Labor of love, labor of sorrow : black women, work and the family, from slavery to the present

477 Pages·2009·7.122 MB·English

by  Jacqueline Jones

HISTORY “A valuable contribution. . . . Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrowexorcises several
malignant stereotypes and stubborn myths. . . . [Jones] has turned an arc light on several
WINNER of theBANCROFTPRIZE JONES
dark and unexplored corners.”—Toni Morrison, New York Times Book Review
FINALISTfor thePULITZERPRIZE forHISTORY
FULLY REVISED and UPDATED
WINNER of the BROWNPUBLICATIONPRIZEoftheASSOCIATIONof BLACKWOMENHISTORIANS
L
A
WINNERof theGUSTAVUSMYERSPRIZE for the BESTBOOKON RACIAL INTOLERANCE
B
L
O ABOR
WINNERof theTAFTPRIZEIN AMERICAN LABOR HISTORY R
o
WINNERof theJULIASPRUILLPRIZEof the ASSOCIATIONof SOUTHERNWOMENHISTORIANS f
L L ,
T
he forces that shaped the institution of human bondage in the American South endured, albeit in O V E
O of
altered form, long after the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified by the states. Whether black
women toiled in a sweltering Virginia tobacco factory in the 1890s or in the kitchen of a Chicago V
white woman in the 1950s, they felt the oppressive force of racial and gender ideologies, ideas of social
E
difference that until the mid-1960s carried the weight of law. Throughout American history, black women’s
, L of
meager wages—and in the case of slavery, lack of any wages at all—stood in stark contrast to their ABOR
L
strenuous labors in the work force and at home. In their efforts to sustain family ties and preserve a vital group
A
culture, they shared a common purpose with wives and mothers of all groups. B
In her classic account Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, now fully revised and updated, acclaimed historian O S
R O R RO W
Jacqueline Jones describesthe changing role of black women, lending a voice to an unsung struggle from the
depths of slavery to the ongoing fight for civil rights. of M
d
S . D
a
“Brilliant, bedrock scholarship crucial to our understanding of the crisis of the black lim
family in the 1980s.” —Los Angeles Times O #
1
BLACK WOMEN, WORK, and the FAMILY, 0
R 56
3
“A seminal work of scholarship, which has no rival in its subtle explication R from SLAVERY to the PRESENT 02 1
of the complex interface of work, sex, race, and class. All future studies of the black 0
O /3
worker will have to take this book into account.”—HEN RY LOUIS GATES, JR. 0/0
9
W C
y
JACQUELINE JONES is the Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History and Ideas and the Mastin WINNER an
M
Gentry White Professor of Southern History at the University of Texas at Austin. The author of Saving Savannah, of the a
g
American Work,and The Dispossessed,she lives in Austin, Texas. BANCROFT Y
e
lo
PRIZE B
la
c
k
$18.95 US / $24.00 CAN M
Cover design by Ariana Abud
e
t
.L
Cover photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress t
J J .C
A C Q U E L I N E O N E S o
p
p
e
A Member of the Per seus Books Group r
www.basicbooks.com
0465018819-Jones_Layout 1 11/3/09 2:45 PM Page i
Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow
0465018819-Jones_Layout 1 11/3/09 2:45 PM Page ii
0465018819-Jones_Layout 1 11/3/09 2:45 PM Page iii
Labor Love,
of
Labor Sorrow
of
BLACK WOMEN, WORK, and the FAMILY,
fromSLAVERY to thePRESENT
(cid:2)(cid:3)
Jacqueline Jones
A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP
New York
0465018819-Jones_Layout 1 11/3/09 2:45 PM Page iv
Copyright © 2010 by Jacqueline Jones
Published by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book
may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in
the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For
information, address Basic Books, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016–
8810.
Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases
in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more
information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books
Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-
4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].
Designed by Timm Bryson
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jones, Jacqueline, 1948-
Labor of love, labor of sorrow : black women, work and the family, from slavery to
the present / Jacqueline Jones.
p. cm.
Rev. ed. of: Labor of love, labor of sorrow. 1985.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-465-01881-9 (alk. paper)
1. African American women—Employment—History. 2. African American
