased their labor-force participation rates. Chicanas had a higher unemployment rate than Anglo women in both years, but a lower rate than Chicano men by 1980. Chicano men had the highest unemployment rate of all in 1980. 27. U.S. Bureau of Census, 1972, cited in Patrick H. McNamara, "A Social Report for Metropolitan Albuquerque." In 1960, "Spanish-surnamed" means white persons with a Spanish surname; in 1970 "Spanish-surnamed" includes those women who speak Spanish as a native language as well as those with a Spanish surname. "Anglo" means the total population of women excluding black and Spanish-surnamed women. 28. These figures are rounded off. 1970 Census of Population, Characteristics of the Population, New Mexico; 1980 Census of Population, General Social and Economic Characteristics, New Mexico. The term "Hispanic women" refers to all women of Spanish origin, rather than only women of Mexican origin. These were the only statistics available. 29. U.S. Bureau of Census, Advance Estimates of Social, Economic and Housing Characteristics for New Mexico, PHC80-S2-33 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980). 30. U.S. Bureau of Census, Provisional Estimates of Social, Economic and Housing Characteristics, 1980 Census of Population and Housing Supplementary Report, PHC80Sl-1, cited in "La Red/The Net," newsletter of the National Chicano Research Network (Austin, Tex.), June 1982, p. 1. 31. Of all husband-wife families in 1980, 42 percent were dual-worker families, while in 38 percent only the husband was employed. See. U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Report of the President. This report did not specify, but apparently the other 20 percent of husband-wife families had only the wife employed. 32. For a discussion of the differences between women's work in the apparel and electronics industries in northern Mexico, see Maria Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, For We Are Sold, I and My People: Women and Industry in Mexico's Frontier (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983). 33. The phrase was coined by Arlie Hochschild and quoted in Lillian B. Rubin Intimate Strangers, Men and Women Together (New York: Harper & Row, 1983). 34. Women's names are ficticious. 35. For a full analysis of these patterns, see Patricia Zavella, "The Effects of Women's Work: Chicano and Anglo Working Class Families" (unpublished paper).

Copyright Information Brown, Judith K. "Economic Organization and the Position of Women among the Iroquois." Ethnohistory 17:3-4 (Summer-Fall 1970): 131-167. ©1971 by the American Society for Ethnohistory, The Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Wright, Mary C. "Economic Development and Native American Women in the Early Nineteenth Century." American Quarterly 33:5 (Winter 1981): 525536. "©1973, 1985, 1986, 1965, 1966, 1981, 1982, 1980, 1979, 1967, 1974, American Studies Association, Washington, D. C. USA." Reprinted with permission of the Association and the author. Lemer, Gerda. "The Lady and the Mill Girl: Changes in the Status of Women in the Age of Jackson." Midconänent American Studies Journal 10:1 (Spring 1969): 5-14. "The Lady and the Mill Girl: Changes in the Status of Women in the Age of Jackson" by Gerda Lemer. Reprinted from American Studies (,Midcontinent American Studies Journal), Volume 10, Number 1 (Spring, 1969) "©1969 Mid-America American Studies Association. Used with permission." University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA. Davis, Angela. "Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves." The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research (December 1971): 3-15. ©The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research, Oakland, California, USA. "By Permission of the Black Scholar." Jones, Jacqueline. '"My Mother was Much of a Woman*: Black Women, Work and the Family under Slavery." Feminist Studies 8:2 (Summer 1982): 235-269 ©by Feminist Studies, Inc., Women's Studies Program, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA. Lebsock, Suzanne. "Free Black Women and the Question of Matriarchy: Petersburg, Virginia, 1784-1820." Feminist Studies 8:2 (Summer 1982): 271292. ©by Feminist Studies, Inc., Feminist Studies Program, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA. Pieck, Elizabeth H. "Two Worlds in One: Work and Family." Journal of Social History 10:2 (1976): 178-195. ©Journal of Social History, CamegieMellon University Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

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Glaseo, Laurence A. "The Life Cycles and Household Structure of American Ethnic Groups: Irish, Germans, and Native-born Whites in Buffalo, New York, 1855." Journal of Urban History 1:3 (May 1975): 339-364. "©1975 by Sage Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc., Newbury Park, California USA." Haines, Michael R. "Fertility and Marriage in a Nineteenth-Century Industrial City: Philadelphia, 1850-1880." Journal of Economic History 40:1 (1980): 151-158. ©Cambridge University Press, New York, New York, USA. "©Reprinted with permission of the Cambridge University Press" and the author. Turbin, Carole. "Reconceptualizing Family, Work and Labor Organizing: Working Women in Troy, 1860-1890." Review of Radical Political Economics 16:1 (Spring 1984): 1-16. ©Union for Radical Political Economics, New York, New York, USA. Walkowitz, Daniel J. "Working-Class Women in the Gilded Age: Factory, Community and Family Life among Cohoes, New York, Cotton Workers." Journal of Social History 5 (Summer 1972): 464-490. ©Camegie-Mellon University Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Harris, Katherine. "Homesteading in Northeastern Colorado, 1873-1920: Sex Roles and Women's Experience." The Women's West, edited by Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman 1987): 165-178. "From The Women's West, Edited and With Introductions by Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson. Copyright ©1987 by the University of Oklahoma Press." Also reprinted with permission of the author. Photograph on page 211 reproduced "Courtesy, Colorado Historical Society," Denver, Colorado, USA. Article first appeared in Frontiers: a journal of women's studies 7:3 (1984): 43-49. Women's Studies Program, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, USA. Garcia, Mario T. 'The Chicana in American History: The Mexican Women of El Paso, 1880-1920-A Case Study." Pacific Historical Review 49:2 (1980): 315-337. "©1980 by The Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association. Reprinted from Pacific Historical Review, Vol 49, No. 2 (May 1980), pp. 315-337 by permission" of the Association and the author. Harris, William. "Work and the Family in Black Atlanta, 1880." Journal of Social History 9:3 (Spring 1976): 319-330. ©Journal of Social History, Carnegie-Mellon University Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

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Haieven, Tamara Κ. "Family Time and Industrial Time: Family and Work in a Planned Corporation Town, 1900-1924." Journal of Urban History 1:3 (May 1975): 365-389. "©1975 by Sage Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc. Newbury Park, California, USA." Jameson, Elizabeth. "Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek, 1894-1904." In Class, Sex, and the Women Worker, edited by Milton Cantor and Bruce Laurie. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. 1977): 166-202. "'Imperfect Unions: Class and Gender in Cripple Creek, 1894-1904' by Elizabeth Jameson in Class. Sex, and the Women Worker, Milton Canter and Bruce Laurie, eds, (Greenwood Press, an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, CT., 1977). Copyright © by Milton Canter and Bruce Laurie. Reprinted with permission" of Greenwood Press and the author. Article first appeared in Frontiers: a journal of women's studies 1:2, pp. 79-117. Women's Studies Program, University of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, USA. Yans-McLaughlin, Virginia. "A Flexible Tradition: South Italians Confront a New Work Experience." Journal of Social History 7:4 (Summer 1974), 429445. ©Journal of Social History, Carnegie-Mellon University Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Kessner, Thomas, and Beuy Boyd Caroli. "New Immigrant Women at Work: Italians and Jews in New York City, 1880-1905." Journal of Ethnic Studies 5:4 (1978): 19-31. ©Journal of Ethnic Studies, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, USA. Seller, Maxine S. "Beyond the Stereotype: A New Look at the Immigrant Woman, 1880-1924." Journal of Ethnic Studies 3 (Spring 1975): 59-70. ©Journal of Ethnic Studies, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington, USA. Krause, Corinne Azen. "Urbanization without Breakdown: Italian, Jewish, and Slavic Immigrant Women in Pittsburgh, 1900-1945." Journal of Urban History 4:3 (May 1978): 291-306. "©1978 by Sage Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc., Newbury Park, California, USA." May, Martha. 'The Historical Problem of the Family Wage: The Ford Motor Company and the Five Dollar Day." Feminist Studies 8:2 (Summer 1982): 399-424. ©by Feminist Studies, Inc., Women's Studies Program, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA.

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Reiff, Janice L., Michael R. Dahlin, and Daniel Scott Smith."Rural Push and Urban Pull: Work and Family Experiences of Old«- Black Women in Southern Cities, 1880-1900." Journal of Social History 16 (Summer 1983): 39-48. ©Journal of Social History, Cantegie-Mellon University Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Smith, Judith E. "Our Own Kind: Family and Community Networks." Radical History Review 17 (Spring 1977): 99-120. ©Marho: The Radical Historians' Organization, Department of History, John Jay College, New York, USA. May, Martha. "The 'Good Managers': Married Working Class Women and Family Budget Studies, 1895-1915." Labor History 25:3 (Summer 1984): 351-72. ©1984 by the Taimiment Institute, New York, New York, USA. Toll, William. "The Female Life Cycle and the Measure of Jewish Social Change: Portland, Oregon, 1880-1930." American Jewish History 72 (March 1983): 309-332. ©American Jewish Historical Society, Waltham, Massachusetts, USA. Sci ofield, Ann. "The Women's March: Miners, Family, and Community in Pittsburg, Kansas, 1921-1922." Kansas History 7 (Summer 1984): 159-168. ©Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas, USA. Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, Robert Korstad and James Leloudis. "Cotton Mill People: Work, Community, and Protest in the Textile South, 1880-1940." American Historical Review 91:2 (April 1986): 245-286. ©Professor Jacqueline Dowd Hall, Department of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. Reprinted with permission of Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Robert Korstad, and James Leloudis. Helmbold, Lois Rita. "Beyond the Family Economy: Black and White Working-Class Women during the Great Depression." Feminist Studies 13:3 (Fall 1987): 629-655. ©by Feminist Studies, Inc., Women's Studies Program, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA. Bolin, Winifred D. Wandersee. "The Economics of Middle-Income Family Life: Working Women during the Great Depression." The Journal of American History 65:1 (June 1978): 60-74. ©Organization of American Historians, 1978, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.

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643

Cookingham, Mary E. "Working after Childbearing in Modem America." The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 14:4 (Spring 1984): 773-792. "Reprinted from The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XIV (1964), 773-792, with permission of the editors of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History and the ΜΓΤ Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ©1964 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of the The Journal of Interdisciplinary History." Ruiz, Vicki L. "A Promise Fulfilled: Mexican Cannery Workers in Southern California." The Pacific Historian: A Quarterly of Western History and Ideas 30:2 (Summer 1986): 50-61. ©The Pacific Historian: A Quarterly of Western History and Ideas. University of the Pacific, Holt-Atherton Center for Western Studies, Stockton, CA, USA. Zavella, Patricia. "The Impact of 'Sun Belt Industrialization' on Chicanas," in The Women's West, edited by Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson, University of Oklahoma Press (Norman, 1987): 291-304. "From The Women's West, Edited and With Introductions by Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson. Copyright ©1987 by the University of Oklahoma Press." Also reprinted with permission of the author. Photograph on page 626 reproduced with permission of the Institute of Texas Cultures, San Antonio, Texas, USA. Article first appeared in Frontiers: a journal of women's studies 8:1 (1984): 21-27. Women's Studies Program, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

Index Acme Laundry, and Laundry Workers' Union strike, 1919, 239-41, 243-44 Addams, Jane. See also Hull House on gender discrimination by Ford Motor Company, 385 on Italian-American women, 351 Adolescence. See also Children of Irish-American men, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 139 of native-bom white men, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 135-36 Advertisements, for Amelia Galle's bathhouse, 101-02 African-American... See also Slave. . . African-American men, occupations of, Atlanta, 1870 and 1880, 248 (table) African-American women elderly, in urban areas, American South, 1880-1900, 397-406 family history of, 543-45 free, and matriarchy, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 93-114 married and wage-earning, San Antonio (TX), 545-46 working-class, and Great Depression, 539-65 African-Americans as slave holders, Petersburg (VA), 1820, 104 occupations of, and family structure, Atlanta, 1880, 247-58 Age. See also Life cycles and division of slave labor, 73-74 1830-60, 68-69 and ethnicity of textile workers, Cohoes (NY), 1860, 191 (table) and marriage patterns, Cohoes (NY) and Union Park (Chicago), 1880, 196-97 (tables) and married women's labor force participation, 1940-60,582,583 (table), 584 at marriage of Jewish women, Portland (OR), 1900, 463 (table) Philadelphia, 1850-80, 162-63 of daughters German-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 154 (graph) Irish-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 150 (graph) of Jewish married couples, Portland (OR), 1880-1900, 461 (table) of native-born white men, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 136 (graph), 137 645

