Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Fall/Section017/Stella Dean

cOverview

Waitress during the Great Depression (1930s)

Stella Dean was interviewed by Mrs. Luline Mabry on July 21, 1939 for the Federal Writers' Project. She was a white woman who was born in Kansas and lived in Hendersonville, North Carolina during her adulthood. She went through many obstacles in her life such as traveling the U.S. during the Great Depression, to economic instability, to being a single mother.

Biography

Early Life

Stella Dean was originally from Kansas. Her father owned a farm in Kansas. However, when Stella Dean was a child, her father had to leave his farm, and her family had to travel around the United States a lot. During the Great Depression, many families lost their farms since people weren't buying fresh produce off of farmers. She was 9 years old when they had left the farm and started traveling. Due to her family traveling, Dean never really got to have a proper education. When her family found a stable living in Yale, Oklahoma, she had around seven years of education. Her father worked for long hours a day while her mother stayed home because she fell very ill. After being in Oklahoma for seven years, which was the longest they'd ever stayed in one place, she and her family moved to Long Beach, California. The reason as to why they moved to California was because her father was getting paid very little in Oklahoma. When they settled in Long Beach, Stella Dean started going to public night school. Everything started getting a bit better for Stella and her family. Stella was getting her education, her father was working, and her mom was recovering from her illness. Sadly, an earthquake struck them. Then they had to move again. At some point, Stella Dean's father introduced her to a man named Garret who lived on a farm.

Later Life

Stella Dean met a gentleman named Garret through her father. They got along very well and she fell in love with him. They ended up getting married not too long after. Consequently Stella noticed that her husband was very lazy, but she noticed too late because they ended up having a child who was named Sid. Sid was born in Long Beach, California, where they had gone back to right after they got married. It was extremely difficult for Garret to get a job, as he would get fired or would quit frequently. Stella then realized that Garret just didn't want to work at all because he thought the work was too hard or the boss wouldn't like him. A bit later, they moved to Missouri to try to find a job for Garret, but had no luck. At last, they moved to North Carolina. That is when Stella Dean took initiative to find herself a job since she separated from Garret. Stella Dean landed a job at a hotel as a waitress in Hendersonville, North Carolina, that job didn't last so long for her because the hotel closed the dining room in the winter. She then found a job at a restaurant across the street as a waitress. Her income was as little as fifteen dollars a week, which all went towards Sid to send him to a religious school. Then she started to become religious for Sid. She was never religious until she was a single mother. She would pray that Sid wouldn't turn out like his father.

Social Issues

The Great Depression

Many women and their families were struggling during the Great Depression. Families were challenged in major ways: "economically, socially, and psychologically." Men were losing their jobs and were unsuccessful in finding any other stable jobs during this time. This caused many families to voyage around the United States to seek a better and stable life wherever they ended up. Both middle and working classes were heavily affected by the Great Depression. Marriage rates declined, but so did divorce rates because of the lack of ability to pay for a lawyer and their fees. Many families "crowded together in apartments or homes," if they weren't traveling the U.S. in order to find a job. In families, children suffered the most because of the impotence to provide the proper necessities such as clothing, food, etc. The role of men changed because it was difficult to get employed and pursue being the breadwinner of the family. Unemployed men lost hope and felt like failures when they couldn't find jobs to provide for their families. This is where women accepted the challenge to seek a job as well. Children were also in this position many times.

Women in the Workforce

Women increasingly became a part of the outside workforce, rather than being in the domestic workforce. Usually, women worked in extremely low-status and low-paying jobs. Work relief programs such as the "Works Progress Administration (WPA) affected many women during the Great Depression." These relief programs set lower wages for women, especially to women fields like sewing and nursing. Women were not covered by the retirement pension and unemployment insurance programs established by the Social Security Act of 1935 as well. In addition, women, especially women of color, were adversely affected by the racial disparities and opportunities that were given to more white women than black women. It has been revealed that black women are excluded from obtaining jobs without an education. White adolescent and older women were allowed to get a job without education or job skills while black women were only allowed to join the domestic work force if they didn't have an education. Lastly, if women were not able to dress fashionably, apply makeup, or keep her hair short, she would be turned down from having a job because she didn't look "presentable." Women suffered immensely during the Great Depression whether it be economically, socially, psychologically, etc.

Bibliography

Boyd, Robert L. “Race, Self-Employment, and Labor Absorption: Black and White Women in Domestic Service in the Urban South during the Great Depression.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 71, no. 3 (2012): 639–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23245192.

Encyclopedia.com. “FAMILY AND HOME, IMPACT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION .” Encyclopedia.com. Encyclopedia.com, October 15, 2021. https://www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/family- and-home-impact-great-depression.

Helmbold, Lois Rita. “Downward Occupational Mobility during the Great Depression: Urban Black and White Working Class Women.” Labor history. Taylor & Francis Online, February 28, 2007. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00236568800890091.

History.com Editors. “Great Depression History.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, October 29, 2009. https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/great-depression-history.

Temin, Peter. “Socialism and Wages in the Recovery from the Great Depression in the United States and Germany.” The Journal of Economic History 50, no. 2 (1990): 297–307. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2123273.