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

by Lois Rita Helmbold

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781978826458
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	10/14/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	283
File size:	33 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Lois Rita Helmbold is an independent American historian and women's studies scholar. She was a professor and chair of the women's studies department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas until she retired. She is now an anti-racism social activist in Oakland, California. 

Table of Contents

Preface: My History and Positionality

Abbreviation in Text and Notes

Citation Conventions

Introduction

1. Urban Working-Class Daily Lives and Work in the 1920s

2. Job Deterioration and Unemployment: "You just can't depend on a steady job at all."

3. Employment Strategies and their Consequences

4. The Family Economy: Daily Survival and Management of Resources

5. Interrupted Expectations: Loyalty and Conflict in the Family Economy

6. Outside the Family Economy: “Most times I’d go to a friend.”

7. Relief: "I never thought I would come to this. I am so willing and anxious to work."

Conclusion: Working-Class Women’s Class and Race Consciousness

Acknowledgements

Appendix 1: Interview Sources

Appendix 2: Women’s Bureau Social Scientists

Appendix 3: The Census

Tables

End notes

Editorial Reviews

"The sources of data used by Lois Helmbold deserve special mention. The author sifts through the relatively unknown interviews conducted by the Women's Bureau of the US Department of Labor to unearth the employment histories, financial struggles, household roles and survival strategies adopted by working-class women during the Great Depression."— British Journal of Industrial Relations

"Deeply researched in remarkably rich sources, this fine study takes us into the lives of working class women—their budgets, jobs, struggles, interactions with authorities, worries, and dreams. Full of insights regarding gender, immigration, and family, the book especially succeeds in its careful comparisons of women’s lives across the color line dividing African American and white women, capturing both common oppression and critical differences."

— David Roediger, author of The Sinking Middle Class: A Political History

From the Publisher