646

INDEX

of slaves at time of emancipation, Petersburg (VA), 98 (table) of wage-earning women collar workers, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 169-70 cotton workers Cohoes (NY), 1880, 193 (table) Harmony Mills Company, Gilded Age, 188 Alabama, Maroon resistance to slavery, 1837, 53 Alamance County (NC), cotton mill strike, 1900, 511 Albany, slave women's resistance, 1794, 52 Albuquerque, industrialization and married wage-earning Mexican-American women, 625-38 Allen, Henry, and women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 488 Alterque, Elizabeth, 99 property and inheritance of, 102-03 Allesandro, Antonietta Pisanelli, 344, 346-47 American Communist Party, Crawford County (KS), 482 American Federation of Hosiery Workers, and cotton mill strikes, American South, 1920s, 523 American Federation of Labor. See also United Textile Workers and Laundry Workers' Union, 240 and union organizing at California Sanitary Canning Company, 69 of Mexican alien workers, 245-46 on women's labor-force participation, 375 American Legion, support of Laundry Drivers' Union action against laundry strike, El Paso (TX), 1919, 245 American Northeast. See also entries for specific states of the American Northeast, e.g., New York class distinctions among women, 39 American South. See also entries beginning African-American. . .; and Slave. . .; and entries for specific states of the American South, e.g., Alabama; Southern women; The Piedmont elderly African-American women, urban areas, 1880-1900, 397-406 slave women in rural areas, 1830-60, 58-92 work, community, and protest in mill villages, 1880-1940, 497-538 Ammonds, Molly, on father's furniture making, 76 Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, French-Canadian immigrant workers and families, 1910-36,259-83 Anderson, Mary, 219 Anthony, Katherine, on immigrant woman's work, 351-52

INDEX

647

Anthony, Susan Β., 40 on women collar workers, 170 Apparel industry. See Garment industry Apprenticeships and free African-American children, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 98-99 and German-Americans, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 143, 155 Arabic-American women, wage-earning, New York City, 1880-1924, 349 Architecture of cotton mills, American South, 1880-1900, 506 of factories, Glencoe (NC), 506 Arrests, of Eliza Gallie, for theft, 93-94 Arson, and slave women's resistance to slavery, 52-53 Artificial flower industry, and industrial homework by Italian-American women, New York City, 1880-1905, 333 Artisans. See also Craftsmen African-American, Atlanta, 1880, 249 immigrant, Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 415 slave, 1830-60, 76-77 Ash, Billy, and Charlotte Rollins, 106 Assembly lines at California Sanitary Canning Company, 602, 607-08 at Ford Motor Company, 383, 385 Atkins, Lizzie, on slave women's work, 65 Atkinson, Betsy, relationship to James Gibbon, 97 Atlanta, occupations, and family structure, 1880, 247-58 Augmented families Cohoes (NY), 1880, 198 (table), 199 male-headed by native-bom whites, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 137-38 by skilled workers, Atlanta, 1880, 251 (table) Mexican-American, El Paso (TX), 1900, 227 (table) Augusta (GA), slave women's arson as resistance to slavery, 1829, 53 Automobiles, Model T, 527 Barden, Ollie and Willis, 218-19 Baron de Hirsch Fund, and Industrial Removal Office, 464 Barrios, and racial segregation of Mexican-Americans, El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 228-30 Baskets, produced by Native American women, Pacific Northwest, 26 Beauvoir, Simone de, on sexual relations of animals, 55 Bell, Frank, on slave family's assistance to mother with field work, 67

648

INDEX

Bell, Graham and manumission of slaves, 97 estate of, 101 Bell, Sherman, and martial law, Cripple Creek (OR), 1903, 299, 301 Bemba people, status of women, 3-19 Birth control. See also Contraception and cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), 1880, 197 and French-Canadians, at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 21A and German-Jews. Portland (OR), 1880-1930,458 and Iroquois Indians, 7 Birth rates 1925-36, 548 and industrialization, 124-25 and married women's labor-force participation, 1940-60, 585 decrease in nineteenth century German cities of Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich, 457 of East European-Jews, Portland (OR), 1900, 464-65,468 of French-Canadians, 271 and delayed marriage. 274 of German-Americans, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 154 (graph), 155 of German-Jews, Portland (OR), 1880-1900, 456-57 of Irish-Americans, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 151-52 of native-born whites, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 148-49 Philadelphia, 1850-80, 161-63 Bittner, Van Α., 484, 487 Blacklisting, of Western Federation of Miners, Cripple Creek (CO), 1904, 300 Blacks. See African-Americans Blixer, Mrs., role in Cripple Creek (CO) strike, 1903, 300 B'nai B'rith (Portland, OR), 455, 473 and German-Jews as elite group, 1890s, 458 B'nai Zion, as chevrah, Providence (RI), 419-20 Boarders and family income, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 217 German-American men as, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 144 in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 502-03 Irish-American men as, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 139^0 native-bom whites as, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 136-38, 147 (graph) taking in by German-Americans, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 144-45 by immigrants Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 360

INDEX

649

Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 416 by Irish-Americans, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 141 by Italian-Americans, Buffalo (NY), early-20th century, 323 by Mexican-Americans, El Paso (TX), 1900, 227 by women, 19th century, 119 Bohemia, and opposition to established religion and political institutions, 347 Bossetti, Mrs. Nick, arrest for assault of Walter Madden, 487 Boston occupations of Irish-American men, 1850, 248, 249 (table) women's wages, 1911, 377 Boundry, Nancy, on slave women's work, 65 Boycotts in support of labor unions, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 292-93 of California Sanitary Canning Company products, 1939, 612 of kosher meat, Providence (RI), 1910, 422-23 Brander, Molly, property of, 106 Bridewealth, 23 Brittian, James, 80 Broken homes Cohoes (NY), 1880, 198 (table), 199 Mexican-American, El Paso (TX), 1900, 227 (table) Budget analyses, of working-class families, 1895-1915, 129-50 Budgeting, and standards of living, Great Depression, 572-73 Buffalo (NY) immigrant household structure, 1855, 133-58 Italian-Americans, early-20th century, 313-29 Burke, Emily, on slave women and farming, 64 Butler, James, and Molly James, 106-07 Butler, Lurancy, 99 Butter, production of, as women's work, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 215 Bynum (NC), folk medicine, 505 Cafe Pisanelli Family Circle, 344 California. See also Los Angeles minimum wage standards, legislation, 616 California Sanitary Canning Company, and Mexican-American women workers, 1939-45, 601-24 Call, Betty, as free African-American, 99-100 Call, Teresa, property of, 100

650

INDEX

Callery, Phil, legal defense of women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 489 CalSan. See California Sanitary Canning Company Campbell, James, and manumission, 97-98 Canneries and Italian-American migrant workers, New York, early-20th century, 316-25 and Mexican-American women, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 601-24 and Slavic-American women, 1900-45, 358-59 Capitalism, and working class. Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904,286-87,289-90 Carbaugh, Mrs. Walter, arrest for assault of Walter Madden, 487 Carnegie Libraries, and immigrant women, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 358 Casino, Chief, 23 Cassurier, Milly. See Gallé, Amelia Celibacy, among native-bom whites, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 162 Central Labor Union, and laundry strike, El Paso (TX), 1919, 241 Central Statistical Board, income study, 1935-36, 571 Chadwick-Hoskins Mill, love offerings, 504 Chapman, Hannah, 77 Character defects, as cause of poverty, 435-36 Charitable organizatic-as, view of married women's wage work, 439 Charity Organization Society, and poverty, 435 Charleston, slave women's role in arson, 1740, 52 Charlotte (NC) as urban center, relation to cotton mill villages, 527 Highland Park Mill village, 503 Chesnut, Mary Boykin, on slave women as mistresses of white men, 71 Chevraks, Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 419-21 Chicago. See also Union Park (Chicago) immigrant women, and politics, 349 working-class women, Great Depression, 539-65 Chicago Relief Authority, unattached women and welfare, Great Depression, 541 Chicanas. See Mexican-American women Child care and Mexican-American married women cannery workers, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 605 decision to work, 626 wage-earning, Albuquerque (NM), 629-30, 634 and slave women, 1830-60, 73-74, 76 by middle-class mothers, 120 Child custody, and Iroquois Indians, 7

INDEX

651

Child labor 19th century, 121 and family income at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 274-76 and family wage, 373-74 and National Industrial Recovery Act, 528 decline of and increase of literacy, American South, 1920s, 527 Great Depression, 575 wage-earning at home, Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 416-17 distribution of wages and wage-earning pioneer, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 217-18 in canneries. New York, early-20th century, 317-22 in cotton mills American South, 1880-1940, 510 Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 188-89, 189-90, 190-94 Italian-American and artificial flower homework, New York City, 1880-1905, 333 Jews, under 19, Portland (OR), 1905-15, 469 (table), 470 (table) legislation. New Hampshire, 1905, 274 Southern Italy, 19th century, 316 Child-woman ratios, of whites, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 164-65 (table) Childbirth. See also Human reproduction; Pregnancy and immigrant women, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 365-366 and wage-earning women, 1940-60, 581-600 Childcare employer-provided at cotton mills, American South, 1908, 516 fathers' role, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 315 Childhood, of native-bom white men, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 135-36 Childrearing and fathers, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 215 by homesteaders, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 212 by slave children, 1830-60, 69-70 in canneries. New York, early-20th century, 320-22 Children. See also Adolescence; Daughters; Sons; and entries beginning Child. . . and farming, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 215-16 free African-American, and apprenticeships, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820,98-99 in households headed by male skilled workers, Atlanta, 1880, 251 (table) with elderly African-American women, American South, 1880, 400 (table), 401

652

INDEX

married, in parents' household, Great Depression, 555 parental support of, Great Depression, 552 responsibilities of, Southern Italy, 19th century, 315-16 support of mothers, Great Depression, 541 under age 15, by type of family, Atlanta, 1880, 250 (table) Chinook Indians, 23 Chiquola Mill (Honea Path, SC), strike, 1934, 533 Churches. See also Religions and immigrant women, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 365-66 and labor's collective actions, American South, 1880-1940, 525 gender roles in establishment of, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 213 CIO. See Congress of Industrial Organizations Circolo Frosolone, 418 Circulo de amigos, laundry strike support. El Paso(TX), 1919, 242-43 Clark, David, and Southern Textile Association, 515 Clark, Dolly, property of, 100 Clark, Victor S., on training Mexican-American women for domestic service, 235 Clarke, John Henrik, on slave family, 47 Clatsop Indians, women's conical hat production by, 26 Cleveland, working-class women, Great Depression, 539-65 Cline, Paul on cotton mills before steam power and electricity, 510 on turnover at cotton mills, 514 Co-operative Party, and Western Federation of Miners, 298 Coal mining, women's march in support of strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921,475-96 Coalpo, Chief, 23 Coalpo, Lady, 23 Cohoes (NY), women cotton workers, Gilded Age, 183-209 Colbert, Mary, 80 Collar City. See Troy (NY) Collar work labor organization of, Troy (NY), 177 Troy (NY), 1860-90, 167-82 Colonial period, status of women, 32-33 Colorado. See Cripple Creek (CO); Logan County (CO); Washington County (CO) Colquitt, Martha, on slave women's work for slave family, 73 Colquitt, Sara, on slave women and farming, 63

INDEX

653

Commodity production by family 19th century, 121 and industrialization, 118-19 by Native American women. Pacific Northwest, 26-28 by slave women, American South, 1830-60, 61-62 by women, colonial period, 33 Compulsory education. See also Education; Schools and child labor in canneries. New York, early-20th century, 317 and literacy, American South, 1920s, 527 Concomly, Chief, 23 marriage of daughter to Duncan McDougall, 23 Congregation Sons of Jacob, Providence (RI), 420 Congress of Industrial Organizations, and UTW, 535-36 Consanguine families, African-American, 544 Consumer Purchases Study, and consumption patterns, 1930s, 571 Consumption patterns and increased labor-force participation of married women, Great Depression, 545 Great Depression, 570-73 of cotton mill workers, American South, 1908-40, 516 of Native American women married to white traders, Pacific Northwest, 27 of pioneers, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 218 of working-class family, New York City, 1909,444-45 Contagious diseases. See also Epidemics; Illness; Influenza; Malaria; Smallpox; Venereal diseases and lack of municipal services in barrios, El Paso(TX), 1880-1920, 230 coal mining districts, Pittsburg (KS), 481 Contraception. See also Birth control and German-Jews, Portland (OR), 1880-1900, 457 Cook, Abby, 99 Cook, Charlotte, and property deeded by Christian Scott, 105-06 Cook, Jane, and slave husband, 105 Cook, Lucy, apprenticeship of, 99 Cooks and Waiters Union, and women members. Cripple Creek (CO), 295 Corney, Peter, 27 Cotton mills American South, 1880-1940,497-538 wage-earning women, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 183-209 Cotton Textile Institute, and National Industrial Recovery Act, 528

654

INDEX

Cotton Textile National Industrial Relations Board, 532 Council of Jewish Women, 471, 473 and German-Jews as elite group, Portland(OR), 1890s, 458 Couper, Thomas, gender division of slave labor, 63-64 Courts. See Mayor's court Cox, Ross, on Native American women's independence, 24-25 CRA. See Chicago Relief Authority Craftsmen, immigrant, Providence (RI), 1880-1914 , 415 Craig, Oscar, 435 Crawford County (KS). See also Pittsburg (KS) American Communist Party, 482 Credit systems. See also Installment buying Ben Selling and interest-free loans to Jewish businessmen, 464 for cotton workers' purchases, 187 Cripple Creek (CO), gender roles and social class, 1894-1904, 284-312 Cripple Creek Federal Labor Union, Nellie Kedzie as representative of, 1900, 295 Crop liens, 497, 502 Croskey, R.E., on women cooks, 294 Cult of true womanhood, 39 and family wage, 375 and homesteaders, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920,211-12 and women's sphere, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 288 Culture Italian, and housing conditions, Buffalo (NY), early-20th century, 323 preservation of, and Mexican-American women, El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 231-32 Curran, A J . , on lawlessness of miners' wives, 490 Dan River Mill, strike, 1930, 523 Dance-hall girls, Cripple Creek (CO), 1901-02, 295-96 Dance halls, and Mexican-American women. El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 238 Darvels, Judy, 99 Daughters 1940, 556 age of German-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 154 (graph) Irish-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 150 (graph) and family income, at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 275-76 dutiful, as archetype, 543 employment patterns as collar workers, Trov (NY), 1860-90, 170

