Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Fall/Section087/Hattie Gill Olive Mial

Overview

Hattie Gill Olive Mial was a white woman who lived in Raleigh at the turn of the century; she was widowed twice and divorced once. Mial lived a difficult life, jumping house to house and job to job to try to support herself and her family. She also fell victim to tuberculosis and struggled with morphine addiction.

Biography

Family Life

Mial was born in 1878, the oldest of seven children. Her family was poor, but they were able to get by on their father’s printing salary. Therefore, throughout her life, Mial described herself as having all the "comforts and pleasures of other little girls in our circumstances." However, her father suffered from poor health, and he eventually had to quit his job. As the oldest child, Mial was forced to quit school in eighth grade so she could work to support her family.

Marital Life

Mial was married a total of three times during her life. Her first husband, Tommy Gill, was the love of her life. They met when they were children, and Mial claimed, "we had been in love since we were old enough to toddle about." Once Tommy finished his trade, they married. She said they understood each other perfectly, and she worshipped him. However, after eight months of marriage, Tommy got sick with pneumonia, then tuberculosis, and died, leaving behind Mial and their unborn child. After Tommy’s death, a rich, older man, named Henry Olive pursued Mial and she eventually agreed to marry him. They had a wonderful relationship and Henry accepted Mial's child as his own. Henry sadly passed away when Mial was in her 40s. There was then a man she agreed to marry after Henry's death, but it was very short-lived. They married, but got divorced shortly after because his family was not supportive of them.

Personal Issues

When in her 40s, Mial and Henry got into a car accident. Henry made it out unscathed, but Mial was left with many broken ribs. This injury led to a morphine addiction. Furthermore, a year after the accident, Henry died of illness, leaving behind Mial and her child. Since Henry did not have insurance, Mial was left with the business and a small amount of cash. At the time of the interview, Mial was still struggling with addiction.

Professional Life

Early Professional Life

With the help of her neighbor, Mial got a job working at a candy factory, earning 25 cents a day. Her salary, combined with help from her mother, allowed them to keep their home life smooth. Shortly after starting at the factory, a man approached Mial and said, “You’re too pretty to be buried in a factory,” and he offered her a job as a clerk at a retail store, earning her 6 dollars a week. However, being the face of this store led to Mial getting attention from numerous suitors, many wanting to take her out. This job is actually where she ended up meeting her second husband, Henry Olive.

Married Professional Life

Once Mial was married, she did not work a lot. With her first marriage to Tommy Gill, Mial continued to hold a steady job to support her family. Tommy understood the importance of her contribution and allowed her to continue to work to do so. However, Tommy would remain the main provider for Mial and himself. During Mial's second marriage, her husband was an extremely successful businessman, so Mial did not have to work. She was well off, occasionally working alongside her husband in their numerous businesses.

Later Professional Life

After Mial's second husband died, since he did not have insurance, she was left with a small amount of cash, and the business. Her child, Tommy Jr, and Mial tried to run the business, but they were unsuccessful because of their inexperience. They were on the verge of losing everything, so she was forced to sell the business for 1/10 of what it was worth. Shortly after, Mial took in Tommy Jr.’s wife because he could not afford to take care of her on his own. Mial, who was weakened from tuberculosis, started her own restaurant. This place, however, was very rowdy because people would bring their own alcohol, even during prohibition. However, Mial did not mind this rowdiness because it mean't she got a lot of business. It soon gained a reputation, and out of fear of getting trouble with the law, and Mial was forced to close it.

Social Context

Women's Role in the Early 20th Century

In the early 20th century, a woman had a very different role compared to the early 21st century. For example, “In the early 20th century, most women in the United States did not work outside the home, and those who did were primarily young and unmarried.” The fact that only about 5% of working women were married reflects this idea. Even if a woman did find a job outside of the home, only about 20% were considered “gainful workers.” This means that only 20% of working women had jobs that provided steady earnings, and were self-sufficient. While it was considered normal for most women to leave work as soon as they married, it was also considered normal for women to not attend an institution of higher education. While in comparison to the 21st century, this lifestyle may be hard to fathom, the fact is “ that many women left work upon marriage reflected cultural norms, the nature of the work available to them, and legal strictures.” However, this way of living did not last for long throughout the early 20th century. Slowly, more women began to enter the work force. By the 1930s, nearly 50% of unmarried women were in the work force and 12% of married women. This increase can be due to the spread of feminist ideals, along with women no longer wanting to rely on their husbands for help. Women slowly began to demand change, and began filling up the work force.

