Making Choices, Making Do
eBook - ePub

Making Choices, Making Do

Survival Strategies of Black and White Working-Class Women during the Great Depression

  1. 242 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Making Choices, Making Do

Survival Strategies of Black and White Working-Class Women during the Great Depression

About this book

Making Choices, Making Do is a comparative study of Black and white working-class women's survival strategies during the Great Depression. Based on analysis of employment histories and Depression-era interviews of 1,340 women in Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and South Bend and letters from domestic workers, Lois Helmbold discovered that Black women lost work more rapidly and in greater proportions. The benefits that white women accrued because of structural racism meant they avoided the utter destitution that more commonly swallowed their Black peers. When let go from a job, a white woman was more successful in securing a less desirable job, while Black women, especially older Black women, were pushed out of the labor force entirely. Helmbold found that working-class women practiced the same strategies, but institutionalized racism in employment, housing, and relief assured that Black women worked harder, but fared worse. Making Choices, Making Do strives to fill the gap in the labor history of women, both Black and white. The book will challenge the limits of segregated histories and encourage more comparative analyses.


 

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Yes, you can access Making Choices, Making Do by Lois Rita Helmbold in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Labour Economics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Preface: My History and Positionality
  7. List of Abbreviations Used in Text and Notes
  8. Introduction
  9. 1. Urban Working-Class Daily Lives and Work in the 1920s
  10. 2. Job Deterioration and Unemployment: “You Just Can’t Depend on a Steady Job at All”
  11. 3. Employment Strategies and Their Consequences
  12. 4. The Family Economy: Daily Survival and Management of Resources
  13. 5. Interrupted Expectations: Loyalty and Conflict in the Family Economy
  14. 6. Outside the Family Economy: “Most Times I’d Go to a Friend”
  15. 7. Relief: “I Never Thought I Would Come to This. I Am So Willing and Anxious to Work”
  16. Conclusion: Working-Class Women’s Class and Race Consciousness
  17. Photo Gallery Insert
  18. Acknowledgments
  19. Appendix A: Interview Sources
  20. Appendix B: Social Scientists at the Women’s Bureau
  21. Appendix C: The U.S. Census
  22. Appendix D: Tables
  23. Citation Conventions
  24. Notes
  25. Index
  26. About the Author