INDEX

655

immigrant, and wages, Providence (RI), 424 Italian-American, occupations of, New York City, 1880 and 1905, 333, 334 (table), 335 Jewish, wage-earning, Portland (OR), 1920, 471, 472 (table) Mexican-American, and cannery work, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 603-04 native-bom white, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 147 (graph) of pioneers, gender roles of, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 216

postponement of marriage, relation to family income, 271-72 Russian-Jewish, occupations of, New York City, 1880-1905, 337, 338 (table) support of parents, Great Depression, 556-57 wage-earning Great Depression, 549-52 Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 217 Davidson, Betty, 501 Davidson, Hannah, 66, experience as slave in Kentucky, 60 Death benefits, union-provided, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 291 Debs, Eugene, 482 Democratic Party and cotton mill management, American South, 1880-1900, 511 women's support of, Cripple Creek (CO), 1900, 298 Demography, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 159-66 Denby, Judy, 99 Detroit, occupations of African-American men, 1880, 248-49 Devine, Edward, on philanthropy, 436 Dillon, Patrick, 201-04 DiLucente, Nicolette, on religious celebrations and immigrants, 366 Discipline. See also Punishments at cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 507, 510 parental, in canneries, New York, early-20th century, 320-21 Discrimination. See Ethnic discrimination; Gender discrimination; Racial discrimination Divorce. See also Broken homes; Divorced women; Marital desertions; Marital separations; Marriage and Iroquois Indians, 7 Cripple Creek (CO), 1899-1901, 297 Great Depression, 553-54 in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 513 Divorced women, wage-earning, 1890-1940, 567 (table) Dizenfeld, Eva, on immigrant community, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 363-64 DofTers, children as, in cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 510

656

INDEX

Domestic science, at cotton mills, American South, 1908, 516 Domestic service. See also Live-in domestic service; Servants 19th century, 119 by emancipated African-Americans, American South, 81 by free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 98, 99 by German-Americans, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 153, 155 by Irish-Americans Buffalo(NY), 1855, 149-52 New York City, 1880, 331 by Mexican-American women, EI Paso (TX), 1889, 1910, 1920, 235 (table), 236 by native-born white women, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 147 by slaves, 1830-60, 68-73 by women. Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 286 for Jewish families, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 458, 466 (table) working-class view of, 173 Domesticity, and family wage, 375 Douglass, Frederick, 4, 46 DuBois, W.E.B. on slave women, 49 sexual abuse of, by white men, 55 Duncan, Mack, on cotton mill owners, 507, 509 Durham, Eula, on electricity in the cotton mill, 520 Durham (NC), cotton mill strike, 1934, 533 Dyer, George, on quitting as solution to cotton mill working conditions, 512 East European-Jews. See also Russian-Jewish women families and community networks. Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 407-28 Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 460-70 occupations, 1900, 459 (table) Economics. See also Family income; Family wage; Income; Wages and Bemba women, 3-19 and families, Southern Italy, 19th century, 315-16 and Iroquois women, 3-19 and Italian-American women, New York City, 1880-1905, 330-42 and Jews, Pale of Settlement, laie-19th century, 410-13 and Mexican-American women's decision to work, Albuquerque (NM), 630, 632 and Native American women, Pacific Northwest, early-19th century, 20-31 and Russian-Jewish women, New York City, 1880-1905, 330-42 household as primary structure, Southern Italy, late-19th century, 409-10

INDEX

657

Edmonds, Mildred, on cotton mill management, 509 Education. See also Literacy; Schools and married women's labor force participation, 1940-60, 586, 592 of children in canneries, New York, early-20th century, 321-22 of daughters Great Depression, 550-51 Italian-American, New York City, 1880-1905, 335 Russian-Jewish, New York City, 1880-1905, 338-39 union-provided, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 292 El Paso (TX), Mexican-American women, 1880-1920, 224-46 EI Paso & Southwestern Railroad, laundry strike support, El Paso (TX), 1919, 241 El Paso Laundry, and Mexican-American women employees, 236 El Paso Overall Company, and Mexican-American women workers, 237, 239 The elderly African-American women, urban areas, American South, 1880-1900, 397-406 slave women, and work, 1830-60, 73-74 slaves, 1830-60, 79-81 women, supported by families, Great Depression, 556-57 Elections, 1899, Cripple Creek (CO), 298-99 Electronics industry and Mexican-American wage-earning women, Albuquerque(NM), 630-33 women's labor force participation, Albuquerque(NM), 1970, 629 Elite Laundry, and Mexican-American wage-earning women, 236, 239 Elizabethton (TN), rayon plant strike, 1929, 523, 525 Ellington, Harvey, on musicians in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 506 Elliott, Sarah, 99 Elsing, William T., on starvation, 1895, 429 Ely, Richard, on families of wage-earning women, 186 Emancipation of slaves. See also Manumission; Self-purchase age at time of, Petersburg (VA), 98 (table) and work, 81-82 Emasculation, of slave men, and unstable African-American families, 247 Willard, Emma School, 168 Employee benefits. See also Death benefits; Life insurance; Sick benefits at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 264 at cotton mills, 57 American South, 1908, 515-17 of Mexican-American married women in electronics and garment industries, 632-33

658

INDEX

union-provided. Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 291-92 Employers and working class, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 286-87 of dance-hall girls, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 296 Employers Association of Detroit, and resistance to unions, 384 England, industrialization and separation of work and family, 115-17 Epidemics and Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, 1830 and 1836, 30 influenza, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1918, 213 Ervin, Lois, 217-18 Escobar, Carmen Bernal, 614, 617 (photograph) on assembly line at California Sanitary Canning Company, 607-08 Ethnic discrimination, and Italian-Americans, Buffalo (NY), early-20th century, 314 Ethnic groups. See Immigrants Ethnic stereotypes, of immigrant women, 1880-1924 , 343-54 Ethnicity and age of textile workers, Cohoes (NY), 1860, 191 (table) and birth rates, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 163 and family size, Cohoes (NY), 1880, 197 and household size, Pittsburg (KS), 1908, 480 and manriage patterns, Cohoes (NY) and Union Park, (Chicago), 1880, 196 (table) and occupational distribution of married Russian-Jewish and Italian-American women, New York City, 1880-1905, 337 and workers' adjustment to industrial life, 269 child-woman ratio for whites by, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 164-65 (table) of cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), 1860 and 1880, 189 (table), 190 (table), 191, 193 (table) Europe. See also England; Germany; Italy exclusion of women from medical profession, 16th century, 35 Evangelicalism, and cotton mill workers, American South, 1880-1940, 506 Evitt, Alice, on community policing in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 504 Excelsior Laundry, use of strikebreakers, in laundry strike, El Paso (TX), 1919, 244-45 Exchange theory, and relationship between work and family, 122-23 Exogamy and Native Americans Iroquois rules of, 7 Pacific Northwest, early-19th century, 22

INDEX

659

and slavery, 1830-60, 75 Extended families Cohoes (NY), 1880, 198 (table) male-headed German-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 145 Irish-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 141 native-born white, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 137-38 skilled workers, Atlanta, 1880, 251 (table) Mexican-American, El Paso (TX), 1900, 226, 227 (table), 228 Factories. See also Canneries; Cotton mills Amoskeag Manufacturing Company and French-Canadian families, 1910-36, 259-83 and German-American women. New York City, 1880s, 331 and immigrants. Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 417 and Italian-Americans, Buffalo (NY), early-20th century, 313-29 architecture of, Glencoe (NC), 506 relationship to community and families of cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 183-209 Russian-Jewish husbands' view of wives working in. New York City, 1880-1905, 337 Factory girls National Federation of Settlements Handbook on, 336 view of, Cohoes (NY), 1857, 188 Failing School, and Jewish family employment, Portland (OR), 470,471 (table) Fair Labor Standards Act, 616 and wage differential between American North and American South, 536-37 Fall River (MA), budget analysis of working class, 1908,448 Families. See Augmented families; Broken homes; Consanguine families; Extended families; Family budget studies; Family economy; Family histories; Family income; Family wage; Homes; Households; Kinship; Nuclear families Family budget studies, and married working-class women as good managers, 1895-1915, 429-50 Family economy and Mexican-Americans cannery workers, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 603 wage-earning, married women, Albuquerque (NM), 631 working-class, and Great Depression, 539-65 Family histories, of African-American women, 543-53

660

INDEX

Family income 1929, 1935-36, 568 (tables), 569 and children at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 274-76 and Irish-American child labor in Harmony Mills, Gilded Age, 190 and postponement of marriage, 271-72 mining districts, 476-77 of Italian-Americans and daughters' contributions. New York City, 1880-1905, 335 New York City, 1880 and 1905, 333 of Mexican-Americans Albuquerque (NM), 1979, 631 El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 228 of pioneers, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 216-18 Southern Italy, late-19th century, 410 working-class, New York City, 1909, 444 Family wage, 438, 4 4 0 ^ 3 and family budget studies, 1890-1920, 432, 434 and Ford Motor Company, 371-96 and Italian-Americans in canneries, New York, early-20th century, 317-22 and standards of living, 447 and Western Federation of Miners, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 288-90 Fanon, Franz, on Algerian women, 55 Farmers, impoverishment of, and industrialization, 497, 499, 501 Farming and children, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 215-16 and industrialization, 118 by Bemba people and Iroquois Indians, 9-13 role of slaves, American South, 1830-60, 62-65 Southern Italy, late-19th century, 410, 412 Fashion and Native American women, Pacific Northwest, 27 and textile industry, 1920s, 517 Fathers Italian-American, and child care, New York, early-20th century, 318 role in childrearing, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 215 role in slave quarters, 1830-60, 76-77 Southern Italy, 19th century, 315 Faucette, Don, 503 Faucette, Ethel, on spare time in cotton mills, 510 Faucette, Paul, 503, 505-06 Female-headed households 1940, 556

INDEX

661

African-American, 95-96 1880, 252 Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 107-08 post-Civil War period, 81 Atlanta, 1880, 250 (table), 251 Cohoes (NY), 1880, 184, 198 (table) destitute, 1911, 377 Irish-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 150 (graph), 152 native-born white, Buffalo (NY), 1955, 147 (graph), 148 Femme sole, colonial period, 3 Fenians, 204 Fertility rates. See Birth rates Finley, Sam and unionization of Marion Manufacturing Company, 527 on class conflict, Marion (NC), 527 on community resources during strikes, 525 on efficiency monitoring in cotton mills, American South, 1920s, 521 Finnish Women's Cooperative Home, 350 First Hebrew Benevolent Society, 455 Fishing, for salmon, and Native American women. Pacific Northwest, 28-29 Five dollar day, and Ford Motor Company, 371-96 Fletcher, F.B. on Mexican-American laundresses dismissal of, 240-41 wages of, 243 Flood, Polly, apprenticeship of, 99 Florida, resistance to slavery, 1816, 53 Flu. See Influenza Flying squadrons, and cotton mill strike, American South, 1934, 532-33 Fodorovich, Anna, on immigrant neighborhood, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 365 Folk medicine, in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 505 Food and Bemba people, 12-16 and Iroquois Indians, 12-16 Native American women's control over, Pacific Northwest, 25-26 Ford Motor Company, and family wage, 371-96 Fort Worth, wages of laundry workers, 1919, 242 Franchere, Gabriel, 27 French-Canadians and Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 259-83 and industrial homework by children. Providence (RI), 1918, 417

662

INDEX

cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 183-209 Friedlander, Cecilie, and Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society, 455 Friendly visitors and budget studies, 1890-1920, 430 and poverty, 435 New York City, 437 Friendships among immigrant women, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 363-64 among women, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 219 Fugitive slaves, 51. See also Maroons Functionalism, and separation of work and family life, 116-17 Fur trade, and economic role of Native American women, Pacific Northwest, early-19th century, 20-31 Gallé, Amelia, 99, 105 and estate of Jean Gallé, 101-02 Gallé, Jean, 105 estate of, 101 Gallie, Eliza, arrest for theft, 93-94 Galveston (TX), wages of laundry workers, 1919, 242 Galveston, Houston & San Antonio Railroad, support of laundry strike, El Paso (TX), 1919, 241 Gambling, suppression of, as campaign issue, Cripple Creek, 1899, 298 Gardening, in cotton mill villages, as subsistence activity, American South, 1880-1940, 503 Garment industry and Italian-American women, New York City, 1880-1924, 333, 349 Mexican-American wage-earning women, and kinship, Albuquerque (NM), 630-33 women's labor force participation, Albuquerque (NM), 1970, 629 Gastonia (NC), cotton workers' strike, 523 Gender. See also Men; Women and marriage patterns, Cohoes (NY) and Union Park (Chicago), 1880, 196 (table) and occupational distribution of married Russian-Jewish and Italian-American women, New York City, 1880-1905, 337 Gender. . . See also Sex. . . Gender discrimination by Ford Motor Company, Jane Addams on, 385 in hiring African-American women. Great Depression, 558 in wages of teachers, 1880s, 37

