Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Fall/Section087/Homer L. Pike

Overview

Homer L. Pike was interviewed by Maurice Russell for a life history piece that would be part of the Federal Writers Project.

Biography

Early Life

Pictured is a phonograph, similar to the one that Pike's Grandfather had.

Homer L. Pike was born in 1901 near Fort Mount Alabama. He lived with his five brothers and one sister, and had two siblings that died early on. The house he lived in was only two rooms with a “shanty” (as he referred to it) for a kitchen. His family moved all over looking for work, first taking them to Dogwood, then Jefferson, and finally LaPlant. In Fort Mount, Pike collected the charcoal his Dad left behind and gave it to their landlord for ten cents. His Grandfather owned the only Edison Gramophone he knew, and he would often think he was successful for this. When Pike was around ten, his family moved to Jefferson where a lot of his relatives lived at the time. At this same age, his Mother passed him off as eleven so that he could work in the same mill that she was working in. While in LaPlant, Pike came back from work and went to LaPlant High School before studying two years at Derby College in Florida, where he got an A.B. Degree.

Adult Life

After College, Pike would work for the Summer at Coney Island where he would make $40-$100 a week, which is where he would meet his first wife. Pike would travel all over the U.S. looking for a place to settle down. This would lead him to Los Angeles, where he got a job with Prudential, making $25 a week with commission. When the Great Depression rolled around, his five person family was living off of $18 a week. Pike was also $100 dollars in debt, and because of this his family didn't have basic things in their house such as furniture or bedrooms. Ever since he was of age, Homer was never able to vote due to the poll tax, but despite this, he still supported the Roosevelt administration in office.

Social Context

Decreasing Family Income During the Great Depression

Due to lowering wages and a bad economy, families were forced to live off of less money and more jobs began to pay less. Many companies such as "the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company, Birmingham’s leading employer, lowered wages by 50 and 75 percent by 1933 and threatened workers with dismissal if they protested the policy". This led to families having to depend on decreasing wages to feed, clothe, shelter, educate, and provide healthcare for their kids. In 1935-1936 the average household income was just over $1,000, and a family who made more than this would be placed in the middle income range. The number of families that earned in between $500 and $1,500 would grow to 50 percent of the total population. Men were hit hard with depression and stress as they failed to provide for their families due to the economic strain they were put under. This led to the "national suicide rate rising to an all time high in 1933". Poor man's divorces, which were when Men left their families out of guilt for not being able to provide for them, became increasingly more common as a result.

The Poll Tax Preventing People From Voting

A receipt given to a woman named Rosa Boyles for paying the poll tax, allowing her to vote.

The poll tax was a fee (normally a couple of dollars) that had to be paid at the poll in order to vote. This had already marginalized people living in poverty and during a time of economic crisis where money had to be stretched thin, large amounts of people in the South couldn't vote. During this time, the percentage of people voting in states with a poll tax was all less than or equal to 5% of the total population with the average being 3%. As for the total population of people who couldn't vote due to the poll tax, it was estimated to have disenfranchised nearly "11,000,000 citizens in the solid south". This meant that most people in the South didn't have a say in who was elected to important government positions that could issue policy and changes that would directly affect them. The poll tax made it harder for people to voice their opinions in government and exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Children Trading Their Education For Work

It became very common for children to drop out of school to enter the workforce in order to help contribute to their families annual earnings. The amount of children in the workforce aged between 10 and 15 rose to around 1 million in 1920 and by 1940, the average person in America would only have a 9th grade education level. Children leaving school to work led to a very low level of education being achieved for them. Most children who left school to work would do so around grades 6-10 and many would not return to school later in life.

References

1. Biles, Roger. "The Urban South in the Great Depression." The Journal of Southern History 56, no. 1 (1990): 71-100. https://doi.org/10.2307/2210665
2. Brewer, William M. "The Poll Tax and Poll Taxers." The Journal of Negro History 29, no. 3 (1944): 260-299. https://doi.org/10.2307/2714819
3. Bolin, Winifred D. Wandersee. "The economics of middle-income family life: working women during the Great Depression." The Journal of American History (1978): 60-74. ​​https://doi.org/10.2307/1888142
4. Konkel, Lindsey. “Life for the Average Family during the Great Depression.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, April 19, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/life-for-the-average-family-during-the-great-depression.
5. Vo, Lam Thuy. “Child Labor in America, 1920.” NPR. NPR, August 17, 2012. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/08/16/158925367/child-labor-in-america-1920#:~:text=Turns%20out%2C%20about%201%20million,apprentices%2C%20and%20served%20as%20messengers.