Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2023/Fall/Section20/Robert and Gladys Walker

Biography

Bill's Early Life

Robert (Bill) and Gladys Walker were from Georgia in a two story house that is yellow and has a porch and is decorated with flowers. Billy was born in Warrenton, Georgia and lived there until he was 10. His family brought him over with a white family and had worked for that white family all his life. He now owns a barbecue stand while his mom is still working for that family. When he was little, his mother left him with his grandmother while she worked before they moved to Athens. After the move, as a ten year old he got a job wheeling a disabled white man for $1 a week. After that gentleman died he got a job working for the same white family as his mother who payed him $2.50 a week. When his parents were sick he would give them his money and take care of them. When he got old enough, he got a job as a butler and chauffeur working for $7 a week and driving all over, even to New York. After that job, Bill went to Atlanta and worked all around for two years, saving enough to own his own barbecue stand. From this job in Atlanta, Bill learned how to "cook hash and Brunswick stew, and to barbecue meat." Bill didn’t have much school and never finished highschool. He struggles with writing and reading but has lots of common sense and "folks cain't cheat me and think I don't know about it."

Glayds's Early Life

Glayds was born in Bogart, Georgia and began working on the family farm as soon as she was old enough. She then worked for a white family basically as a maid, bringing in water and firewood, etc. When the mother of the white family died she stayed around to be caretakers of the kids. She got paid 60 cents a week. After she left there she went to Winder, Georgia, where cooked and was a maid for five years. She married her first husband here and he died. He was dead a little over a year before she met Bill. Glayds and Bill then fell in love and created their new life together. They moved and she began cooking for a white family until the couple started their business.

Work life

After Bill got married, Gladys and him decided to open up a barbecue stand by digging a their own barbecue pit outside their home and kept it open through the start of winter with home barbecued meat. They put a lot of time and effort to make it successful. "It's taken a good deal more scrimping and saving to be able to hold on to our business after we once got it started." Their business soared and, after two years, grew enough to where they had to find a bigger place. They bought a corner to place their business and became successful. First opening of the new location, Bill had 500 circulars distributed in a 10 block radius. They went to work day and night to try to build up a reputation. Not to long after, Bill noticed, "I have as many white customers as Negroes."

Social Context

Child labor

Child labor in agriculture, Texas United States 1913

Child labor was a big issue in the early 1900s. Child labor laws were not created until 1938. These were created for the purpose of "ensuring that when young people work, the work is safe and does not jeopardize their health, well-being or educational opportunities”. Before this children could work up to 12 hour shifts. They were forced to do jobs no one wanted to do and jobs that were dangerous.“In the early- twentieth century America, young boys worked their fingers often literally to the bone in the coal breakers, young boys and girls continued to work sixty and seventy-hour weeks in the cotton textile industry.” Poor families needed their children to help work to have resources to survive. This not only hindered the health of children but also their education. Most children who worked rarely was given education. "Most child domestics were unable to pursue either formal or non-formal education because their employers would not allow it."

Starting a Business in the Great Depression

Starting a business takes lots of dedication and carries the possibility of failure. Most people go broke or fall into debt trying to start a business. The money for property, payroll, and manufacturing products, as well as various other expenses, means that most businesses take years to turn a profit. When starting a business you have got to be sure "that you and your dependents can survive off the new vendor."This means lots of future planning and budgeting. During the Great Depression money was tighter than ever. The Great Depression flooded society with new worries as well as unemployment "at a new high." Due to the low employment, that brought lower sales which meant losing money. During the Great Depression as a result of the joblessness a new term was created "survival entrepreneurship". This term means people who start small businesses for a means of livelihood. "The mass unemployment of such periods accentuates interethnic competition in the labor market, so the prospects of minority job-seekers are particularly slim."

References

ANZ life guides starting a business. Accessed October 10, 2023. https://www.anz.com.au/content/dam/anzcomau/pdf/financial-wellbeing/life-guides/anz-life-guide-starting-a-business.pdf

Boyd, Robert L. “Survivalist Entrepreneurship among Urban Blacks during the Great Depression: A Test of the Disadvantage Theory of Business Enterprise.” Social Science Quarterly 81, no. 4 (2000): 972–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42864032.

“Child Labor.” DOL. Accessed October 5, 2023. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/child-labor.

Hindman, Hugh D. Child Labor: An American History. M.E. Sharpe, 2002 https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=GQcV11ayCngC&oi=fnd&pg=PP9&dq=child%2Blabor%2Bin%2Bamerica&ots=UmfngYsLPP&sig=82MtNF8mnqg6PDlteMeoCk_RI9g#v=onepage&q=child%20labor%20in%20america&f=false.

"Robert and Gladys Walker" interview by Sadie B. Hornsby, date April, 19, 1939, Folder 193, Federal Writers' Project papers #3709, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Failing Our Children: Barriers to the Right to Education: VI. Child Labor.” September 2005, Accessed October 29, 2023. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/education0905/8.htm#:~:text=Most%20child%20domestics%20were%20unable,employers%20would%20not%20allow%20it.

The Dayton Herald. “Unemployment Rate Statistics for November 1931.” November 27, 1931. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-dayton-herald-unemployment-rate-stat/22200458/.