Making Choices, Making Do: Survival Strategies of Black and White Working-Class Women during the Great Depression

283 Pages·2022·10.568 MB·English

by  Lois Rita Helmbold

Making Choices, Making Do

Making Choices, Making Do
Survival Strategies of Black and White
Working- Class Women during
the  Great Depression
LOIS RITA HELMBOLD
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Helmbold, Lois Rita, author.
Title: Making choices, making do : survival strategies of Black and White
working-class women during the Great Depression / Lois Rita Helmbold.
Description: New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, [2023] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022007962 | ISBN 9781978826434 (paperback : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781978826441 (hardcover ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781978826458 (epub) |
ISBN 9781978826472 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Working class women—United States—History—20th century.|
Discrimination in employment—United States—History—20th century. |
African American women—Employment—History—20th century. | Women
immigrants—Employment—United States—History—20th century. | Women,
White—Employment—United States—History—20th century. | United States—
Economic conditions—1918-1945.
Classification: LCC HD6095 .H45 2023 | DDC 305.48/230973—dc23/eng/20220224
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022007962
A British Cataloging- in- Publication rec ord for this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright © 2022 by Lois Rita Helmbold
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission
from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New
Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by
U.S. copyright law.
References to internet websites (URLs) w ere accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author
nor Rutgers University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since
the manuscript was prepared.
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1992.
www .r utgersuniversitypress . org
Manufactured in the United States of Amer i ca
Dedicated to Helen Kuznaik Helmbold, Veronica Christian Kuznaik,
Emma Hildebrand Helmbold, and all working- class women
of the Great Depression.

Contents
Preface: My History and Positionality ix
List of Abbreviations Used in Text and Notes xi
Introduction 1
1 Urban Working- Class Daily Lives and Work in the 1920s 11
2 Job Deterioration and Unemployment: “You Just C an’t
Depend on a Steady Job at All” 43
3 Employment Strategies and Their Consequences 64
4 The F amily Economy: Daily Survival and Management
of Resources 82
Photo Gallery Insert
5 Interrupted Expectations: Loyalty and Conflict in the
F amily Economy 101
6 Outside the F amily Economy: “Most Times I’d Go to
a Friend” 118
7 Relief: “I Never Thought I Would Come to This. I Am So
Willing and Anxious to Work” 135
Conclusion: Working- Class Women’s Class and
Race Consciousness 155
Acknowle dgments 171
Appendix A: Interview Sources 175
Appendix B: Social Scientists at the Women’s Bureau 177
vii
viii • Contents
Appendix C: The U.S. Census 183
Appendix D: Tables 185
Citation Conventions / Notes 193
Index 239
Preface
My History and Positionality
Devoting de cades to the lives of working- class women during the Great Depres-
sion, reading, writing, reflecting, walking their streets, shivering in bitter cold,
wilting in humid heat, and calculating statistics, I have endeavored to bring alive
their daily experiences. Scholarly practices of situating ourselves in our intellec-
tual l abor are erratic but essential. As a white w oman with the chutzpah to
write about Black w omen, I believe the particulars matter.
I learned racism through unique and commonplace experiences. As a child,
I played with a Black doll, a gift from white missionaries, whose slideshows of
African converts circulated through the five country churches my Pennsylvania
Dutch father pastored si mul ta neously. After my f amily settled in a working- class
neighborhood in West Philadelphia, when a Black f amily bought a row h ouse
two blocks away, I witnessed the remnants of a burnt cross while walking to
school. In a subsequent migration to V irginia, taken- for- granted legal segrega-
tion and the openness with which white p eople disparaged “Negroes” exposed
me to a real ity I knew only from TV news. The photog raph of Roxanne Haz-
zard in my wallet, a “colored” girl who sat next to me or in front of me in eighth,
ninth, and tenth grades (Hazzard, Helmbold: it was alphabetical), caused con-
sternation for southern white teen agers. Attending a white southern women’s
college and working as a waitress in the Midwest, North, and South added to
my knowledge of everyday racism.
Teaching at an obscure historically Black college in rural Mississippi in the
late 1960s changed my life. A single student had attended an integrated school,
during her se nior year in high school, more than a dozen years a fter the U.S.
Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. My students compelled
me to make strug gle against white supremacy a lifetime commitment. As a
ix