Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Spring/105i/section007/Bertie Williams

Biography

Family Life

Bertie Williams, a twenty-year-old, from Newton, North Carolina, lived on Ed Vines' property. Her family consists of thirteen members, including her mother and father.  They were tenant farmers that raised “corn, wheat, cotton, and plenty of vegetables.” They had plenty to eat, especially because they possessed cows, which provided them milk, butter, and cheese, as well as hens, who provided eggs. They additionally grew  fruit on the farm, which they ate, canned and dried. Despite her needs being met, Williams mentions how she is more interested in food “you buy out the store.” Additionally her ambitious spirit led her to a looping school. For a dollar a week she was taught how to sew the toe of socks after they were knitted. She paid for experience in hopes of getting a job in at the hosiery mill located in Durham, North Carolina. At that textile mill she would have earned money, making apparel, to support not only her dream wardrobe and a place of her own, but to support her family. Williams, while ambitious, ensures her interviewer that she didn’t neglect the intensive hard work she would endure in hot mills. It wasn't going to be unfamiliar to her because she worked as a tenant farmer, hoeing cotton and corn all day in the sun for majority of her young life.

Womanhood

Hosiery Mill: textile mill in Durham

Williams, while compromised by her conservative social environment, found liberation in making money. For instance, despite the 19th amendment Williams does not believe in women's suffrage because “all it’s good for is to make trouble.” Yet, her transition from tenant farming to work at the textile mills meant “the difference between satisfaction and discontent.” She is emancipated by the realization that she is fully capable of owning and providing for herself in ways that her family or a potential future spouse might not be able to.

“When I get married I’m going to have a home first. If my man doesn't buy it, I’ll work and pay for it myself.” - Bertie Williams

Young Adult Life

As Baptist Christian, Williams, enjoys reading the Bible and “Clean fun.” Her community hosts many social gatherings where no dancing is tolerated. Instead they play games, enjoy refreshments, and clean music. If there are no parties on Saturday nights, Williams and a crowd of her agemates go to shows, which she enjoys more. Williams considers herself to be a self respecting girl, which is why she sets stern boundaries when hanging out with boys

Social Issues

Education

Education was rapidly and drastically transformed from the early to mid-twentieth century, with the Great Depression having a significant impact. “Many girls took vocational and commercial rather than academic courses so that although they comprised just over half the students in high school, they lagged behind men in post-secondary education, with the gap worsening during the Depression and post war years.” The security of work was especially important considering the pits that the Depression brought upon everyone. These vulnerabilities contributed to the lack of emphasis placed on education, particularly for young women, during a more conservative and sexist era. “In 1920, about 8 percent of all 18-21-year-old women enrolled in colleges and universities, and comprised 47 percent of all undergraduates. In the 1930s and 1940s, the number of men in college increased rapidly.” During the turn of a century people were faced with war, famine, and poverty “women obtained greater access to secondary schooling, but higher and professional education varied with the economic and social climate, as an increasingly conservative social mood impeded female aspirations. In the early 1920s many women believed they had been fully accepted as scientists, yet as historian of science Margaret Rossiter observes, they made little progress in the next two decades.”

Education In the 1940’s

There was a scarcity of data pre-1940s for many factors! In fact ‘Highest grade completed’ was asked in 1940, but many older Americans had not attended graded schools and some went to school for more years than grades. “There is considerable evidence that the 1940 Census overstates the high school graduation rate of older Americans to a considerable degree.” And before 1940’s only two states, Iowa and South Dakota, asked questions on educational attainment. This loose attention put on education implemented many detrimental traditions within education in U.S history during the height of the 40s social climate. Gender inequalities, and quality of education received in poor vs. affluent districts are some, to name a few. “Attempts at equalization within states, however, often have deleterious and unintended consequences for the school system as a whole, leaving the poor no better off than before and occasionally worse off.”

