Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Fall/Section087/Julia Hicks

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Overview[edit | edit source]

Julia Hicks was a Black woman who was born and raised in Athens, Georgia. Although her birthday is unknown, her birth year was 1886.[1] Hicks was an interview participant in the Federal Writers' Project in 1939. Her interviewer, Grace McCune, wrote her under the name Annie Hayes.[2]. At the time of her interview for the Federal Writers' Project Hicks was 52.[3]

Biography[edit | edit source]

Early Life[edit | edit source]

Julia Hicks resided in her childhood home her whole life. She grew up in Athens, Georgia with her mother and father. Her father was a Black man who fought in the Civil War, and her mother was of Native American and Black descent. Her mother was a slave on the plantation of the Thomas family.[4] After the Civil War, her mother became a maid to a white woman who lived just up the hill from Hicks's current home.[5] Hicks received a relatively impressive education for a black woman during her time. Additionally, she grew up in a rather religious household. The church was right down the hill from her childhood home, and she went every Sunday.[6] In terms of her affiliation, she described herself as a Christian, however, she discerned that she was not a Catholic.[7]

Education[edit | edit source]

Hicks had a rather substantial education. She started school in Athens, Georgia. From there she went to Old Knox Institute. This establishment was a boarding school so Hicks completed her last year of schooling there. Finally, she made her way to Clarke's College for two years in Atlanta.[8]

A "Colored School" in South Carolina, ca.1878

Later Life[edit | edit source]

As Julia Hicks aged into adulthood, she grew her family. She got married and had three children. Although the interview does not specify who her husband was, at the time of her interview she was a widow. Her three children resided in New York City, working as factory workers or chefs.[9] She was quite proud of her children and all they accomplished. In terms of her personal values, she was quite traditional and valued hard work. She reflected on changing social norms with discontent and often wished for things to return to how they had been.[10] She was a proud woman and reflected warmly on her hard work. She started teaching as a profession right out of school. She taught at several elementary schools, and made relatively good money.[11] After teaching, Julia moved into housework. Throughout her younger years and into her older ones, Julia became a maid and housekeeper to different families and facilities. She was a maid and caregiver to a woman named Miss Mary, she worked for the head woman at a girls’ dormitory, and she worked as a housemaid to one other unnamed family.[12]

Historical Context[edit | edit source]

Education for Black Children in the late 1800s[edit | edit source]

Education for Black children at the turn of the 20th century was far from optimal. Black children rarely went to school past fourth grade. They went to school in racially segregated institutions with secondhand resources.[13] Additionally,“Black children were often pulled out of school because they were needed on the farm. Many of their parents were sharecroppers. To plant and harvest enough crops, sharecroppers’ children had to work alongside their parents”.[14] Thus, education for Black children was lackluster and left a large gap between the education of Black and white children during this time.

Black Women in the Workforce in the Early 1900s[edit | edit source]

Domestic workers in the United States in 1914

Women were a crucial part of the professional world at the turn of the 20th century. Lower class women needed the extra money brought in by their work to supplement the money brought in from husbands or if there was no supplementary income. Many women often did this on top of their household and childcare responsibilities. Black women in particular were very active in their professional lives, "in 1890, almost a million black women were employed – 37.8 percent in agriculture, 30.83 percent in domestic service, 15.5 percent in laundry work, and a tiny 2.76 percent in manufacturing."[15] These percentages detail the strong labor force of Black women and distinguish their contributions to industries in 1890. Despite their large contribution to the industry, Black women rarely made a fair wage. They often worked long hours with little to no compensation.[16] Thus, the working world proved to be hard work and extremely labor intensive for Black women during this time.The Depression only made things worse, as "over half of black female workers had lost their jobs during the Depression, yet government relief programs rarely accepted them.”[17] The addition of the Depression on top of already racist sentiments pushed out hardworking Black women from jobs in favor of white men.

Effects of Racism on African Americans in the Early 1900s[edit | edit source]

Racism was still quite prominent at the turn of the century, despite the end of the Civil War occurring over thirty years ago. The Jim Crow era was a dominating force at the turn of the century and effected politics substantially.[18] African Americans were often seen as outsiders, and when the United States dove into war in the early 1900s fear of "alien" influences only grew. This resulted in African Americans feeling heightened surveillance by white populations and being neglected in political decisions.[19] Additionally, the second Ku Klux Klan developed in the 1920s fueled by racist tendencies. African Americans became subject to lynchings and burning of houses.[20] Lastly, while progress was made to improve the status of African Americans, it was lackluster. African Americans "had been concentrated in racially segregated neighborhoods, where property values were stagnant or sinking, and where most of the businesses were owned by outsiders. But they had access to streetcars, and the local policemen were sometimes black.”[21] So, even though the Civil War was in the past, racist tendencies were still alive and well.

Footnotes[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ "Julia Hicks."
  2. ↑ Interview, McCune, Grace on Julia Hicks, 1.
  3. ↑ Ibid, 4.
  4. ↑ Ibid, 3.
  5. ↑ Ibid, 7.
  6. ↑ Ibid, 31.
  7. ↑ Ibid, 33.
  8. ↑ Ibid, 24.
  9. ↑ Ibid, 8.
  10. ↑ Ibid, 25.
  11. ↑ Ibid, 15.
  12. ↑ Ibid, 19.
  13. ↑ Brooker, "The Education of Black Children."
  14. ↑ Ibid.
  15. ↑ Woloch, 14.
  16. ↑ Boyd, 642.
  17. ↑ Woloch,21.
  18. ↑ Guterl, 33.
  19. ↑ Ibid, 38.
  20. ↑ Ibid, 39.
  21. ↑ Ibid, 45.

References[edit | edit source]

Brooker, Russell. “The Education of Black Children in The Jim Crow South.” America’s Black History Museum. ABHM. Accessed October 9, 2022. https://www.abhmuseum.org/education-for-blacks-in-the-jim-crow-south/.

Boyd, Robert L. “Race, Self-Employment, and Labor Absorption: Black and White Women in Domestic Service in the Urban South during the Great Depression.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 31, no. 3 (2012): 639–61. https://www-jstor-org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/stable/23245192?pqorigsite=summon.

Guterl, Mathew Pratt. “The Status of African Americans 1900-1950.” In A Companion to the Modern American Novel 1900-1950, 31-55. United Kingdom: Blackwell, 2009. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/doi/10.1002/9781444310726.ch3.

“House Servants at Stonehouse Hill, estate of F. Lothrop Ames.” Photograph. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_worker#/media/File:Amesservants.jpg.

Interview, McCune, Grace on Julia Hicks, March 29, 1939, Folder 213, Federal Writing Project Papers, Southern Historical Collection, UNC Chapel Hill. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/doi/10.1002/9781444310726.ch3.

“Julia Hicks.” Ancestry.com. Ancestry. Accessed October 9, 2022. https://www.ancestrylibrary.com/discovery.

Palmer, J.A. “A ‘Colored School’ in South Carolina, ca. 1878.” Photograph. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Colored_School,_by_J._A._Palmer.jpg.

Woloch, Nancy. “The Changing Status of Women 1900–1950.” In A Companion to the Modern American Novel 1900-1950, 13–30. United Kingdom: Blackwell, 2009. https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/doi/pdf/10.1002/97814.ch2.

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