INDEX

663

Gender division of labor and French-Canadian immigrant families of Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 275 and homesteaders, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920,214-16 and Mexican-Americans Albuquerque (NM), 634-35 El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 230 and slaves, 1830-60, 62-73, 76-84 in canneries, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 604, 606 in mining districts, 478 of Bemba people and Iroquois Indians, 99-11 Gender roles and homesteading, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1783-1920,210-23 and Iroquois Indians, 9-11 and Italian-Americans, in canneries, New York, early-20th century, 318 and social class, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 284-312 of Jews, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 454-55 Gender stereotypes. See Cult of true womanhood General Electric Company, 520 Georgia. See also Atlanta; Augusta (GA); St. Andrew's Parish (GA) martial law and cotton mill strike, 1934, 533 German-American men life cycles of, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 143-46 population, birth rates, and marriage, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 161 German-American women and factory work. New York City, 1880, 331 life cycles of, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 153-55 German-Jews, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 453-60 Germany. See entries beginning German. . . Gerringer, Carrie, on Ida Jane Smith, 505 Giambelli Hall, debut of Antonietta Pisanelli Allesandro, 344 Gibbon, James, relationship to Betsy Atkinson, 97 Gibbs, George, on fashion and Native American women, 27 Gilbert, Lewis, on Mexican-American homes, 229 Gilded Age, women cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), 183-209 Giles, W.A., on employee benefits, 516 Glaster Nut Company union organizing for United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, 615 Glencoe (NC) factory architecture, 506

664

INDEX

harvest in cotton mill villages, 1880-1940, 503 Glenn, Josephine, on turnover at cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940,512 El Globo Department Store, 237 Goldsmith, Mrs. Bernard, and Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society, 455 Gompers, Samuel, on family wage, 374 Gorman, Francis and cotton mill strike, American South, 1934, 532 on John G. Winant and mediation board for cotton mill strike, American South, 1934, 535 Grandberry, Mary Ella, on being a slave child, 70 Grandy, Moses, on punishment for pregnant slave women, 50 Graves, Elizabeth and Richmond, and Richmond's estate, 101 Great Depression and working-class women, 539-65 middle-income family life, and wage-earning women, 566-80 Green, Esther Bernstein on immigration to U.S., 359-60 on supplementing immigrant family's income, 361-62 Gregory, Catherine, 101 Grubinsky, Mary, as immigrant woman, 351-52 Hall, Nancy, 100 Hall, Orrin and performance of women's work, 216 and Ruth Orrin, 218 Hamilton, Alexander, 330 Handicrafts. See also Baskets and Native American women. Pacific Northwest, 26 Handsome Lake, and Iroquois rule of hospitality, 13-14 Hapgood, Hutchins, on Jewish section of New York City, 1902, 348 Hargett, Edna, 503, 523 and love offerings, 504 on husband's quitting as solution to cotton mill working conditions, 512 Harmony Mills Company, cotton workers and families, Gilded Age, 183-209 Harris, Amanda, 80 Harvest, in cotton mill villages, Glencoe (NC), 1880-1940, 503 Hasidism, 413 Haskaalah, 413 Haskell, Henry J., on women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 487 Hats, produced by Native American women, Pacific Northwest, 26

INDEX

665

Haw River Mill, strike, 1900, 511 Hayes, Mary, 218 Healers, Ida Jane Smith as, 505, 509 Healey, Dorothy Ray, 618 and California Sanitary Canning Company, 610-11, 614 Hebrew Benevolent Society, and transportation of Jews to Portland, 464 Helpmates and cult of true womanhood, 212 pioneer women as, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 216 Henderson (NC), cotton mill strike, 1927, 523 Hernández, Isabel, 240 Hernández, Manuela, 240 wages at Acme Laundry, 239 High Point (NC), textile mills sympathy strike with hosiery workers, 1932,523 Highland Park Mill cooking school as employee benefit, 517 village, 503 Hinman, Luke, 614 Hiring out system, and slaves, Petersburg (VA), 97 Hiring policies. See also Recruitment of Ford Motor Company, 382-83, 385-86 Hoffman, Alfred and American Federation of Hosiery Workers, 523 and Lawrence Hogan as union organizer, 527 Hog killing, in cotton mill villages, Glencoe (NC), 1880-1940, 503 Hogan, Lawrence, as union organizer, 527-28 Homemakers. See also Housework subsistence production, Great Depression, 548 Homes. See also Families; Homemakers; Households; Long houses interiors of, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 290 of Mexican-Americans, El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 229 ownership of by Ford Motor Company employees, 386 by German-American men, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 145 by Irish-American men, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 141-42 by native-bom white men, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 138 Homestead (PA) budget analysis of working class, 440-44 Mary Vasil on City Fami Lane as neighborhood, 364 Homesteading, and gender roles, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 210-23

666

INDEX

Hooten, Margaret, role in Cripple Creek (CO) strike, 1903, 300-01 Hopkins, Eva, 509 Hopkins, Richard, 487 Hospitality and Bemba people, 15 and Iroquois Indians, 13-14 as pioneer women's work, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 212 Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, 294 strike, wages for temporary help, Cripple Creek (CO), 1902, 295 Hours of work. See Working hours Households. See also Broken homes; Female-headed households; Homes; Male-headed households and elderly African-American women, American South, 1880-1900, 400-02 and family structure, Cohoes (NY), 1880, 198-201 as economic units, 19th century, 119 headed by free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 108 immigrant, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 133-58 Jewish, and servants, Portland (OR), 1900, 466 (table) one and two parents, Atlanta, 1880, 250 size of, and ethnicity, Pittsburg (KS), 1908,480 working-class married women as good managers of, 1895-1915, 429-50 size of, South Bend (IN), 1930-32, 554-55 Housework. See also Domestic service; Homemakers; Homes; Households and family's economic survival, 376 and immigrant women, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 359 and Mexican-American homemakers. El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 228 and working-class women, Great Depression, 542 as women's work, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 215 by slave women, 1830-60, 68-71 gender division of labor, and Mexican-Americans, Albuquerque (NM), 634-35 in slave quarters, 1830-60, 76 time spent on, by married women, 1920 and 1970s, 120 Housing, conditions for Italian-Americans, Buffalo (NY), early-20th century, 323 Houston, wages of laundry workers, 1919, 242 Howat, Alexander, 487, 489 and coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 483-84 Howe, P.L., 487 Hudson's Bay Company, 23-24 role of Native American women in salmon curing, Pacific Northwest, 29

INDEX

667

Hull, Polly, 106 Hull City Placer Mine, industrial hazards in, 290-91 Hull House, 345. See also Addams, Jane Hull House Maps and Papers, on importance of unpaid contributions of women and children to family income, 376 Human reproduction. See also Childbirth; Pregnancy as commodity production, 19th century, 120 Hunter, Robert, on victims of poverty, 436 Hunting and Iroquois Indians, 9, 14-15 by slave men for slave families, 1830-60, 76 Hurston, Zora Neale, 58 Husbands and wives' age differences, Cohoes (NY), 1880, 197 (table) Bemba, power of, 9 emancipated African-American, and gender division of labor, post-Civil War, 82 German-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, by age, 144 (graph) income of and married women's labor force participation, 1940-60, 585, 587, 592 by labor force status, 1940, 576 (table) Italian-American occupations, New York City, 1880-1905, 332 (table) Jewish age of in relation to wife's age, Portland (OR), 1880-1900,461 (table) East European-Jewish, Portland (OR), 1900, 462 Russian-Jewish occupations of, New York City, 1880 and 1905, 336 (table), 337 view of factory work for wives. New York City, 1880-1905, 337 occupations of, by labor force status, 1940, 577 (table), 578 slave, role in slave quarters, 76-77 social class and gender roles, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 284-312 unemployment of, and married women's labor force participation, Great Depression, 553 Illegitimacy, Polish-Amcrican, and housing, Buffalo (NY), early-20th century, 323 Illinois. See Chicago Illness. See also Contagious diseases; Pellagra and pioneer women, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920,212-13

668

INDEX

Immigrant women. See also Arabic-American women; German-American women; Irish-American women; Italian-American women; MexicanAmerican women; Russian-Jewish women; Slavic-American women 1880-1924, 343-54 and Carnegie Libraries, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 358 and childbirth, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 366 as mill girls. New England, 38 married wage-earning, San Antonio (TX), 545-46 mining districts, Kansas, 1908, 479 Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 355-90 wage-earning at home. Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 416 Immigrants. See also French-Canadians; Immigrant women; Irish-Americans; Italian-Americans; Polish-Americans; Slovak-Americans; Welsh-Americans and coal mining, 479 family and community networks. Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 407-28 households size and ethnicity, Pittsburg (KS), 1908, 480 structure, Buffalo, 1855, 133-58 population, birth rates, and marriage, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 161 (table) Income. See also Family income child-woman ratio for whites by, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 164-65 (table) loss of, and emancipation of slaves, Virginia, 97 middle, and wage-earning women. Great Depression, 566-80 of households with elderly African-American women, American South, 1880-1900, 402 of husband, and married women's labor-force participation, 1940-60, 585 of married couples, by labor-force status, 1940, 576 (table) of wage-earning women. Great Depression, 577 relation to standard of living of working class, New York City, 1909,445-47 Indian chiefs, Iroquois, and women's role in choice of, 6 Indiana. See South Bend Industrial accidents Crawford County (KS) coal mines, 1920, 481 death of Henry King from, 291 Industrial hazards of gold mining, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 290-91 safety standards at Ford Motor Company, 383 Industrial homework by collar workers, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 168, 170 by immigrant women and children, Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 416-17

INDEX

669

by Italian-American women, New York City, 1880-1905,324-25,331,333,337 by married Russian-Jewish women, New York City, 1880-1905, 337 Industrial management family role in, Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 264 in cotton mills American South 1880-1900, 506-07, 509-11 1920s, 522-23 Industrial Relations Act, Court of, 483 Industrial Removal Office, and disconnected Jewish families, 462-63 Industrial slavery, condemned by women marching in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 484 Industrial towns. See also Mill villages and family life, Manchester (NH), 1910-36, 259-83 Industrial Workers of the World and laundry strike, El Paso (TX), 1919, 244 and mining districts, Crawford County (KS), 482 organizing efforts, and Ford Motor Company's five dollar day, 381, 383-85 Industrialization and birth rates, 124-25 and farming, 118, 497, 499, 501 and French-Canadian families, Manchester (NH), 1910-36, 259-83 and separation of home and work, 115-17 and status of women, 37-41 impact on wage-earning Mexican-American women, Albuquerque (NM), 625-38 Italy, 412 Infant mortality, among Mexican-Americans, El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 230 Influenza, epidemic, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1918, 213 Ingersoll, Mary, and Josephine Humpel Zeman, 345 Inheritances. See also Last wills and testaments of Iroquois Indians, 7 Installment buying. See also Credit systems Great Depression, 573-74 Intermarriage, and cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), 1880, 197 International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and California Sanitary Canning Company strike, 1939, 612 International Harvester Company, employee benefits, 384 International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and Rose Pesotta, 345-46 International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers of Metcalf, Arizona, 243

670

INDEX

Interracial marriages between white men and free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 17841820, 105 between whites and Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, 23 Irish-American men life cycles of, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 139-43 occupations of, Boston, 1850, 248, 249 (table) Irish-American women and collar work, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 170, 172-73, 177 in domestic service, New York City, 1880, 331 life cycles of, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 149-53 Irish-Americans cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 183-209 household size, Pittsburg (KS), 1908, 480 labor community and collar laundresses, Troy (NY), 174-75 population, birth rates, and marriage, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 161 (table) Iron Molders' Union, and women collar workers, Troy (NY), 168, 175 Iroquois Indians, status of women, 3-19 Italian-American women economic roles of. New York City, 1880-1905, 3 3 0 ^ 2 Jane Addams on, 351 Pittsburgh, 1900-45, 355-70 wage-eaming, New York City, 1880-1924, 349 Italian-Americans. See also Italian-American women and work, Buffalo, early-20th century, 313-29 families of Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 360-61 Providence (RI), 407-28, 542-43 Italy. See also entries beginning Italian-American. . .; Southern Italy industrialization of, 412 IWW. See Industrial Workers of the World Jackson, Aggy, 99 Jackson, Amy, self-purchase, 1819, 97 Jacksonian period, status of women, 32-43 Jacobs, Harriet, on sexual abuse of slave women by while men, 71 James, Molly, and Nathan James, 106 Jeffers, John, and manumission of Sylvia Jeffers, 1814, 96 JefTers, Sylvia, manumission of, 1814, 96 Jewish Shelter Home (Portland, OR), 473 Jewish Welfare Federation, 464