Schooling is “a pure consumption…enabling people to better understand and enjoy their surroundings. Education can thus play a multitude of roles in the economy, polity, community, and religious and personal lives of a people.” As a result, poor areas get the short end of the stick, and women's education falls behind their male counterparts. Therefore individuals who lacked access and or quality education lost transformative moments of their youth, contributing to a more narrowed trajectory of their lives. 

Fashion In The 1930's vs How Modesty Was Advertised Post The Great Depression

Fashion

Popular fashion trend: Smart suit

Cally Backman states that “By the early 1930s, the fashionable silhouette was evolving into a slender, elongated torso with widening shoulders and a neat head with softly waved short hair.”

The 1930s hallmarked exaggerated shoulders on dresses and suits. It was a time where padding  and layering fabrics was a must. “They had clearly defined waists and fell between the mid-calf and just above the ankle. Smart suits were popular with crisp lines and sculptural, defined shoulders.”

Mannerisms in Fashion vs Individualism

The Great Depression vs. Individualism.(1930s)

    Women’s liberation, while subtle, took many forms in family dynamics, financial independence/ dependence, and eventually in fashion. “Women’s role within the family economy altered in this era: more took jobs outside the home.” “Despite public hostility to married women’s employment which surfaced during the Depression, the uncertain economic climate promoted women to hold onto jobs “just in case” or seek paid work when other family members became unemployed.” As women explored the labor market, it liberated them not only financially as providers, but on more personal levels. Conservative magazines fixated on these effects discussed beauty, culture, and fashion cautiously.  They used cautious words of wisdom in the 30s to address the thin line between individualism and a woman’s dignity.

Conservative Media vs Social Movements (1930)

Women magazines had tendencies to be biased due to their unique perspective of womanhood. In the 30s many media outlets such as magazines, music, journals, and advertisements had the opportunity to benefit off of society's preconceived beliefs about women.

    When it came to deconstructing the effects of individuality and its disruptive effects on fashion in the 30s, conservative media juxtaposed individualism to an era amidst the Great Depression, to a social movement of “extravagant fashion and the exploitation of the feminine body.” Mary Rinehart, a journalist at Ladies’ Home Journal in her issue The Effects of Mannerism, for instance, captures the media’s desire to sell the idea that women should be careful not to be naive to social movements that pretend to be liberating but are in fact robbing them of the true essences of femininity. It was necessary for them to “watch that the pendulum does not swing too far the other way.” The 30s sold the idea of balance to women, especially to the young and impressionable.

The Male gaze vs. Individualism (1930s)

    Lastly, the Male perception was still a large motivator for women. Rinehart states “A girl who is partially unclothed, who is innocently or knowingly forcing her attractions on to him, becomes a question to be answered…Modestly is largely a matter of dress, and there is nothing shameful about modesty." No matter what frees women, “the woman of a man’s dreams is invariably a feminine woman, embodying the virtues of femininity.” The Conservative media shows the damaging effects that individualism can incur on femininity that’s centered in male validation.  So depending on the type of men women wanted to attract, modesty was advertised as the key for women to truly embody femininity.

References

Citations

“Bertie Williams” Interview by Ethel Deal, date August 9, 1939, Folder 349, Federal Writers' Project papers #3709, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/03709/id/762

Goldin, Claudia , “Education” in chapter Bc of Historical Statistics of the United States, Earliest Times to the Present: Millennial Edition, edited by Susan B. Carter, Scott Sigmund Gartner, Michael R. Haines, Alan L. Olmstead, Richard Sutch, and Gavin Wright. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/10.1017/ISBN-9780511132971.Bc.ESS.01

Kleinberg S.J. (1999) Economic Activity during Boom, Bust, and War. In: Women in the United States, 1830–1945. American History in Depth. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-27698-1_10

Reddy, Karina. “Fashion History Timeline 1930-1939.” Fashion History Timeline. Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York, April 5, 2019. https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1930-1939/.

Mary, Roberts Rinehart. "The Effects of Fashion on Manners." Ladies' Home Journal, 10, 1930, 6-7, 80-81, http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/effects-fashion-on-manners/docview/1821850199/se-2?accountid=14244.