Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Spring/105i/section007/Molly Jordan

Biography

Family and personal life

Molly Jordan lived on a farm with her husband, Buck Jordan on a vast acreage of land. The Jordan couple lacked financial stability because their income was dependent upon the yield of the farm, which had been notably low in the late 1930s. They had 11 children, of which only 5 survived past infancy. The predominant motivation for having children was to help with the workload of managing a farm. Jordan was of both white and black descent, described by many during the time period as "mulatto", leaving her in a unique subset of society. Having been tricked by the owner of their farm land, Jordan was forced to pay a surcharged rate for rent during a period of land scarcity, leaving her no other options. She did not have any of her extended family, most likely as a result of the racial divide that separated both this society and her family. Jordan claimed to be a Christian and a member of the Southern Baptist Church, where she attended every Sunday.

Occupation and daily life

Molly Jordan's official occupation was a housewife for the entirety of her life. She was responsible for preparing food and tending to the housework chores everyday. Her husband, Buck went out and hunted for food or completed small handiwork tasks to earn money to buy food at the local markets. Because the farm yields were so scarce for several seasons in a row, the Jordan couple ate predominantly freshly hunted animals and grains. When Buck Jordan's scavenging came up short, they were forced to depend on a store to supplement their food needs. For breakfast, dinner, and supper, the couple has bread and fried meat, with the occasional cornbread or sweet potato if the corn and root vegetable harvests allowed. Black coffee was a staple in the Jordan household for breakfast, but was cut from the budget if food was especially scarce. Molly spent her days churning butter, doing the washing, and baking bread. With her exclusively domestic occupation, Jordan claimed that the only joy she had was from "reading [her] bible or chewing [her] snuff.

Social Context

Economic conditions of rural 1930s North Carolina

This image depicts a child working on a farm during the 1930s in the US South

The economy of rural North Carolina was based predominantly on agriculture. In the late 1930s, there were several low-yield growing seasons due to weather and environmental conditions, leaving this agriculturally-based economy in shambles Land was extremely valuable and expensive, despite the low crop that it produced. Most land was owned by wealthy people who let tenant farmers or sharecroppers live on their land in exchange for a portion of the crop yield. Lower class farming families were often forced to move seasonally in search of a new opportunity after a low-yield season. When several dry seasons happened in succession, many farmers were forced to find other work such as small tasks for wealthier families or selling anything they could . Although the upper class was extremely scarce in numbers, the class divide was considerable.

Racial prejudice in the 1930s US south

Black people were heavily discriminated against during this time and rarely saw occupation opportunities outside of poorly-paid physical labor. Mixed race people were heavily unacknowledged as a population due to the division of white and black people into separate subsets of society, however, there was substantial discrimination against mixed race people nevertheless. A child of mixed-race descent was likely to have been a result of rape due to the fact that any mixed race marriages were virtually unheard of. There were circulating beliefs during this time that black people were genetically predisposed to thriving doing physical labor, while white people were not. Concerning the biology of mixed race people, they were seen as not a strong as black people, but they could not be grouped into the caucasian genetic pool either because they were not a "pure" white. Therefore, mixed race people had a harder time finding work because they were believed to be genetically inferior in doing manual labor and also genetically inferior in the intellectual sphere . Even years after the slavery era, the Southern United States still saw much of the slavery-era dynamics in the form of poverty indebting workers to their employers with no opportunity to get ahead financially and break the cycle. Oftentimes in court cases, finding out that someone had mixed race decent would completely invalidate the person, stripping them of a fair trial .

Family dynamics and gender roles of the 1930s US south

The rural family

The rural family was a "unit of labor", with the woman as the domestic guardian and child-bearing force, and the man as the money maker; either hunting and farming or working to make a salary to feed his family. Families generally had as many children as possible to offset the high child mortality rate and to carry out the family farming duties. A woman was responsible for caring for her children in their early adolescence, but would mostly carry out domestic duties as the children grew up and became independent workers in the family operation. The wife would cook the food that the husband brought home, sustain the farm by milking cows and tending to the chickens, or wash clothes and dishes. All members of a rural family were up before sunrise, fighting against the clock of survival: if you didn't go out to get your food, you simply would not eat.

The wealthy family

The people belonging to a higher socioeconomic status during the depression era were few in numbers, but their role shaped the dynamic of society as a whole. The housework tasks such as childcare, cooking, and cleaning were usually carried out by a maid, leaving the woman of the house with less responsibility. She would fill her days with other women, often carrying out home beautification projects and baking. Many of these higher class women belonged to a women's club to socialize and carry out community service projects, many of which aimed to help the financially struggling members of the community. However, a lack of understanding and superiority complex persisted between these different classes of society. The man of the family had an occupation usually in the intellectual sphere such as a banker or land owner. The wealthy family also had many children in hopes of carrying on the family name; to be married off or to take on the family business.

References

“Folder 442: Harris, Bernice K. (Interviewer): Molly Jordan: Mulatto Farm Woman.” Federal Writers Project Papers, dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/03709/id/472/rec/1.

“28 Apr 1938, Page 2 - The Daily Times-News at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com. Accessed February 25, 2022. https://universityofnorthcarolinaatchapelhill.newspapers.com/image/52573717/?terms=and+women+and+farm&match=1.

“3 Feb 1938, Page 13 - The Daily Times-News at Newspapers.com.” Newspapers.com. Accessed February 26, 2022. https://universityofnorthcarolinaatchapelhill.newspapers.com/image/52572056/?terms=mulatto&match=1.

Cox, Oliver C. “Farm Tenancy and Marital Status: With Special Emphasis upon Negro Marriage.” Social Forces 19, no. 1 (1940): 81–84. https://doi.org/10.2307/2570846.

Frazier, E. Franklin. “Children in Black and Mulatto Families.” American Journal of Sociology 39, no. 1 (1933): 12–29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2767103.

Blackwell, Gordon W. “The Displaced Tenant Farm Family in North Carolina.” Social Forces 13, no. 1 (1934): 65–73. https://doi.org/10.2307/2570219.

File:Great Depression, Young Girl Stringing Tobacco.jpg ...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Depression,_young_girl_stringing_tobacco.jpg.