The Great Depression affected people in many different ways depending on a plethora of variables

Women and the Great Depression

Melissa Kitko

HIST 380L

12/02/1999

The Great Depression affected women in many different ways depending on a plethora of variables. Young women may not have felt the full force of the financial problems encountered by their parents, but were conscious of them through their observations of the changing world around them. Arthine Mark shared her experiences with me concerning the depression and how it affected her life during that time as well as how her later life was affected.

A family friend, I have known Ms. Arthine Mark for longer than I can remember. Despite this long acquaintance, I learned much more about her through the interview. Born in June of 1923 in New York state, she was the last of five children.[1] At the time of the stock market crash in 1929, she was six, not old enough to fully understand what was going on in the economy, but she still recognized that things changed in her home. She recounted the situation of her sister who had married a man who worked at the New York Stock Exchange. The gentleman lost his job and turned to alcohol and other vices, “as experienced in many families at that time.”[2] The marriage, Ms. Mark recounts, ended in divorce.

Although many couples went through divorce proceedings during the depression, statistics show that the number of divorces actually went down in the early 30’s.[3] A possible reason for the decline in the divorce rate despite the myriad of problems that arose because of the depression is that people simply could not afford the cost of divorce.[4] Living with a spouse who was nearly intolerable to live with meant better chance of financial security, and many believed that it was a worthy reason to stay together. Arthine’s mother and father managed to stay together through the difficult times. Her father worked for the Children’s’ Aid Society of New York as a house painter while her mother was, “a frugal homemaker.”[5] Her father did manage to keep his job, but she found out years later from a relative that her father’s boss had cheated him out of many deserved raises and had kept the money for himself.

Doris Fleischman, a writer, thought that the young women of the early 1930’s were tired of the “sport of their elder sisters.”[6] Their sisters were women of the twenties who had been raised in an environment that included liberated sexual attitudes. As a young girl, Arthine watched her sister’s marriage turn sour, and perhaps because of this example, strove to be different from her. Different for most young women in the same situation usually meant embracing femininity and domesticity.[7] Arthine even identifies her mother with positive terms, as being frugal and a homemaker rather than using negative terms to describe her decision to stay at home.

Since her parents did not talk about finances and money problems with her, Arthine felt protected and secure when it came to money matters and did not notice much of a change in that respect. Although her father kept his job and life seemed to go on normally for the most part, Arthine did notice some changes in the world around her.

One such change she noticed, for example, deals with the family living in the other half of the two family house. The tenants in the upper half of the house, the Armstrongs, had two daughters who were friends of Mark’s. She said that shortly after Mr. Armstrong lost his job, the family disappeared one night. Many years later, she found out that Mr. And Mrs. Armstrong took on the position of manager of an apartment house and had to move in order to secure employment.[8] The whole family uprooted and moved to another place so that the husband could secure employment and take care of his family showing his devotion to the family as a unit to make it though the rough times. Sometimes, however, the husband would do nothing to help the situation at hand.

One such pertinent case is that of a woman, having been married eight years, who had two children in the span of 17 months.[9] The husband, although employed, seems to think of the children and his wife as a burden, “glad not to be worried with mine or the children’s support.”[10] The woman, after six years, went back to school and back to work as a teacher. Although the husband did have a job, he did not support the children in any way. The woman recounted that one week she had been feeding her children oatmeal because there was nothing left in the house when her husband came home in a brand new car. Dr. Menninger perceived that this was the man’s way of telling his wife that he was fine with her role as a breadwinner and provider for the family.[11]

Concerning other changes that occurred, Mark also mentioned that clothing was passed around the family; she frequently wore clothing that her two cousins had also worn and was proud to wear it as well. The children of her neighborhood had made up their own games and pastimes without spending any money. Two specific songs she remembered were, “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” and, “The Best Things in Life Are Free.”[12]

Although Arthine was born in the United States, all four of her grandparents were from different parts of Germany. Arthine suggested that her ethnicity possibly a helped her and her family since the town consisted of German, Irish, Italian, Ukrainian, and African American families for the most part. Because all of these families, she explained, were mostly new to the United States, they were all, “in the same lifeboat,”[13] dealing with the same problems together as a unit.

Arthine’s family, aside from her older sister, weathered the depression fairly well. Her father was constantly employed, and her mother was careful about money matters. The family remained a strong unit. Many families at this time became closer than they had been before, contrary to the popular belief that economic adversity destroyed families.[14] Families were forced to stay at home and listen to the radio since there was not enough money to go out to parties and plays and other cultural events with the frequency that might have been seen before the stock market crash.[15]

Much of the credit for the survival of the family is given to women. A city editor said, “Society is not made poorer because mother is now neglecting the encyclopedia ... and is devoting more of her time to cookbooks.”[16] Although this statement is clearly antifeminist, it demonstrates that some women made the decision to stay home and take care of the family morale while her husband went out to take care of the financial situation.