INDEX

671

Jewish women and socialism and zionism, Eastern Europe, 348 boycott of kosher meat, Providence (RI), 1910, 422-23 life cycles of, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 451-74 Pittsburgh, 1900-45, 355-70 Jews. See also German-Jews; Jewish women; Russian-Jewish women cannery workers, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 605-06 families of. Providence (RI), 542-43 work of, Pale of Settlement, late-19th century, 410-12 Joan of Arc Assembly, 168 and collar laundresses strike, 1886, 176 Johnson, Emil, suicide of, 301 Johnson, Pauline, on father's fumiiure making, 76 Johnston, Miliy, 106 Jones, Louise, 503, 505 Jones, Mother, 482 JordanofT, Dianna, on childbirth, 366 Kalapuya Indians, 23 Kanal, John, 202 Kansas. See also Crawford County (KS); Pittsburg (KS) labor disputes and strikes, legislation, 1920, 483 Kansas Court of Industrial Relations, 483 Kedzie, Nellie, and labor unions, 295 Keegan, Esther, on working conditions for women collar workers, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 173 Kelley, Florence, on family support by men, 376 Kemble, Fanny, on pregnant slave women, 61 Kensington (Philadelphia), budget analysis of working class, 1913,448-49 Kentucky Hannah Davidson on her experience as slave, 60 slave women and farming, 1830-60, 63 Kiev, economic restrictions on Jews, late-19th century, 411 King, Henry, and death from mining accident, 291 Kinship. See also Families and African-American family history, 544 and East European-Jews, Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 409 and economic support, Great Depression, 558 and Edgar Moore as mill superintendent, 509 and French-Canadians, Amoskeag Manufacturing Company 1910-36, 267-70 and geographical mobility of immigrant workers, 268

672

INDEX

and immigrants. Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 414-15,417-18 and Italian-Americans, Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 409 and Mexican-Americans cannery workers, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 604-05 women in garment industry, Albuquerque (NM), 630-33 and migration of families to cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 502 and Native American women's power, Pacific Northwest, early-19th century, 22 between slaves and white men, and manumission, Petersburg (VA), 96-97 group membership and Iroquois matrons, 7 Knights οΓ Labor, 610 and collar laundresses strike, 1886, 176 and cotton mill workers, American South, 1880s and 1890s, 511 Joan of Arc Assembly, 168 Kohlberg Cigar Factory, and Mexican-American women employees, 237 Kosher butchers, boycott by Jews, Providence (RI), 1910, 422-23 Labor. See also Child labor; Work. . . of women and children, and industrialization, 37-41 slave, age and division of, 1830-60, 68-69, 73-84 Labor conditions. See Working conditions Labor-force participation by Jews, under 19, Portland (OR), 1905-15, 469 (table) by married women 1940-60, 582, 583 (table), 584-85, 592 danger of, 376-77 Great Depression, 552-53 by women, 625-26 and American Federation of Labor, 375 in electronics industry, Albuquerque (NM), 1970, 629 Labor management. See Industrial management Labor pirating, and cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 514-15 Labor-saving devices. See also Sewing machines; Washing machines in cotton mills, American South, 1920s, 519-21 Labor strikes. See Strikes Labor turnover and Ford Motor Company's five dollar day, 381-83, 385 in cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 514 Labor unions. See American Federation of Hosiery Workers; American Federation of Labor; Central Labor Union; Congress of Industrial Organizations; Cooks and Waiters Union; Cripple Creek Federal Labor

INDEX

673

Union; Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union; International Brotherhood of Teamsters; International Ladies Garment Workers Union; International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers of Metcalf, Arizona; Iron Molders' Union; Knights of Labor; Laundry Drivers' Union; Laundry Workers' Union; National Textile Workers Union; National Trades Union; National Union of Textile Workers; Typographical Union; Victor Miners' Union; Women's Trade Union League of New York and coal mining, Pittsburg (KS), 481-82 and collar work, 1864, 168 and cotton workers, Harmony Mills Company, 1858, 187-88 and family wage demands, 373 recognition of, and labor action, Cohoes (NY), 1880s, 185 role of Mexican-American women, EI Paso (TX), 240-46 women's labor unions Troy (NY), 1860-90, 175 Labor violence cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), 1880s, 184-85 women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921,484-87 Ladies, as class distinction, 38-39 Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society, 454-56, 473-74 Lafitau, Joseph, S J . , on superiority of Iroquois women, 5 Land distribution of, and family unity, 121-22 ownership of, and Bemba people and Iroquois Indians, 11-12 Land League, 204 Langdon, Emma, role in Cripple Creek strike, 1903, 301-02 Larcom, Lucy, 188 Larrazoio, O.A., on agitators, 244 Last wills and testaments. See also Inheritances and manumission, 98 of James Vaughan, 106 Laundresses, Mexican-American women employed as, El Paso (TX), 1889, 1910, 1920, 235 (table), 236, 238-46 Laundry, and slave women, 1830-60, 74 Laundry Drivers' Union, and laundry strike, El Paso, 1919, 245 Laundry Workers' Union and laundry strike. El Paso (TX), 1919, 240-46 wages. Cripple Creek (CO), 1900, 295 Law enforcement, and women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 488-89 Lee, John R., on Ford Motor Company's hiring, 382-83, 385

674

INDEX

Legislation child labor, New Hampshire, 1905, 274 labor, 616 Kansas, 483, 490 manumissions, Virginia, 1806,94 medical licensing, early- 19th century, 35 Lewis, Augusta, on women collar workers, 170 Lewis, John L., and coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 484 Liberty Bonds, and industrial homework by children in school, Providence (RI), 1918,417 Licensing, of medical profession, 35 Life cycles. See also Age; Birth rates; Marital status and household structure of immigrants, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 133-58 of Jewish women, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 451-74 of women collar workers, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 169-72 Life insurance, union-provided, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 291 Literacy. See also Education American South, 1920s, 527 child-woman ratio for whites by, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 163-65 (table) Lithuanian Women's Alliance, 350 Litton, A.W., letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 531 Live-in domestic service and German-American women, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 153 and Irish-American women, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 149-50 Living conditions, of cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 204-05 Loans. See also Credit systems and Jewish mutual aid societies, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 455 Lockouts. See also Strikes collar laundresses, Troy (NY), 1886, 176 Loewenberg, Ida, 473 Logan County (CO), homesteading and gender roles, 1873-1920, 210-23 Long houses, of Iroquois Indians, 7-8 Los Angeles, Mexican-American women cannery workers, 1939-45, 601-24 Louisiana. See also New Orleans Maroon resistance to slavery, 52-53 punishment for slave revolt, 1732, 52 Love, J. Spencer and college-trained supervisors for cotton mills, 522 and profitability and labor control, 518 Love offerings, in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 504 Lynn (MA), families and labor struggles, 177

INDEX

675

Mabry, Susan, 62 Madame Betsy. See Allerque, Elizabeth Madden, Walter, assault on, 487 Magazines. See Women's magazines Malaria, epidemic and Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, 1830, 30 Male-headed households age of native-bom white men as Buffalo (NY), 1855, 136 (graph), 137 Atlanta, 1880, 250 (table) German-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 144-45 Irish-American, by age, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 140 (graph) occupations of, Atlanta, 1880, 251 Manchester (NH), French-Canadian immigrant workers and Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 259-83 Manufacturers. See also Employers and cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 502, 506-07, 509-11 and employee benefits for cotton workers, American South, 1908, 515-17 resistance to United Textile Workers in cotton mills, American South, 518 wage practices in cotton mills, after National Industrial Recovery Act, 529-30 Manumissions, 94. See also Self-purchase and kinship of slaves and white men, Petersburg (VA), 96-98 of son by Betty Call, 99 Marion Manufacturing Company, unionization of, 1920s, 527 Marion (NC), cotton workers' strike, 523 Marital.... See also Marriage. . .; Married. . . Marital desertions. Great Depression, 553-54 Marital fidelity, value of to Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, 29 Marital separations. See also Separated women and Iroquois Indians, 7 Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 297 Great Depression, 553 Marital status. See also Divorced women; Husbands; Married women; Single. . .; Widows of wage-earning women 1890-1940, 567 (table) collar workers, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 169-70 cotton workers, Harmony Mills Company, Gilded Age, 188 Maroons. See also Fugitive slaves and resistance to slavery, 51 -53 Marriage. See also Divorce; Exogamy; Intermarriage; Interracial marriages; Marital. . .; Married. . .

676

INDEX

1850-80, 161 (table) age at, of Jewish women, Portland (OR), 1900, 463 (table) and birth rates, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 159-66 and East European-Jews, 460-62 and free African-American women Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 104-07 and German-Americans, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 144, 153-54 and Irish-Americans, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 141, 151 and Jews, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 454 and Native Americans George Simpson on, 23 role of Iroquois mothers in, 7 value of virginity to, Pacific Northwest, 29 and native-born whites, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 137, 147-48 and slaves, 72 Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 107 delay of and industrial work, 271-72 Great Depression, 551 working-class and middle class patterns of, Cohoes (NY) and Union Park (Chicago), 1880, 195-97 Married couples. See also Husbands; Marital. . .; Married women Jewish, age of, Portland (OR), 1880-1900, 461 (table) Mexican-American, gender division of household labor, Albuquerque (NM), 635 occupations of, by labor-force status, 1940, 577 (table) pioneer, consumption patterns of, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 218 wage-earning Russian-Jews, occupations of, New York City, 1880 and 1905, 336 (table), 337 Married women 1940,556 African-American emancipated, and gender division of labor, post-Civil War, 82 living arrangements of, American South, 1880, 400 (table), 401 wage-eaming, San Antonio, 545-46 and husbands' age differences of cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), 1880, 197 (table) East European-Jewish, Portland (OR), 1900, 462 gender roles and social class. Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 284-312 German-American, Buffalo, 1855, 154 (graph) German-Jewish, 1900, 456

INDEX

677

hiring policy of Ford Motor Company, 385-86 immigrant wage-earning, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 360 income of by labor-force status, 1940, 576 (table) Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 217 Irish-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 150 (graph) Iroquois, matrons' power, 6-8 Jewish age at marriage, Portland (OR), 1900, 463 (table) age of in relation to husband's age, Portland (OR), 1880-1900,461 (table) birth rates of, Portland (OR), 1900, 465 (table) labor-force participation 1940-60, 585 dangers of, 376-77 Great Depression, 552-53 Mexican, accompanying husbands to U.S., 1911, 225-26 Mexican-American wage-earning and industrialization, Albuquerque (NM), 625-38 El Paso, 1880-1920, 233-34 work of, El Paso, 1880-1920, 228-33 mining districts, 476-78 pioneer, and gender roles, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1783-1920, 210-23 property of colonial period, 33 Virginia, 1784-1820, 104 Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 218 wage-earning 1940, 575-79 1940-60, 582, 583 (table), 584 French-Canadian, at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 265, 272-73 immigrant, Pittsburgh, 1900-45, 360 Italian-American, New York City, 1880, 331 Russian-Jewish, New York City, 1880-1905, 335-37 Great Depression, 545, 566-69 work of, 19th century, 119-20 working-class, as good managers, 1895-1915, 429-50 Martial law and cotton mill strike, Georgia, 1934, 533

678

INDEX

Cripple Creek, 1903, 299-300 Marx, Karl, on slave labor, Al Maryland medical licensing, 1801, 35 slave women's role in arson, 1776, 52 women's march to support strike, 1894, 477 Massachusetts. See Boston; Fall River (MA); Lynn (MA) Matriarchies. See also Patriarchies and African-Americans, 247 Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 93-114 and slave women, 44-57 Matrilineality, and Bemba and Iroquois women, 3-19 Matrons Bemba and Iroquois, and distribution of food, 14-16 Iroquois women as, 5-8 malleable, as archetype, 543 Matthews, Peter, and Jane Gook, 105 May Laws of 1882, and migration of East European-Jews, 462 Mayor's court, Petersburg (VA), trial of Eliza Gallie for theft, 1853, 93-94 McCorkle, Hoyle on class conflict in Charlotte (NC), 527 on Highland Park mill village, Charlotte (NC), 503 McDonald, Sarah, 213 McDougall, Duncan, and marriage to Illchee Concomly, 23 McFarland, Hannah, on father's protection of mother from slave patrols, 77 McLoughlin, John, on independence of Native Americans, 24 Media. See also Newspapers; Radio; Women's magazines treatment of women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 485-88 Medical profession. See also Folk medicine; Midwives; Nursing exclusion of women from, early-19th century, 35-36 practiced by slaves, 1830-60, 80 women in, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 286 Meier & Frank and Lipman-Wolfe & Company, 458 Men. See also African-American men; German-American men; Family wage; Irish-American men; Mexican-American men; White men ability to support families, 438, 440-43 1890-1920, 432, 434 Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 288-90 and cult of true womanhood, 211-12 as midwives, 36

INDEX

679

assuming women's duties, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 213 authority of, and African-American families, 95 cannery workers, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 606-08 homesteaders' work, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 215 labor militancy of, compared to women collar workers, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 172 middle-class, occupations of and birth rates, 19th century, 124 reactions to women's labor unions, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 175 social class and gender roles, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 284-312 textile workers, 1860 and cotton workers, 1880, ethnicity of, 189 (table) Merrie Minglers Sewing Club, 214 Mesabi Iron Range, women's march to support strike, 1894, 477 Mexican-American men view of wage-earning mamed women, 233 Mexican-American women El Paso, 1880-1920, 224-46 married wage-earning impact of industrialization on, Albuquerque (NM), 625-38 San Antonio, 545-46 working in canneries, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 601-24 Michigan. See Detroit Middle class family and work, Victorian period, 118 gender roles and working-class families, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 284-312 marriage patterns, Union Park (Chicago), 1880, 195-97 men, occupations of and birth rates, 19th century, 124 view of poverty, 1890-1920, 429 women, and industrialization, 38-39 Middlemen, Jews as, Eastern Europe, late-19th century, 412-13 Midwives, 35-36 and free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 99 Madlena Riggsbee as, 505 Migrant workers, Italian-American, in canneries, New York, early-20th century, 316-25 Migration of East European-Jews, 460, 462 of elderly African-American women to urban areas, American South, 1880-1900, 397-406 of families to cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 502 of Jews and Italians to U.S., 409-14