women—History. 3. African American families—History. I. Title.
HD6057.5.U5J66 2009
305.48’896073—dc22
2009031903
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
0465018819-Jones_Layout 1 11/3/09 2:45 PM Page v
For Jeffrey
0465018819-Jones_Layout 1 11/3/09 2:45 PM Page vi
How I got over, how did I make it over?
You know, my soul look back in wonder,
How did I make it over?
How I made it over,
Comin’ on over, all these years.
You know, my soul look back in wonder,
How did I make it over?
Tell me how we got over, Lord;
Had a mighty hard time, comin’ on over.
You know, my soul look back in wonder,
How did we make it over?
Tell me how we got over, Lord;
I’ve been falling and rising all these years.
But you know, my soul look back in wonder,
How did I make it over?
—from“How I Got Over,”gospel song
0465018819-Jones_Layout 1 11/3/09 2:45 PM Page vii
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments for the 1985 Edition ix
Preface to the New Edition xiii
Introduction 1
“My Mother Was Much of a Woman”:
one
Slavery, 1830–1860 9
Enslaved Women Becoming Freedwomen:
two
The Civil War and Reconstruction 43
“Bent Backs and Laboring Muscles”:
three
in the Rural South, 1880–1915 77
Between the Southern Cotton Field
four and the Northern Ghetto: The Urban
South, 1880–1915 103
“To Get Out of This Land of Sufring”:
five Black Women Migrants to the North,
1900–1930 131
six Harder Times: The Great Depression 163
seven The Roots of Two Revolutions, 1940–1955 195
The Struggle Confirmed and Transformed,
eight
1955–1980 229
vii
0465018819-Jones_Layout 1 11/3/09 2:45 PM Page viii
viii Contents
nine Crosscurrents of Past and Present, 1980–2009 267
Appendices 299
Notes 313
Bibliography 371
Index 421
0465018819-Jones_Layout 1 11/3/09 2:45 PM Page ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE 1985 EDITION
This project grew out of a course in women’s history that I began teaching at Wellesley
College in 1977. At the time, little in the way of published material on the history of black
working women was available to undergraduates. Moreover, widely held among my
(mostly white, middle-class) students was the conviction that work outside the home al-
ways amounted to a “liberating” experience for women regardless of their race, age, or
marital status. Over the last few years, several classes of Wellesley students have become
more familiar with the history of black working women, a topic of concern in all my
courses, whether on reform, the South, women, the Civil War, the family, the Great De-
pression, the nineteenth century, or a survey of American history. Without exception my
students responded to this story with great interest and enthusiasm; their willingness to
reevaluate their own preconceptions related to work and family life has sustained me
through several years of research and writing. Each semester I was able to count on a recep-
tive audience for my findings long before they were published. Therefore it is appropriate
that I first acknowledge the help of my Wellesley students, who provided me with the initial
inspiration for this study and who eagerly explored with me the various details and broad
themes that ultimately gave the project its shape.
The National Endowment for the Humanities funded an initial year of research, and the
Wellesley College Center for Research on Women provided a forum in which to present
preliminary findings, both through its seminar series and its working papers list. Various
grants administered by the center also enabled me to hire student research interns for three
summers. The college faculty awards committee and history department made possible ad-
ditional support for student assistants, and I was able to draw upon the talents of Carol
Corneilse, Sherrie Inness, Carol Mapoma, Lydia Luz, Twinkle Shipes, and Chana Woods
for data collection and preparation of numerous drafts of the manuscript (using, of all anti-
quated machines, an electric typewriter). Brian Drayton rescued me from a number of sty-
listic and organizational gaffes. The reference, circulation, and interlibrary departments at
the Wellesley library managed to track down many obscure sources and helped me locate
missing ones, including books I had forgotten were checked out to myself. I would also like
to express special thanks to Jean C. Proctor (wily in the ways of the Wellesley bureau-
cracy), for she is as good a friend as she is skilled as an administrator in the Wellesley his-
tory department.
ix