On the other hand, sometimes wives could find jobs while their husbands were left unemployed. Women could be found working as teachers, secretaries, switchboard operators, laundry service, as waitresses, and even in industrial jobs. In the case of teachers, women dominated the field; only four percent of full professors in American universities were men.[17] Since more and more women were out working, the unemployed husbands were hanging around the house, the street, or bars all day. A jobless man started to be perceived as being worthless by his family and also himself.[18] In other situations, whole families would go out to work either together at the same location or separated at different jobs.[19] A typical situation consists of a man who went out to work in a steel mill while his teenage son and daughter went out to work in a mill while the wife stayed at home making lamp-shades.[20] In most cases, the woman would still remain at home, choosing to make money off of tasks that she knew how to do well such as doing the laundry of others, cleaning offices, or mending clothes. While she did not bring in the primary income, her efforts helped the family to pay their monthly bills. A woman would work out of necessity to make sure that her family would survive, not so that they would have a little extra cash for luxury or unnecessary items.[21]

A shift in values again can be seen. Men were becoming thankful that their wives could find a job and support the family. Since men were grateful to their working wives, they did not show or feel adversity to the idea of their wives working.[22] Although this ideology was not widespread in a strongly antifeminist society, it certainly did exist. Traditional roles in the family were being broken down slowly. Men sometimes found it hard to cope with the idea of not being the family’s sole breadwinner.[23] Children began to lose respect for their fathers and looked to their mothers as being more dominant in the realm of the family.

Another case of the woman having a higher status in the household than her traditional position comes from Dynamite Garland. She remembers her father calling her mother, “Queenie.”[24] She worked in a cleaning store so that her children could afford tuition and books at nice private schools. Her father worked various odd jobs, changing his employment frequently and moving the family with him each time.[25]

There were some women who decided to work for social reforms to make life better for families. They saw themselves as a “second generation of women reformers” who were as committed as their forerunners and were determined to continue making strides forward.[26] Hard workers, they pushed for laws for minimum wage, regulation of women workers’ hours, and the passing of the Child Labor Amendment.[27]

Since life was so stable for the Mark family both economically and emotionally, the parents sometimes brought the whole family together to make small decisions concerning how to spend money.

In financial matters, the woman would often not have a say unless she was the sole breadwinner. Arthine recounted that in 1929, her family had to make a choice between buying a new car or an RCA Victor combination radio, victrola, and recorder. The RCA product was chosen over the car, and her family quickly became a center for entertainment in the neighborhood.[28] Prior to this, Mark stated, her brother had made a radio for the family, the first one that her family had ever owned.

The radio was a form of cheap family entertainment. Radios were fairly easy to make, and most families owned them or had access to one through neighbors or family. Since finances were tight, many families would end up staying at home, listening to the radio, rather than going out to see a movie or to a social dance.[29] Sometimes local shops would set up radios at night for people to come in and listen while neighbors did the same for their friends.[30]

As far as how this all affected her in later life, Arthine mentioned that she still tends to save everything. Arthine told me that during the Depression, every woman had a button box.[31] Once an article of clothing became so old and worn out that it was no longer able to be worn, all useful items would be removed from the item including buttons, snaps, and hooks and eyes. These would be saved in a button box to use for making other clothes or replacing missing buttons on currently worn clothing. If there was any fabric that was not too badly torn or worn out, the garment would be cut up, and the fabric would be used for making doll clothes or quilts or rags for cleaning. Arthine told me that she still has a button box and a bag of rags in her home. She also said that when her own daughter was a child, she made doll clothes for her dolls from the rags that she saved. This thriftiness certainly came from her mother who she mentions as being a, “frugal homemaker,” although many other women in the neighborhood must have also done similar things with their clothing.[32] Habits such as these are ingrained by the parents during one’s youth as is clearly shown here. Both of my grandmothers both have rag bags and save all of their buttons and other findings from clothing. They both make quilts and clothes. My own mother had most, if not all of her clothing made for her by her mother up until she was in high school because it was much cheaper. My mother, in turn, made many of my baby clothes and still keeps a rag bag and button box even today. My mother and I still pass clothes around the women in my church and neighborhood. This demonstrates that it was not just Arthine’s family that had these practices, but that many women in different areas of the country had also done the same thing and carried on and passed on the same practices taught out of necessity because of the Great Depression.

Arthine also mentioned that in making purchases, “never buy anything that you cannot pay cash for.”[33] This clearly comes from her and her family’s experiences during the depression and their reactions to different situations. Although her parents did not discuss finances with her, she still saw how they handled money in everyday situations. Perhaps one time at the grocery store, Ms. Mark’s mother had to put a few items back because she did not have enough cash on hand to pay for everything without using credit. This simple, everyday sort of situation is one of the many that taught her the aforementioned lesson concerning credit.

Much has changed since the Great Depression. However, the lessons taught by it have been carried on and passed down by families for years since. As a child during the Depression, Arthine absorbed much, incorporating valuable lessons about money and frugality into her later life, even passing on those lessons to her children inadvertently. The Great Depression may have ended many years ago, but its legacy concerning life lessons was passed down and probably will continue to be passed down for generations to come.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Banner, Lois W. Women in Modern America: A Brief History. New York: Harcourt,

Brace, Jovanovich, Inc., 1974.

Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939.

England: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Faulkner, Howard J. and Pruitt, Virginia D., ed. Dear Dr. Menninger: Women’s

Voices from the Thirties. Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1997.

Mark, Arthine. Personal Interview. 16 November 1999

Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. New York:

Pantheon Books, 1986.

Ware, Susan. Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal. Massachusetts: Harvard

University Press, 1981.

[1] Mark, Arthine. Personal Interview. 16 November 1999.

[3] Banner, Lois W. Women in Modern America: A Brief History. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1974, p. 191.

[9] Faulkner, Howard J. and Pruitt, Virginia D., ed. Dear Dr. Menninger: Women’s Voices from the Thirties. Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1997, p. 141

[19] Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939. England: Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 200.

[24] Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986, p. 94.

[26] Ware, Susan. Beyond Suffrage, Women in the New Deal. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981, p. 19.