Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Spring/105/Section 56/Dr. Ida Mae Hiram

Overview

Dr. Ida Mae Hiram was the only black female dentist practicing in the state of Georgia during the Great Depression. She was interviewed by Grace McCune, a writer for the Federal Writers' Project at her office. The only time indication in the entire interview was the year Dr. Ida Mae Hiram graduated dental school: 1910.

Biography

File:Dr. Ida Mae Hiram.jpg

Dr. Ida Mae Hiram in her graduation cap and gown from Meharry College in Nasheville TN

Dr. Ida Mae Hiram lived in Athens Georgia, and was the only black female dentist in the state of Georgia at the time, around the 1910s-1920s. Her mother died when she was about six, so throughout her childhood her father raised her. Her grandfather was brought to the US from Africa as a slave, and her great, great, grandmother was Indian. Her dad did everything he could to prioritize her education and sent her to the Knox institute, a private school in Athens with most of its alumni attending historically black colleges for her early education. Dr. Hiram went into school with the goal of becoming a dentist at the same time as being married to a dentist and raising a daughter. She graduated in 1910 at Meharry College’s dental school in Nashville Tennessee. The only women graduating then were herself and a white woman.

Dr. Hiram worked in Athens Georgia ever since she graduated. She worked in a black owned building, and most of the work she got was from black people, specifically doing teeth extractions. Her daughter would come to help with lab work when Dr. Hiram needed help, but mainly works in insurance, so she travels frequently. When she wasn’t practicing dentistry, Dr. Hiram spent time at her church, as she sang in the choir. Dr. Hiram seemed to really love what she did, and told stories of fixing people’s jaws after accidents, and expressed her passion for helping people take care of their teeth.

Social Context

Women and families in the workforce during the Great Depression

A young female domestic worker during the Great Depression

During the Great Depression starting 1929, almost everyone in the United States felt pressures on being able to financially support themselves and their families. The stock market crash had incredibly large impacts on the jobs of most Americans, and even helped to put more emphasis on jobs that weren’t as dependent on the stock market. Throughout the 1930s, “the number of employed women in the United States rose 24 percent.” This extremely large increase in women employment was due to industries separate from the stock market, such as domestic work. Women who were lucky enough to have the opportunity to get an education during this time period were not as common as before the Great Depression, so there were less women entering fields that required an extensive education, such as medicine, law, etc. This move to domestic work was very prevalent specifically with Black women during this time; In big cities in the south during 1940, “the unemployment of black women was meaningfully reduced” mainly due to the “self-employment of women in domestic service.” Women also enlisted the help of their families to support them by working with them. Families were looked at by working “within a framework of cooperation,” and it wasn’t uncommon for parents to have children at work with them.

The effects of the Great Depression on Black communities

The Great Depression reinforced inequities and limits on economic freedom for Black Americans and Black communities. Black Americans were “the first to be laid off from their jobs,” and were also experiencing “an unemployment rate two to three times that of whites.” Segregation, Jim Crow, and systemic oppression were driving forces that controlled the extent at which Black Americans and Communities could be economically successful. A big reason as to how some Black communities were able to be successful was because of policies, activism, and political action by the NAACP. The NAACP helped to push for civil rights laws being passed, which helped improve opportunity for Black Americans trying to get an education. The NAACP worked in the legal system to challenge racist and oppressive legislation, which was how Brown v. Board of Education was able to exist and change legislation.

Successful Black communities are commonly looked back on as being very resilient, but looking at them like that discredits the hardships that were actually present and affecting them. Because Black Americans were hit extremely hard during the Great Depression, it was very difficult to support each other as a community, and only gained sustainable momentum when entire clienteles and employees of businesses were Black.  In terms of Black Employment, census data at the time pointed to the fact that “employment was resilient in only a few pursuits,” and in most cases, were within “professions that depended on a segregated black clientele.”

Bibliography

• Boyd, Robert L. 2017. Resilient or Fragile? The Black Metropolis Versus the Great Depression. Race and Social Problems 9, (3) (09): 181-191, http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/scholarly-journals/resilient-fragile-black-metropolis-versus-great/docview/1925372097/se-2?accountid=14244
• 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.
• 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. doi:10.2307/3177885.
• Lynch, H. "African Americans." Encyclopedia Britannica, August 17, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/African-American.
• Rotondi, Jessica. 2019. Underpaid, But Employed: How the Great Depression Affected Working Women. Underpaid, But Employed: How the Great Depression Affected Working Women