680

INDEX

Militia, use of in Cripple Creek strike, 1903, 299-300 Mill girls. New England, 38 Mill villages. See also Industrial towns American South, 1880-1940,497-538 Miller, Hall, and Hartwell, ironing machine installation, 1886, 174 Miller, Lucinda, 77 Miller, Mrs. B.M., leuer to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 531 Mine Owners' Association, and Cripple Creek strike, 1903, 299 Miners. See also Coal miners stereotypes of, 476 Minimum wage standards, 377 and National Industrial Recovery Act, 528 and skilled cotton workers, after National Industrial Recovery Act, 529 demanded during cotton mill strike, American South, 1934, 532 for gold miners, Cripple Creek, 1894, 285 legislation, California, 616 Mining. See Coal mining; Gold mining Mining districts homes of, 290 Kansas, 482 Pittsburg (KS), 476-77 social class and gender roles, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 284-312 Minister, Fred and Harriet, and Cripple Creek strike, 1903, 301 Mission Pack Company, union organizing for United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, 615 Mississippi, Maroon resistance to slavery, 1857, 53 Mississippi Valley, Frederick Law Olmsted on slave women, 64 Missouri, resistance to slavery, 1850, 53 Mitchell, Jesse, and properly deeded by Christian Scott, 105-06 Mobility geographical, of immigrant workers, 268 social and immigrant cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 194-95 of Irish-Americans, and politics, 1880, 249 Model T, 527 Modernization, and family, 313-14 Monroe, Day, on improved standards of living by wise spending, 572 Moore, Edgar, as mill superintendent, 509 Moore, Mary, and manumission of Sylvia Jeffers, 1814, 96 Morality and women. Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 295-97

INDEX

681

of Italian-American cannery workers, New York, early-20th century, 323 Moran, William J., and laundry strike. El Paso, 1919, 241 Morena, Daniela, on wages of Mexican-American women, 239 Moreno, Luisa, 613 (photograph), 617 (photograph), 618 and United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America and communism, 609 Local 75, 614-15 deportation of, 619 Morgan, W.H., on deportation of strikers. Cripple Creek (CO), 1903, 301-02 Morris, Betty, 99 Morris, Eva, 216 Mortality rates, sex differential in urban areas, American South, 1880, 398 Mothers French-Canadian, as reserve labor force at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 273 immigrant and timing of return to wage work, Providence (RI), 423 Pittsburgh, 1900-45, 366-67 middle-class, and child care, 120 pioneer, and gender roles, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1783-1920, 210-23 reliance of children for support, Great Depression, 541 slave women, 50 Southern Italy, 19th century, 315 wage-earning 1940-60, 581-600 Mexican-Americans, Albuquerque (NM), 633-36 Mount, Julia Luna, on union organizing at California Sanitary Canning Company, 610-11 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 95 and slave women, 46 Mullaney, Kate, 170-71 Municipal services in barrios, El Paso, 1880-1920, 229-30 Pittsburgh, early-20th century, 357 Musicians, importance in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 505-06 Mutual benefit societies. See also Chevrahs and Jews, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 454-55 immigrants. Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 418-21

682

INDEX

Naming and Iroquois Indians, 7 and slavey, 1830-60, 75-76 National Civic Federation, and employee benefits, 515 National Federation of Settlements Handbook, on factory girls, 336 National Guard, and coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921,482, 489 National Industrial Recovery Act, and cotton industry, American South, 1933, 528-32 National Labor Board, 531-32 National Labor Relations Board, and reprimand of California Sanitary Canning Company, 612 National Resources Committee, income study, 1935-36, 571 National Textile Workers Union, and strike, Gastonia (NC), 523 National Trades Union, condemnation of female labor, 1836, 373 National Union of Textile Workers, and cotton mill workers, 1880s-90s, 511 Native Americans. See also Chinook Indians; Clatsop Indians; Iroquois Indians; Kalapuya Indians interracial marriage to whites, Pacific Northwest, 23 women, and economics, Pacific Northwest, early-19th century, 20-31 Native-born white men life cycle of, Buffalo, 1855, 135-39 Native-born white women in mining districts, Kansas, 1908, 479 life cycles of, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 477-49 married wage-earning, San Antonio (TX), 545-46 Native-born whites. See also Native-bom white men; Native-bom white women and celibacy, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 162 and domestic service, New York City, 1880, 331 as heads of augmented families, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 137-38 as skilled and unskilled cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), 1860 and 1880, 190 (table), 191-92 Nativity occupations by, Portland (OR), 1900, 459 (table) of Jewish married couples, Portland (OR), 1880-1900, 461 (table) of Jewish married women, Portland (OR), 1900, 463 (table) Neighborhood House (Portland), 473 Neighborhoods. See also Barrios', Industrial towns; Mill villages; Mining districts immigrant Pittsburgh, 1900-45, 364-65 Providence (RI), 1880-1914,415-17

INDEX

683

Jewish, New York City, 1902, 348 of cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 204-05 of Mexican-American and Jewish cannery workers, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 605-06 New England. See also entries for specific New England states, e.g., Massachusetts immigrants as mill girls, 38 New Hampshire. See Manchester (NH) New Mexico. See Albuquerque (NM) New Orleans occupations of African-American men, 1880, 248-49 role of women in slave revolt, 1730, 52 New York. See also Albany; Buffalo; Cohoes; New York City; Rochester; Troy medical licensing, 1806, 35 role of slave women in slave revolt, 1708 and 1712, 52 New York City budget analysis of working-class, 436-39, 444-47 economic roles of Russian-Jewish and Italian-American women, 1880-1905, 330-42 family wage, 1909, 377 Mary K. Simkovitch on case work and settlement work, 435 wage-earning Arabic-American women, 1880-1924, 349 New York Conference of Charities and Corrections, and standards of living, 443 New York State Board of Charities, and poverty, 435 Newspapers, and laundry strike. El Paso, 1919, 242-44 Nichols, Estella, role in Cripple Creek strike, 1903, 300-01 Nickerson, Margaret, 77 NIRA. See National Industrial Recovery Act Nolan, Jessie, on homesteading, 219 North American Civic League, and immigrant schools in canneries, 322 North Carolina. See also Alamance County (NC); Charlotte (NC); Durham (NC); Gastonia (NC); Glencoe (NC); Henderson (NC); High Point (NC); Marion (NC) employee benefits at cotton mills, 517 slave women and fanning, 1830-60, 63 resistance to slavery, 1811, 53 North West Company, and Native American attack, 1814, 23 Northern Rhodesia, status of Bemba women, 3-19 Nuclear families, 408

684

INDEX

Atlanta, 1880, 2S0 Cohoes (NY), 1880, 198 (table), 199-200, 204 male-headed by skilled workers, Atlanta, 1880, 251 (table) German-American, Buffalo, 1855, 144 Irish-American, Buffalo, 1855, 141 native-born white, Buffalo, 1855, 137-38 Mexican-American, El Paso, 1900, 226, 227 (table) slave, 1830-60, 75 Nursing and free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 99 as women's occupation, 36-37 NUTW. See National Union of Textile Workers Obscene language, in presence of women, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 297 Obstetrical forceps, and male midwives, 36 Occupations. See also Skilled occupations; Unskilled occupations; White-collar occupations and family structure, Atlanta, 1880, 247-58 of East European-Jewish men, Portland (OR), 1880-1900, 462 of free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 98-99 of German-Americans, Buffalo, 1855, 145-46, 154 of husbands and birth rates, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 163 child-woman ratios for whites by, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 164-65 (table) of Irish-American men Boston, 1850, 248, 249 (tables) Buffalo, 1855, 142 of Italian-Americans, New York City, 1880 and 1905, 331, 333, 334 (table), 335 of Jews Portland 1900, 458, 459 (table), 460 1920, 472 (table) of married couples, by labor force status, 1940, 577 (table) of native-born whites, Buffalo, 1855, 138, 147 of Russian-Jews, New York City, 1880 and 1905,336 (table), 337,338 (table) of women, colonial period, 33 relationship of work to family life, 124 O'Hare, Kate Richards, 482 Ohio. See Cleveland

INDEX

685

Okorn, Anna, on women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 484 Olmsted, Frederick Law on domestic service by slaves, 72 on slave women's work, 62-63, 64 Olvie, Jim, use of obscene language in presence of women, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 297 Oregon. See Portland Organized labor. See also Labor unions; Strikes and gender roles and social class, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 284-312 militancy of women collar workers, relation to family, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 167-82 role of Rose Pesotta, 345 Pacific Northwest, economic role of Native American women, early-19th century, 20-31 Page, Arthur W., on the Piedmont, 513 Pale of Settlement. See also Jews chevrahs, 419 Jews and work, late-19th century, 410-13 Panic of 1819, and sales of slaves, Petersburg (VA), 103 Parents. See also Fathers; Mothers and married children in household. Great Depression, 555 Italian-American, and child labor in canneries, New York, early-20th century, 319-22 postponement of daughters' marriages, relation to family income, 271-72 Parra, Elmo, and union organizing, 615 Paternalism of corporations, and immigrant workers, 264-65 of Harmony Mill Company, relationship to cotton workers, 186-87 Patriarchies. See also Matriarchies and German-Jewish families, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 453-58 and slave women, 59 role in family wage creation, 378 Patriotism, in women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 488, 491 Patron saints, and Italian-American immigrants, 365-66 Payen, Jose L., support of laundry strike, EI Paso, 1919, 243 Peabody, James, 299 Pellagra, in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 503 Pennsylvania. See Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; York (PA)

686

INDEX

People of the long house. See Iroquois Indians Perkins, Frances, 532, 550 Perry, Matilda, 66 Pesotta, Rose, 345-47 Petersburg (VA), free African-American women and matriarchy, 1784-1820, 93-114 Pharis, James, 501 on discipline and cotton mill supervisors, 507 Philadelphia. See also Kennsington (Philadelphia) birth rates and marriage, 1850-80, 159-66 working-class women, Great Depression, 539-65 Philanthropy, Edward Devine on, 436 Piecework, and cotton mills, after National Industrial Recovery Act, 529 The Piedmont cotton mill villages, 1880-1940, 497-538 Pinkham, Lydia, 289 Pioneers gender roles of, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 210-23 income of, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 217 Pittsburg (KS), women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 475-96 Pittsburgh (PA), immigrant women, 1900-45, 355-70 Poisons, and resistance to slavery, 52-53 Poland. See Pale of Settlement Polish-Americans, high rate of bastard births and housing, Buffalo, early-20th century, 323 Polish National Alliance, 350 Polish Women's Protective League, 350 Political parties. See American Communist Party; Co-operative Party; Democratic Party; Populist Party; Republican Party; Socialist Party; Workingman's Party Politics and immigrant women, New York City, 1880-1924, 349 and mining districts, Kansas, 482 and Native American marriages, Pacific Northwest, 23 and social mobility for Irish-Americans, 1880, 249 and status of women, 1800-40, 39-41 and Western Federation of Miners, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 292 and women, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 289, 297-98 and women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921,492 Iroquois matron's role, 5-8

INDEX

687

Population Cohoes (NY), 1840-80, 187 Jewish, Portland (OR), 1860-80, 453 Philadelphia, 1850-80, 160, 161 (table) Pittsburgh, 1890 and 1910, 356-57 Populist Party, and cotton mill management, American South, 1880-1900, 511 Portland (OR), life cycles of Jewish women, 1880-1930, 451-74 Post Laundry, and Mexican-American women employees, 236 Potatoes, cultivation of, and Native American women and fur traders, Pacific Northwest, 25-26 Poverty, working-class, 429-50, 492 Power, within families, 542 Pre-industriai period, separation of work and home, 120-21 Pregnancy and slave women Fanny Kemble on, 61 and slave women's work, 1830-60, 68 Premarital sexual intercourse, and Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, 29 Prenty, Mrs. James, role in Cripple Creek strike, 1903, 300 Price, Liliie, on women's role during strikes, 525 Prisoners of war, Iroquois women's power over, 6 Production lines. See Assembly lines Production quotas, in cotton mills, after National Industrial Recovery Act, 529 Professionalization of medical profession, and exclusion of women, 35-36 of teaching profession, 1820-60, 37 Property distribution of, by single men to free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 105-06 home ownership by German-American men, Buffalo, 1855, 145 by immigrant cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), 1860, 190 by Irish-American men, Buffalo, 1855, 141-42 by native-born white men, Buffalo, 1855, 138 of African-American women, Virginia, 1784-1820, 106-07 of free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 96, 99-103 of married women colonial period, 33 Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 218 of women, Virginia, 1784-1820, 104

