Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Fall/Section093/Mary Wright Hill

Overview

Mary Wright Hill was a principal at East Athens School in Georgia. She is of French and Native American descent, and she was interviewed by Sadie Hornsby for the Federal Writer's Project on July 27, 1939.

Biography

Personal Life

Mary Wright Hill was born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1881 being descended from primarily a Christian, French and Native American family. While Hill was born in North Carolina, she notably spent the remainder of her life in Georgia where she received her first job as a schoolteacher at the age of thirteen so she could send money back to her family! While teaching in Georgia, she fell in love and married. However, after Hill's elder daughter turned five, her husband passed away. This left her to raise two daughters alone. However, she did so and ensured that both went to college for finer learning opportunities. Her elder daughter attended Fisk University and the younger attend Atlanta University Hill remained unmarried to focus on raising her daughters through college. After being single for fourteen years, she married to her second husband, but their union did not last seeing as he was lazy and not willing to work. Finally, Hill married for the third time in 1936. Both her and her spouse lead working lives. Hill was the principal at East Athens School, and she helped her husband do interior decorating on the side. The couple also owned living quarters that they rented out to others staying in the area. By doing these things, she was able to share her faith in Christ with others and contribute to her community.

Professional Life

At the age of thirteen, Hill obtained her first in an elementary school in Oxford, Georgia. For the next few years, she matriculated through a few schools teaching elementary education, and her good reputation for teaching led to her being elected to become the first female, colored principal at East Athens School. Shortly after arriving at East Athens, Hill noticed that the drinking water at the school was causing her to feel ill. This led her to being interviewed by a representative from the Georgia State Board of Health. After completing the processes of testing the water, the Georgia State Board of Health reported to Hill that water was unfit for drinking. Resulting from this, the principal had running water facilities installed at her school. While serving as principal, she noticed that there were many sick children in the school who needed care. This led her to obtain her diploma in nursing from the Chautauqua School of Nursing so she could care for sick students at her school for over three decades. Additionally, Mary taught social service classes for more than ten years to assist the illiterate in Athens in their reading skills. Resulting from her tremendous work, she was nominated for an award representing outstanding child health demonstration work. The majority of the nominees for this award came from larger cities that had better resources for success, but regardless of those statistics, Hill won the award. This woman’s passionate work and success was exemplary for anyone, but she was also met with adversity. Hill was challenged by others desiring to seize her job, because of their jealously, but because of her disciplined work ethic and exceptional knowledge the superintendent assured her that she would always have the liberty to possess her vocation without any threats.

Social Context

Poverty

Compared to the North, the southern United States did not have as many financial resources for a variety of activities, especially the African American population. While most white schools had the resources to obtain educated staff, minority schools were short-staffed, and the students had to go to school sometimes without supplies because their parents could not afford them. Furthermore, the Great Depression emphasized poverty in the south since so many were without jobs.

Education

Image of students attending an all black school in the South during the early twentieth century.

Unlike today, children in the early twentieth century were expected to work in helping bring income to support their families. Therefore, this made obtaining education to be difficult as there were not school busses to carry one to school or stores with school supplies within five minutes of home. Additionally, some families could not afford to send their children to school because they lacked the financial means to afford education. Schools were also segregated in the early 1900s. Resulting from this divide between black and white schools, some institutions could not obtain desirable staff to educate their children. This divide caused schools in the South to offer a poorer education than those of the North.

Gender Roles

Women at Work

During the Great Depression, men and women both needed to find jobs to support their families. In the early twentieth century, only about twenty percent of women were gainful workers. As the depression limited income for many families, women had to go out into the workforce to earn a living for families. However, by the 1930s, nearly fifty percent of single women and twelve percent of married women entered the workforce to prove they could contribute in a variety of ways to their communities. While these figures appear minuscule to current ratings, it was a noticeable rise compared to the lowly five percent of married women entering the workforce just a few years earlier. Women sometimes possessed more than one position in their occupations as well. For example, some cool teachers had to become educated on how to care for sick children who could not be cared for by their family.

Christianity

In the South during the early twentieth century, Christianity easily constituted for the most popular religion. Furthermore, during the Great Depression, many were left hopeless as a result being out of work. However, the hope and faith found in Christianity led an onset of people to explore the faith. It is noted that the by the early twentieth century out of a population of 8.3 million, 2.7 million of the southern black community were members in a church. There were most likely even more attenders of church since membership required faithful attendance and other requirements. Ultimately, many families relied on the hope that they believed in for a better future, whether in the present life or the after life. Hope studded people in the south to persevere through hardships in the Great Depression.

References

"Principal of Grammar School Thirty-Three Years" Interviewed by Sadie Hornsby, date July 27, 1939, Folder 175, Federal Writers' Project Papers #03709, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/search/collection/03709/searchterm/folder_175!03709/field/contri!escri/mode/exact!exact/conn/and!and/order/relatid/ad/asc/cosuppress/0

Lichtenstein, Alex. 1997. Confronting Southern Poverty in the Great Depression: The Report on Economic Conditions of the South with Related Documents . New York: ProQuest. https://www.proquest.com/docview/235972028?parentSessionId=P9roNuwonJvb1yB4dmkF%2B51azZNDtiHhVY7iy3lXKWk%3D.&pq-origsite=summon&parentSessionId=bYKWxyTlSij3sWIDBMoD32TkQHqEEiw787ifhoJ95c8%3D Yellen , Janet L. 2017. “The History of Women’s Work and Wages and How It Has Created Success for Us All.” BROOKINGS. Washington D.C.: Brookings. 2017. https://www.brookings.edu/essay/the-history-of-womens-work-and-wages-and-how-it-has-created-success-for-us-all/

Wilson, Charles . Religion and the US South. University of Mississippi: University of Mississippi , 2004. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.18737/M74C77. https://southernspaces.org/2004/religion-and-us-south/

Gold, Sunny . “This Is What School Was Like 100 Years Ago.” Reader’s Digest. Reader’s Digest, May 10, 2022. https://www.rd.com/list/what-school-was-like-100-years-ago/