1. Work and Family Life in the
Great Depression
HIUS157/Prof. Rebecca Jo Plant
2. Major themes
• Setbacks for women
– Emphasis on family survival
– Hostility toward organized feminism
– Cultural backlash against modern sexual and social
mores
• Progressive maternalists finally see many of their
goals realized
• New cultural models
– Resourceful, self-sacrificing mothers
– Plucky, independent single women
4. Great Depression
• Most severe economic crisis in the nation’s
history
– Lasted from 1929-41; worst period 1929-33
• Agricultural prices dropped
– Fell more than 60% between 1929-32
• Unemployment rose
– 1930: 4 million; 1932: 15 million
– Nearly one-third of the entire labor force
• Affected white-collar workers and skilled blue
collar workers (“new poor”)
5. Depression’s visible impact
• 1,000 homes foreclosed each day
• Factories stood idle
• Breadlines stretched for blocks
• Hospitals reported an increase in death
from starvation
• People looked shabby
6. “Invisible” poor – single women
• Images of urban poverty from the
Depression overwhelmingly male
– Women and children often did not stand in
breadlines
• Social services geared to support families
– Unrealistic idea that single women should
return to their families
9. Mexican-American “Repatriation”
• Crisis generated hostility to immigrant
workers
– Municipal govts anxious about welfare rolls
• US Government began a program to coerce
immigrants to return Mexico
– Free train rides
• Hundreds of thousands forced across the
border
– As many as 60% US citizens
10.
11. African Americans
• Higher rates of unemployment
– Downward mobility in the job market
– 58% black women in Chicago
• Received less government help
• Conditions especially bad in the South
• Some New Deal programs actually made
things worse for black sharecroppers
13. How to respond?
• Big changes in ideas re. government responsibility,
but not in re. to gender roles
• Renewed emphasis on women as homemakers
• Hostility toward working women, especially married
working women
– 82% opposed wives working if their husbands held jobs
• Including 75% of women
– Roughly 50% opposed wives working under any
circumstances
• Including 50% of women
• Only legitimate reason for women to work: to
sustain families
14. Discrimination in employment
• Section 213 of the Economic Recovery Act of
1932
– Married persons whose spouses worked for the
federal government fired first
• State and local governments refused to hire
married women
• So did school boards
• AFL: married women workers with employed
husbands “should be discriminated against”
• Even women’s colleges urged graduates not to
seek work
15. Women’s wage work
• Nevertheless, the number of married women in
the workforce increased 50% in 1930s
• Ironically, sexual segregation of labor market
provided a measure of protection for women
– Male labor concentrated in the industries hit hardest
• Construction, heavy industry, manufacturing
– Clerical and service work less affected
– Few examples of men moving into “women’s work”
• Teaching
16. Women’s household labor
• Role of housewife assumed on new importance
• Stretching the family budget
– ER’s 7-cent meals at the White House
• Many women returned to home industry
– Sewing
– Canning
• Others sought ways of supplementing family
income
– Taking in laundry, boarders, etc.
17. Orleck article
• “Militant mothers”—working-class
housewives
– Protested evictions
– Protested high food prices
– Established barter networks
• Saw themselves as defending traditional
gender roles
– Argued that the Depression had made it
impossible for them to fulfill their role
18. Impact on Families
• Emotional stress
– Rise in domestic violence and desertion
– But divorce rate actually fell
• Too expensive
• Thousands of families broke up; others became
more closely integrated
– Families pulled together, pooling resources and
working together
– Turned to cheap entertainment, like staying home
to listen to radio
19.
20. Delaying marriage
• Marriage rates fell dramatically in early 1930s
– Young people had to help support parents, younger
siblings
– By 1932, only 3/4ths as many people were marrying as
during late 1920s
– By 1938, some 1.5 million people had postponed
marriage due to hard times
• Led to concerns about the decline of public
morality
21. Birth rate and birth control
• Birth rate fell below replacement level for first
time in American history
• Greater public acceptance and increased
availability of birth control
– Government reversed course
• Anxious about swelling welfare rolls
– Contraception widely available by mail
• Sears Roebuck advertised “preventives”
• By 1940, only two states (MA and CT) still
prohibited the dissemination of birth control to
married couples
22. Abortion
• Rising incidence
• Most were not “back alley” procedures
– “Professional” abortionists practiced openly
– Clinic-like offices; followed medical procedures
– Often bribed law enforcement
• Leslie Reagan’s study of the Gabler clinic in
Chicago:
– Most patients (80%) married
• Of these, 57% had children
– Suggests attempts to limit family size
23. Ruth Barnett
• Ran an abortion
clinic in Portland
from 1918-1968
– Claimed to have
performed 40,000
abortions
– Never lost a patient
• Arrested for the first
time in 1951
24. Repeal of Prohibition
• Critics argued that it led to increased
lawlessness
– Bootlegging
• Large industry under control of organized crime
• Women’s Organization for National
Prohibition Reform
– Pauline Sabin
• Children are growing up with a total lack of respect
for the Constitution and for the law.”
• December 1933: 21st
Amendment ratified
27. Progressive maternalists and the
New Deal
• National Recovery Act of 1933
– Prohibited child labor
• Social Security Act of 1935
– Provided maternal and child welfare benefits
– Replaced state-level mothers’ pensions
• Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938
– Guaranteed minimum wages and maximum hours for
all workers
28. Social Security Act
• Benefits not linked to citizenship, but to
wage-earning
– 3 components: unemployment insurance; old
age assistance; aid to mothers with dependent
children
• Reinforced social hierarchies
– Excluded: 50% of all workers; 60% of women
workers; 85% of African Americans
– Still a critical precedent
29. Frances Perkins
• Former Hull House resident
• Worked as a legislative lobbyist for the NY
Consumer League (1910)
– Witnessed Triangle Shirtwaist fire
• FDR appointed her Secretary of Labor in 1932,
making her the first woman cabinet member
– Help craft minimum-wage laws and
– the Social Security Act of 1935
32. Mary McLeod Bethune
• Child of former slaves
• Active in black women’s club movement
• Most prominent black woman in FDR’s
government
– Director of the Division of Negro Affairs for the
National Youth Administration, 1936-43
• Urged FDR (unsuccessfully) to support an
anti-lynching bill
34. ER
• Grew up a rich but unhappy socialite;
drawn into reform
• New model of a first lady
– “My Day” – syndicated column
– Outreach to black community
• 1939 Resigned from the DAR due to its racism
– Women’s press conferences
– Strong stand on human rights
35. Legacies of the Depression
• “Invisible scars”
• Reinforced commitment to nuclear family
model, with a male breadwinner
• Helps to explain postwar demographic
trends
– Youthful marriages
– Larger families