688

INDEX

Prostitution and free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 99 and Mexican-American women, El Paso, 1880-1920, 237-38 and Native American women, Pacific Northwest, 29-30 Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 295-96, 298 Providence (RI) immigrant families and community networks, 1880-1914, 407-28 Italian American and Jewish families, 542-43 Pryor, Grandma, 211 (photograph) Public Contracts Act, 616 Public libraries, union-provided, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 292-93 Public welfare systems, unattached women, and Chicago Relief Authority, Great Depression, 541 Punishments. See also Whippings of slaves, 50, 52, 54, 67-68, 77-78 by white women, 71-72 Puritans, and status of women, 32-33 Racial discrimination in hiring at California Sanitary Canning Company, 615 of African-American women, Great Depression, 558 Racial segregation, of Mexican-Americans in barrios, El Paso, 1880-1920, 228-29 Radio, and cultural identity, American South, 1920s, 527 Railroads. See also El Paso & Southwestern Railroad; Galveston, Houston & San Antonio Railroad; Santa Fe Railroad and migration of Mexicans, American Southwest, 226 Randolph, Bee, 219 Rape, of slave women by white men, 55 Rasmussen, Ted, 614 Ravel, F., use of strikebreakers in laundry strike, El Paso, 1919, 244-45 Recruitment. See also Hiring by cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 514-15 family's role in, Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 263-64,267-70 of coal miners, 1877-98, 479 of Italian-American workers in canneries, New York, early-20th century, 318 Red Cross, and industrial homework by children in school, Providence (RI), 1918,417 Red light districts. See Vice districts Religions. See also Churches; Roman Catholicism

INDEX

689

and adjustment of immigrant women, Pittsburgh, 1900-45, 365-66 gender roles in organizing meetings, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 213-14 role of Iroquois matrons, 5, 7 Relocation of cotton mill workers American South, 512, 514 Republican Party and French-Canadians, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 204 fear of Socialism, Crawford County (KS), 482 Retirement of German-American men, Buffalo, 1855, 146 of Irish-American men, Buffalo, 1855, 142 of native-bom white men, Buffalo, 1855, 138 Rhode Island. See Providence (RI) Rhodesia. See Northern Rhodesia Riggsbee, Madlena, 506 as midwife, 505 Right of the first night, and rape of slave women by white men, 55 Riis, Jacob, 432 Rochester, immigrants and kinship, 414 Rogers, Harry, on college-trained supervisors for cotton mills, 522 Rollins, Charlotte, and Billy Ash, 106 Roman Catholicism and immigrants, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 204 and Mexican-Americans, El Paso, 1880-1920, 232 and wage-earning married women, 265 Roosevelt, Franklin D. and cotton mill strike, American South, 1934, 534 and National Industrial Recovery Act, 528-31 letters from cotton workers after strike, 1934, 535 Ross, Alexander, on Native American women, 22 Royal Packing, union organizing for United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, 615 Rural areas, and slave women, American South, 1830-60, 58-92 Russia. See Pale of Settlement Russian-Jewish women, economic roles of, New York City, 1880-1905,330-42 Ryan, John Α., on family wage, 377 Saenz, Francisca, 240 St. Andrew's Parish (GA), slave revolt, 1774, 52

690

INDEX

S t Jean Baptiste Society, 204 Salas, Panciuta, 237 Salmon fishing, and Native American women, Pacific Northwest, 28-29 San Antonio cigar factory strike, 1933, 626 (photograph) married wage-earning women, 545-46 wages of laundry workers, 1919, 242 Sanitary conditions, in barrios, El Paso, 1880-1920, 229-30 Santa Fe Railroad, and migration of Mexicans to American Southwest, 226 Scabs. See Strikebreakers Scantling, Eliza, 66 Schools. See also Education; Failing School; Shattuck School attendance by children in households headed by male skilled workers, Atlanta, 1880, 251 (table) gender roles in establishment of, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 213 Scott, Christian, and property deeded to Charlotte Cook and Jesse Mitchell, 105-06 Scott, Janie, on slave women's work, 65 Sea Islands, slave women and farming, 1830-60, 63 Self-purchase. See also Manumissions by slaves, 1874-1820, 97 Selling, Ben, in interest-free loans to Jewish businessmen, 464 Separate spheres, and family wage, 375 Separated women. See also Marital separations and collar work, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 170 Servants. See also Domestic service German-American, Buffalo, 1855, 144 (graph), 154 (graph) in Jewish households, Portland (OR), 1900,466 (table) Irish-American, Buffalo, 1855, 140 (graph), 150 (graph) native-bom white women, Buffalo, 1955, 147 (graph) Settlement houses. See also Hull House and immigrant women, Pittsburgh, 1900-45, 358 Settlement patterns, Pittsburg (KS), 480-81 Sewing machines, 215 Sex.. . See also Gender. . . Sex ratios among cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), 1880, 192 and widowhood, urban areas, American South, 1880, 398 Atlanta, 1880, 251 Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 286

INDEX

691

of free African-American women Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 104 Virginia, 1820, 99 of Jews, Portland (OR), 1860-1900, 453-54 Sexual abuse of slave women by white men, 54-56 1830-60, 71 Sexual intercourse. See Premarital sexual intercourse Sexuality male, preoccupation with, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 289 of Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, 29-30 Shapiro, George and Joseph, and California Sanitary Canning Company, 608, 611,614, 615 Sharecropping, and African-Americans, American South, post-Civil War, 82 Shattuck School, and Jewish family employment, Portland (OR), 470, 471 (table) Shaw, Anna Howard, on discrimination against wage-earning women by Ford Motor Company, 385 Short hour movement, and cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 187 Shue, Mamie on cooking school in Highland Park Mill, 517 on cotton mill doffers, 510 Sick benefits, union-provided, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 291 Simkovitch, Mary K., on case work and settlement work. New York City, 435 Simpson, George on Native American marriage, 23 on Native American prostitution, 29 on worth of Native American produced hat, 26 Single men and distribution of property to free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 105-06 Jewish, Portland (OR), 1900, 467 (table) Single women and family income, at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 275-76 and homesteading, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920,219-20 Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 286 German-Jewish, over 25, Portland (OR), 1900, 456 immigrant 1880-1924, 348 and neighborhood as social setting, Pittsburgh, 1900-45, 364-65 Jewish, Portland (OR), 1900, 467 (table)

692

INDEX

property rights of, Virginia, 1784-1820, 104 wage-earning, 1890-1940, 567 (table) Skiles, Martin. 213 Skilled occupations and African-Americans, Atlanta, 1880 and Irish-Americans, Boston, 1850,249 (table) and Irish-Americans, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 194 and Italian-Americans New York City, 1880-1905, 331, 332 (table), 334 (table) and male-heads of households, Atlanta, 1880, 251 (table) and men, Atlanta, 1870 and 1880, 248 (table) and Russian-Jews New York City, 1880 and 1905, 336 (table), 337, 338 (table) in cotton industry Cohoes (NY), 1860 and 1880, by ethnicity, 190 (table), 191 wages of, after National Industrial Recovery Act, 529 of heads of augmented families, Atlanta, 1880, 251 (table) slave women's exclusion from, 1830-60, 65-66 Skubitz, Mary, 487, 489 Slave. . . See also African-American. . .; American South Slave children gender division of labor, 1830-60, 69-71 Slave patrols, 77 Slave revolts, role of slave women, 51-57 Slave women, 44-57 age at time of emancipation, Petersburg (VA), 98 (table) manumission of, and kinship with white men, Petersburg (VA), 96-98 rural areas, American South, 1830-60, 58-92 sexual abuse of by white men, Harriet Jacobs on, 71 Slavery. See also Manumission; Self-purchase age and division of labor, 1830-60, 68-69, 73-74 and Native American women, Pacific Northwest, early-19th century, 22 compared with free labor. Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 287 effect on African-Americans' work and family, Atlanta, 1880-247-58 role of slave women under, 44-57 Slaves. See also Fugitive slaves; Maroons; Self-purchase; Slave children; Slave women artisans, 1830-60, 76-77 husbands of free African-Americans, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 105 marriage, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 107 owned by free African-Americans, Petersburg (VA), 1820, 104

INDEX

693

sales of, Petersburg (VA), Panic of 1819, 103 Slavic-American women, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 355-70 Slovak-Americans, household size, Pittsburg (KS), 1908, 480 Smallpox, epidemic and Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, 1836, 30 Smith, Ida Jane, as healer, 505, 509 Snipes, John Wesley, on job shortage in cotton mills, 518 Social change, and Jewish women's life cycles, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 451-74 Social classes. See also Middle class; Upper class; Working class and family wage, 371-96 and gender roles, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 284-312 class conflict and Ford Motor Company's five dollar day, 380-81 and Mexican-American workers, El Paso, 1919, 244 in women's march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921,491 industrialization and class distinctions among women, 38-41 Social conditions, as cause of poverty, 446 Social control. See also Surveillance and cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 497-583 and Ford Motor Company's five dollar day, 380-81 Social survey movement, of income and standards of living, 1890-1920, 376 Socialism and Jewish women, Eastern Europe, 348 and miners, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 285 and mining districts, Kansas, 482 and working-class, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 287 Socialist Party, and mining districts, Crawford County (KS), 482 Società Arcese, 418 Società Teanese, 418 Sons German-American and apprenticeships, Buffalo, 1855, 155 Buffalo, 1855, by age, 144 (graph) German-Jewish, as elite group, Portland (OR), 1890s, 457-58 immigrant, and wages, Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 424 Irish-American, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 140 (graph) Italian-American, occupations of, New York City, 1880 and 1905, 334 (table), 335 Jewish, wage-earning, Portland (OR), 1920, 471, 472 (table) native-bom white, Buffalo (NY), 1855, 136 (graph) Russian-Jewish, occupations of, New York City, 1880-1905, 338, 338 (table)

694

INDEX

wage-earning and family economy, Great Depression, 574 Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 217 Sorenson, Charles, 382 South Bend, working-class women, Great Depression, 539-65 South Carolina. See also Charleston cotton mill strike, 1934, 533 labor organization without UTW help, 1929, 523 Maroon resistance to slavery, 1826, 53 wages of weavers and spinners, 1902-07, 514 Southern Italy families and economics, 19th century, 315-16 mutual benefit societies, 418 society and economics, late-19th century, 409-10, 412 women's roles, 347, 349 Southern Textile Association, and cotton mills, 515 Southern women and domestic service by slave women, 1830-60, 69-71 reaction to slave women sexually abused by white men, 1830-60, 71 Sparrow, Jessie, 72 Spindle City. See Cohoes (NY) Spinners, wages of South Carolina, 1902-07, 514 Sports, organized by cotton mills for employees, American South, 1908, 516 Spruce, Polly, responsibility for slave husband, 105 Standards of living Great Depression, 570-74 minimum, and budget studies, 1890-1920, 429-50 New York Conference of Charities and Corrections on, 1906,443 relation of income to, working class, New York City, 1909, 445-47 working-class, 1895-1915, 437 State constitutions, disfranchisement amendments, and cotton mill labor protest, American South, 1880-1900, 511-12 State Federation of Labor Convention (CO), 295 Stephens, Ann, 106 Stereotypes. See also Ethnic stereotypes of miners and mining, 476 Stevens, Alexander, 93 Steward, Sally, 100 Stewart, John, estate of, 101 Strikebreakers and laundry strike, El Paso (TX), 1919, 244-45

INDEX

695

during coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 482 use of families in iron molders strike, Troy (NY), 176-77 Strikes. See also Lock outs Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1922, 276 by Mexican-American women laundry workers, El Paso, 1919, 239-46 California Sanitary Canning Company, 1939, 611-12, 614 Chiquola Mill, 1934, 533 cigar factory, San Antonio (TX), 1933, 626 (photograph) coal miners, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 482-% collar workers, Troy (NY), 173-74, 176-78 cotton mills Alamance County (NC), 1900, 511 American South, 524 (photograph) 1934, 532-36 Cohoes (NY), GUded Age, 205-06 Durham (NC), 1934, 533 Harmony Mills Company, 1858, 187 Haw River Mill, 1900, 511 Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, Cripple Creek (CO), 1902, 295 in canneries, New York, early-20th century, 324 iron molders, Troy (NY), 176-77 miners Cripple Creek (CO) 1894, 285 1903, 299-304 textile industry, American South, 523, 525 women's march in support of coal miners, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 475-96 Subsistence production, of homcmakers, Great Depression, 548 Suffrage for women, 39-40 Colorado, 289 Cripple Creek (CO), 298 Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1893, 214 Suicides, attempts at, by prostitutes and dance hall girls, Cripple Creek, 1901-02, 295-96 Sunshine Club, 214 Superstitions, and childbirth of immigrant women, Pittsburgh, 1900-45, 366 Surveillance. See also Social control and cotton mills American South, 1920s, 521-22 North Carolina, 1880-1940, 502

696

INDEX

and letters written to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 531 Swett, Julia, 473 Taliaferro, James, 67 Talmadge, Eugene, and martial law, Georgia, 1934, 533 Taxpayers, free African-American women as, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 100-02 Teachers. See also Education; Schools and industrial homework by children, Providence (RI), 1918, 417 women as, Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 286 Teaching. See also Education; Schools professionalization of, 1820-60, 37 Teamsters. See International Brotherhood of Teamsters Technology. See also Labor-saving devices and cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 510-11 and midwives, 36 Tennessee, slave women and fanning, 1830-60, 63 Terrell, Louise, on slave women's work, 65 Texas. See El Paso; Fort Worth; Galveston; Houston; San Antonio Texas Industrial Welfare Commission, and wages of Mexican-American women working in laundries, 238-39 Textile industry. See also Cotton mills and industrialization, England, 19th century, 115-17 fashion, 1920s, 517 Textile workers ethnicity of, 1860, 189 (table) women, by ethnicity and age, Cohoes (NY), 1860, 193 (table) Theft arrest of Eliza Gallie, 93-94 of tools by Native American women. Pacific Northwest, 28 Thompson, Mary, on boarding houses in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 502-03 Tippling houses, and free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 99 Tolmie, William, and marriage to Native American women, 23 Tracy, Mrs. John, and letter from A.J. Curran, 490 Trade journals, on family wage, 374 Training, of Mexican-American women for domestic service, Victor S. Clark on, 235 Trammell, Naomi, on cotton mills before steam power and electricity, 510 Triangle Waist Factory, Rose Pesotta and march on, 345

