Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Fall/Section009/Idella Woods

Farm women working on quilt. Near West Carlton, Yamhill County, Oregon.

Overview

Idella Woods, mother and housewife, lived in Whitlock, Tennessee, with her husband and five children. She went to school until eighth grade and reread her schoolbooks until she was 21 and married her husband, Erie. Her husband used to farm and worked with his brother at a sawmill but became unemployed after the Great Depression. The family had enough food and money to get by and pay their rent, but no money for anything extra. Idella became the primary supporter and sold cream, eggs, and chicken to provide an income for the family.

Biography

Early Life

Woods was born in North Fork, Tennessee, and was the last of ten children. Her parents were from North Carolina and Virginia, but moved to Tennessee after her mother died to be closer to family. Woods attended school until eighth grade, walking two miles every day to the one-room schoolhouse. She met her husband when she was sixteen years old, and they married when she turned 21. Her father fought in the Civil War, and bought over 100 acres of land after it ended. Each child inherited part of the land after his death- Woods inherited 21 acres. The land was too difficult to build a house there, so she rented it out as farmland. She was able to rent 13 acres for cultivation, and made enough money to pay the taxes on the land. One year she was able to make $900 of the timber, which helped support her growing family.

Adult Life

Woods moved into a small shack with her husband after they married, but later purchased a farm. After they had made several payments on the home, a fire destroyed the building and surrounding farmland. Woods and her husband built a new house, and started harvesting potatoes. Once the Great Depression hit, potato prices fell to 10 cents a bushel and they were unable to keep up with mortgage payments. Woods and her husband were forced to sell the home, and they had to move into different rental homes every few years. Her husband used to work at a mill with his brother that made the heading for barrels, but was fired at the start of the Great Depression. He could not find work after being fired and started drinking alcohol to cope. Therefore, Woods became the primary supporter of the family and sold cream, eggs, chicken, and cucumber pickles. Woods did not let her children attend school past the eighth grade because she believed they would be better off working to support the family. Woods worked hard to ensure her daughters were married as soon as possible, so that she could focus on the other children and would not need to make as much money. Having one less daughter enabled Woods to spend more time making and selling items, and having one less child to feed. Woods grew all the vegetables and raised all the animals they ate from so they could save money whenever possible.

Social Issues

Education in Rural Tennessee During the Early 20th Century

Schools suffered at the start of the Great Depression primarily because of budget cuts, and children needed to go to work to help make money for their families. For students already at an economic disadvantage and had been working for several years, the arrival of the Depression only worsened their situation. In order to encourage children to keep learning, schools would remain open for only part of the year when children could attend and when there was enough funding available (Reference.com 2021). According to the Tennessee Virtual Archive, “schools had become targets for severe cuts during the Great Depression and consequently, the quality of education and the condition of school buildings suffered” (TeVA 2021). Schoolhouses were commonly closed because of unsafe building conditions, and would remain closed because of the lack of money to fix it. Therefore, it was common for children to not attend school or only up to a certain point, typically before adolescence.

Women Breadwinners During the Great Depression

Both men and women faced challenges during the Great Depression, but women were far more unlikely to find work because of the discrimination of women in the workplace (Helmbold 1987). Although women had worked within the home and taken care of domestic labor like cooking and cleaning for years, many were forced to enter an industrial workforce (Fearon 2008). Women also had to think of creative ways to support their families, and “their employment symbolized a commitment to their husbands, children, and homes” (Helmbold 1987). These creative methods of earning money included selling handmade goods and food. In addition to handcrafting items to sell, many families tried relocating to more rural areas to find work. At the start of the Depression when people were losing jobs and therefore homes, there was a “sizable movement of the unemployed from cities to nearby farms” (Boyd 2002). For women who were unable to work on farms or take part in other hard physical labor, they still turned to domestic labor and focused on selling what they could make.

References

Boyd, R.L. “A ‘Migration of Despair’: Unemployment, the Search for Work, and Migration to Farms During the Great Depression.” Social Science Quarterly, no. 83 (2002): 554-567. https://doi-org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/10.1111/1540-6237.00100

Fearon, Peter. Review of Women, the Radical Left, and the Fight against the Ravages of the Great Depression, by Mary E. Triece. Reviews in American History 36, no. 3 (2008): 426–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40210943.

Helmbold, Lois Rita. “Beyond the Family Economy: Black and White Working-Class Women during the Great Depression.” Feminist Studies 13, no. 3 (1987): 629–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/3177885.

"Teva: Early 20^th Century Schoolhouses". 2021. https://teva.contentdm.oclc.org/customizations/global/pages/collections/schoolhouses/schoolhouses.html.

Writer, Staff. 2021. "What Were Schools Like In The 1930S?". Reference.com. https://www.reference.com/world-view/were-schools-like-1930s-8c7b7e47e775c0f.

Woods, Idella. “We Started Out the Poor Way.” Interview by Clark, Ruth, December 20, 1938, Federal Writers' Project papers #3709, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.