The Great Depression

The Great Depression was the largest economic downfall in the 20th century. It left millions of people jobless and in poverty. In the early 1920s, “economic growth was negative, and unemployment reached 11.3% in 1921.” However, people do not attribute the actual start of the Great Depression until the stock market crash of 1929. After the stock market crash, the economic growth continued to be in the negatives and unemployment rate reached a historical maximum of 22.9%. Due to the rate of unemployment, homelessness, and poverty, life expectancy for individuals quickly dropped. Birth rates dropped rapidly, and “females lost 7.4 years of life expectancy in the same period.” Along with the decrease in life expectancy, there was an increase in suicide rates as well. This can be attributed with how stressful of a time it was for many individuals. It was extremely difficult to find a job, and without a job, men and women could not support their families. Many businesses were forced to shut down, and people were left scrambling for work.

This image depicts a vintage advertisement for family medicine. Advertisements like these were very popular during the opioid epidemic, and often failed to list the ingredients found in this medicine. (Fig. 1)

Addiction in the Early 20th Century

The opioid epidemic swept through the late 19th and early 20th century, impacting 1 in every 200 Americans. Opioids work by the “stimulation of structures within the mesolimbic system, such as the ventral tegmental area and the nucleus accumbens. This increases the dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens [88] which determines the feeling of pleasure.” This means that enough opioid can make a person not feel pain, and feel a sense of pleasure. The reason that opioid use became such a widespread epidemic during this time was because doctors did not know how addictive opioids were. They considered them as a speedy way to relieve pain, and carelessly prescribed them without considering the consequences. However, there were not many advancements in medicine at the time so, “when a physician decided to recommend or prescribe an opiate for a patient, the physician did not have a lot of alternatives.” This overuse led to addiction because “Substance use disorder develops as a result of long-term administration of substances.” Soon, people who were addicted to opioids were no longer people who actually needed them. Instead and injured soldiers returning from war receiving these drugs, it was white, upper class white women. Doctors were well aware of the problem , but “as long as the most common kind of narcotic addict was a sick old lady, a morphine or opium user, people weren’t really interested in throwing them in jail.” Slowly, when more medical advancements came out, doctors were able to reverse their deadly mistake. They began to give aspirin, rather than morphine and stopped overusing them. However, this epidemic would last for many years and is still prevalent in the early 21st century.

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis (TB) was a disease that swept through the late 19th and early 20th century that left many people dead. It is a deadly disease that impacts the lungs, and affects the individual for their entire lives. There were also certain factors that increased people's risk of getting TB. The first factor being, "The association between TB and poverty is mediated by overcrowding, poorly ventilated housing, malnutrition, smoking, stress, social deprivation and poor social capital.” This explains why TB was so prevalent during the Great Depression because many people were forced to live in close quarters with one another. Furthermore, “Injecting drug users (IDUs) experience high TB prevalence due to social and demographic risk factors such as poverty, unemployment, homelessness, imprisonment, HIV infection, malnutrition and lack of access to health care.” This demonstrates why TB was so prevalent during this time period because many individuals were addicted to morphine, an injectable drug. Overall, the different associations between the Great Depression and TB can reveal why there were so many cases during this time period.

Works Cited

Figueroa-Munoz, Jose, and Pilar Ramon-Pardo. “Tuberculosis Control in Vulnerable Groups.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 86, no. 9 (2008): 733–35. https://doi.org/10.2471/blt.06.038737.

Kelvey, Jon. 2018. “How Advertising Shaped the First Opioid Epidemic.” Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian. April 3, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-advertising-shaped-first-opioid-epidemic-180968444/.

Listos, Joanna, Malgorzata Lupina, Sylwia Talarek, Antonina Mazur, Jolanta Orzelska-Górka, and Jolanta Kolinska. “The Mechanisms Involved in Morphine Addiction: An Overview.” International Journal of Molecular Sciences 20, no. 17. Accessed October 13, 2022. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms20174302.

Tapia Granados, José, and Ana Diez Roux. “Life and Death during the Great Depression.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 106 (August 18, 2009): 733–35. https://doi.org/10.1073pnas.0904491106.

Trickey, Erick. 2018. “Inside the Story of America’s 19th-Century Opiate Addiction.” Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian. January 4, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-story-americas-19th-century-opiate-addiction-180967673/.

Yellen, Janet. 2020. “The History of Women’s Work and Wages and How It Has Created Success for Us All.” Brookings. May 2020. https://www.brookings.edu/essay/the-history-of-womens-work-and-wages-and-how-it-has-created-success-for-us-all/.