INDEX

697

Troy (NY) women collar workers and labor militancy, 1860-90, 167-82 Truth, Sojourner, 51 Tubman, Harriet, 51 Typographical Union, and wage-earning women, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 294 Tyson, Elizabeth Rae, on Mexican-American women domestics, 235-36 UCAPAWA. See United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America Ukraine. See also Kiev gender roles, 347 Ukrainian Women's Alliance, 350 UMWA. See United Mine Workers of America Unattached women and welfare, Great Depression, 541 Great Depression, 556-57 Unemployment and working-class families, 492 Great Depression, 558 of husbands, and married women's labor force participation, Great Depression, 553 of women, Bernalillo County (Albuquerque, NM), 1960-79, 628-29 Union Park (Chicago), middle-class marriage patterns, 1880, 195-97 United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America and Mexican-American women workers, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 601-24 United Mine Workers of America, and coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (PA), 1921,475-96 United States. See entries beginning U.S. and entries for specific states of the United States, e.g., Kansas United Textile Workers and cotton mills' rollback of wages, 1919, 518 and neglect of labor, American South, 523 membership of, 1933-34, 529 Unmarried. . . See Single. . . Unskilled occupations and African-Americans, Atlanta, 1880 and Irish-Americans, Boston, 1850, 249 (table) and Italian-Americans Buffalo, early-20th century, 314 New York City, 1880-1905, 331, 332 (table), 334 (table)

698

INDEX

and men, Atlanta, 1870 and 1880, 248 (table) and Russian-Jews, New York City, 1880 and 1905, 336 (table), 338 (table) in cotton industry Cohoes (NY), 1860 and 1880, 193 by ethnicity, 190 (table), 191 Upper class, women, and industrialization, 38-39 Urban areas. See also entries for specific urban areas, e.g.. New York City African-Americans elderly women and work, American South, 1880-1900, 397-406 female-headed households,1880, 252 working-class women, Great Depression, 539-65 whites, working-class women, Great Depression, 539-65 Urbanization, and elderly African-American women, American South, 1880-1900, 397-406 U.S. Bureau of Home Economics, income study, 1935-36, 571 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, income study, 1935-36, 571 U.S. Children's Bureau, and child labor. Providence (RI), 1918, 417 U.S. citizenship, and immigrant women, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 358 and self-esteem of immigrant women, Pittsburgh (PA), 1900-45, 363 Utensils, produced by Native American women. Pacific Northwest, 26 UTW. See United Textile Workers Valles, Maria, on wages at Elite Laundry, 239 Vasil, Mary, on City Farm Lane, Homestead, 364 Vaughan, James, last will and testament of, 106 Vaughan, John,106 Vaughan, Sarah,100, 106 Vehlen, Thorstein, on ladies, 39 Venereal diseases, and Native American women, Pacific Northwest, 30 Ventrone, Frank P., and Italian-American vigilantism over food prices, Providence (RI), 1914, 421-22 Vice. See also Gambling; Prostitution Vice districts, and Mexican-American women, El Paso (TX), 1880-1920,237-38 Victor Miners' Union, and death of Henry King, 291 Victorian period, industrialization and separation of work and home, 115-18 Vigilantism, Italian-American, and food prices, Providence (RI), 1914, 421-22 Vilna, economic restrictions on Jews, late-l9th century, 411 Virginia. See also Petersburg (VA) Dan River Mill strike, 1930, 523 Maroon resistance to slavery, 1862, 53 property rights of women, 1784-1820, 104

INDEX

699

slave women and farming, 1830-60, 63 and resistance to slavery, 1812, 53 Virginity, value of at marriage to Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, 29 Vivian Mill, cotton workers, 1908, 508 (photograph) Vizonneau, Mary Ann, and estate of John Stewart, 101 Voluntary organizations. See also Mutual benefit societies and Jews, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 454-55 Wage-earning women. See also Dance-hall girls; Factory girls; Midwives; Teachers; Women collar workers after childbirth, 1940-60, 581-600 and families, 376 Europe, 19th century, 123 and industrialization, 37-41 and labor unions, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 294-96 and middle-income family life, Great Depression, 566-80 Arabic-American, New York City, 1880-1924, 349 at Ford Motor Company, and five dollar day, 385 colonial period, 33 Cripple Creek, 1894-1904, 286 East European-Jewish, Portland (OR), 1880-1930, 468, 469 (table), 470 elderly African-Americans, American South, 1880-1900, 398-99, 401 (table) French-Canadian, at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 265 Great Depression, 549-54 immigrant and timing of return to work, Providence (RI), 423 at home, Providence (RI), 1880-1914, 416 New York City, 348-49 Pittsburgh (PA), 358-63 married and effect of wage work on husband. New York City, 438-39 Great Depression, 545 Mexican-American El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 232-46 impact of industrialization on, Albuquerque (NM), 625-38 working in canneries, Los Angeles, 1939-45, 601-24 Native American, Pacific Northwest, 28 postponement of marriage, relation to family income, 271-72 Russian-Jewish married women, New York City, 1880-1905, 335-37 Southern Italy, 19th century, 315

700

INDEX

Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920, 217 Wages. See also Family wage; Income Albuquerque (NM), 1970s, 628 at California Sanitary Canning Company, 607 at Harmony Mills Company, 1858, 187 Cripple Creek (CO) 1894, 285 1894-1904, 289 living, for women, Boston, 1911, 377 of cotton workers 1919, 517-18 after National Industrial Recovery Act, 529-30 Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 187, 205-06 of immigrant sons and daughters, Providence (RI), 424 of Italian-Americans daughters. New York City, 1880-1905, 335 women for industrial homework. New York City, 1880-1905, 333 of laundry workers, Houston, 1919, 242 of Mexican-Americans cannery workers, California Sanitary Canning Company, 608 married women in electronics and garment industries, Albuquerque (NM), 631, 632-33 women, El Paso (TX), 1880-1920, 238-39 of teachers, 1880s, 37 of weavers and spinners, South Carolina, 1902-07, 514 of women compared with men, Cripple Creek (CO), 1900, 295-96 Great Depression, 549 of working class, 1872, 173-74 Wagner Act, 535-36, 616 Waite, Davis on suffrage for women, 289 wages and working hours, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894, 285 Waitresses, wages for temporary help, Cripple Creek (CO), 1902, 295 Walenberg, Mrs. P., obscene language used in presence of, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 297 Ware, Harriet, on elderly slaves as repositories of history and folklore, 80 Warrensville Institution, 555 Washing machines, 215 Washington County (CO), homesleading and gender roles, 1873-1920, 210-23 Wealth, child-woman ratio for whites by, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 164-65 (table)

INDEX

701

Weavers, wages of. South Carolina, 1902-07, 514 Webb, Mary Frances, on slave women's work, 65, 74 Welfare systems, community provided, in cotton mill villages, American South, 1880-1940, 503-04 Welsh-Americans and coal mining, Pittsburg (KS), 1877-79, 479 household size, Pittsburg (KS), 1908, 480 West Africa, gender division of labor, 78-79 Western Federation of Miners. See also International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers and family wage, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 288-90 and social class and gender roles, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 284-312 Westinghouse Company, 520 WFM. See Western Federation of Miners Whippings, as punishment for African-Americans, 1853, 93 White, David, and trading as a free African-American, 105 White, Mingo, on slave women's work, 69 White, Nelly, 99 property of, 106 White-collar occupations and Italian-Americans New York City, 1880-1905, 331, 332 (table), 334 (table) and Russian-Jews, New York City, 1880 and 1905, 336 (table), 338 (table) White House Department Store, 237 White men. See also Native-born white men and sexual abuse of slave women, 54-56, 71 interracial marriages to free African-American women, Petersburg (VA), 1784-1820, 105 kinship with slaves, and manumission, Petersburg (VA), 96-97 occupations of, Atlanta, 1870 and 1880, 248 (table) White women. See also Native-born white women labor force participation, by age, 1890-1950, 596 married and wage-earning, Great Depression, 545 working class, and Great Depression, 539-65 Whites. See also Native-born whites child-woman ratios, Philadelphia, 1850-80, 164-65 (table) interracial marriage to Native Americans, Pacific Northwest, 23 occupations of, and family structure, Atlanta, 1880, 247-58 Widows and collar work, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 170 and cotton worker families, Cohoes (NY), 1880, 199-201

702

INDEX

as heads of households, Atlanta, 1880, 250-51 Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 286 elderly African-Americans, American South, 1880, 398-401 Jewish, occupations of, Portland (OR), 1920,472 (table) property rights of, Virginia, 1784-1820, 104 wage-earning, 1890-1940, 567 (table) Wiggins, Ella May, 523 funeral of, 526 (photograph) Williams, Al F., on deportation of radicals, 490 Williams, Faith, on standards of living, 1934-36, 571 Wilson, Claude, 72 Wilson, Sarah, 71 Wimler, Fannie, 487 Win ant, John G., and mediation board for cotton mill strike, American South, 1934, 534-35 Wives. See Married women Wobblies. See Industrial Workers of the World Wofford, Blaine, 519 on quitting as solution to working conditions in cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 513 Women. See also African-American women; Immigrant women; Ladies; Matriarchies; Slave women; Southern women; Wage-earning women; Working-class women; and entries beginning Women... and homesteading, Washington and Logan Counties (CO), 1873-1920,210-23 gender roles and social class, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 284-312 Jewish, occupations of, by nativity, Portland (OR), 1900, 459 (table) march in support of coal miners' strike, Pittsburg (KS), 1921, 475-96 status of 1800-40, 32-43 Iroquois women, 3-19 working-class, and Great Depression, 539-65 Women collar workers militancy of, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 167-82 work, family, and labor militancy, 1860-90, 167-82 Women cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 193-209 Women's auxiliaries Americanization Committee, Pittsburg (KS), 490 and assistance to miners' families, Victor, 1894-1904, 291 assistance to miners' families, Victor, 1894-1904, 291-92 of Western Federation of Miners, 1902, 297-98 of Western Federation of Miners, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 291-93

INDEX

703

of Western Federation of Miners and Cripple Creek (CO) strike, 1903, 300 Women's clubs and establishment of public library, Cripple Creek (CO), 293 request for women police, Denver, 294 Women's magazines, and budgeting, Great Depression, 572-73 Women's organizations. See also Women's auxiliaries, Women's clubs and immigrant women, 1880-1924, 350 Women's rights movements, 40 Women's sphere and cult of true womanhood. Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 288 and Native American women, Pacific Northwest, early-19th century, 21 Women's Trade Union League of New York, and Italian-American wage-earning women, 349 Woodis, Clark, and performance of women's work, 216 Working class and middle-class concepts of gender, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904,284-312 families of cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 183-209 family wage, and Ford Motor Company, 371-96 marriage patterns, Cohoes (NY), 1880, 195-97 married women, as good managers, 1895-1915, 429-50 Mexico, 226 unemployment, 492 view of domestic service, 173 women, and capitalism, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894-1904, 287 Working-class women, and Great Depression, Philadelphia, 539-65 Working conditions. See also Wages; Working hours at Acme Laundry, El Paso (TX), 243^4 for women collar workers, Troy (NY), 1860-90, 173 Harmony Cotton Mills, Gilded Age, 184 in cotton mills, American South, 1880-1900, 506-07, 509-11 on quitting as solution to, in cotton mills, American South, 1880-1940, 512, 513 workers power over at Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, 1910-36, 266 Working hours and National Industrial Recovery Act, 528 as strike issue for cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 187 attempts to increase, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894, 285 demanded during cotton mill strike, American South, 1934, 532 for slave women, 1850s, 66 in cotton mills, after National Industrial Recovery Act, 529 of cannery workers, New York, early-20th century, 317

704

INDEX

of Mexican-American married women in garment industry, Albuquerque (NM), 633 relation to family life, 19th century, 12S standards for, Cripple Creek (CO), 1894, 285 Workingman's Cooperative Store, and cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 187 Workingman's Party, and cotton workers, Cohoes (NY), Gilded Age, 187 Workman, Lee, SOI-02 World War Π effect on United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers of America, 618 impact on textile industry, S17 labor shortage, and wage-earning immigrant women, Pittsburgh (PA), 362-63 Worthley, Amy Dickinson, 217, 218 Wright, Ashur, on Iroquois women, 6 Wright, Carroll, on factories and family life, 186 Wright, Lacy, on the Piedmont, S13 Wright, Mary and Samuel, 218 Wright, Richard. 555 Yiddishkeit, 413 YMCA. See Young Men's Christian Association York (PA), African-American riot, 1803, 52 Young Communist League, and Dorothy Ray Healey, 610 Young Men's Christian Association, and employee welfare programs at cotton mills, American South, 516 Youvain, Julia, 489 Zeman, Josephine Humpel, 344-46 Zionism, 413 and Jewish women, Eastern Europe, 348