Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2023/Fall/Section33/Mamie Collins

Biography

Work Life

Woman farmer during the Great Depression

Mamie Collins has lived in rural Marion County in South Carolina her whole life. She lived and worked on a ten acre property surrounded by cornfields. She spends long days out in the fields harvesting peas, potatoes, and corn. Collins suffers from neuritis, which makes it difficult to get her work done. Collins’ family lost their expansive farmlands over time so they resort to alternative methods such as sharecropping. The Collins family were once wealth plantation-owners, but after slaves were emancipated they lost this labor force and with it, much of their wealth. Because of her family's decline, Collins blames African American people for her misfortune.

Family Life

At the time of her interview, Collins and her brother Bud live alone on their property. They were both educated at a nearby school. Collins’ sister, Ellwood, died a year before the interview. Ellwood died from falling onto the highway and local doctors could not save her. Because Collins lives in the rural South, their community struggles to get the healthcare they need. Without her sister, Collins is very lonely so she keeps herself busy with farming. Collins and Bud struggle to make ends meet as many of their crops have failed and they have limited land to work with. Despite these hardships, Collins is proud of her home and loves where she lives.

Social Context

Inadequate healthcare in the rural South during the Great Depression

During the Great Depression, overall American healthcare suffered, but rural southern states especially struggled. In the rural South, the few hospitals and doctor’s offices that did exist in the rural South were forced to close due to a lack of funding and infrastructure. Many people died unnecessarily or were unable to work due to the lack of healthcare, which only worsened the impacts of the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, “counties in the rural South were in desperate need of doctors, nurses, and hospitals.” This lack of public healthcare was not nationwide and the problems were significantly worse in rural areas. “There was also the belief that the federal government could not adequately respond to local needs as they varied, depending on where you lived.” Furthermore, “'chronic non-communicable diseases and injuries tended to rise during the Great Depression.” Poverty is said to decrease life expectancy, because without access to healthcare, many issues will go untreated. Research shows there were severe consequences of “infectious disease and chronic disease mortality during the Great Depression.” Because of the Great Depression, healthcare hit a steep decline and these impacts were only intensified in the rural South.

South Carolina farm circa 1940s

A farmer during the great Depression

Deep-rooted racial prejudice in the South During the Great Depression

Despite the Civil War’s conclusion and the Emancipation Proclamation, many formerly-Confederate Americans were still upset and were blatantly racist towards African American people. Many southern farming families were angry about the freedom of slaves and the loss of a free labor source. Descendants of these plantation owners, whose families were once very wealthy, were hit hard by the Great Depression. The majority of these racial tensions “originated in slavery.” People in the plantation regions of the South grew a deep hatred for black people after they were freed because their economy was based on slavery. To compensate for this strain on the economy, “poor whites naturally anchored their hopes in their freedom and in their white superiority,” meaning that poor white people felt better about their status by putting African Americans down. Racial prejudice against black people was increased significantly by the transition of the slaves to citizenship. After the Civil War and emancipation, the economy in the formerly-confederate states took a major toll. Permanent adjustments due to emancipation led to steep declines in farming. In South Carolina, emancipation caused “the plantation system to break down quickly and was replaced by a mix of sharecropping, tenancy, and wage labor.” This decline in the plantation economy after emancipation led to deep-rooted racial tensions between freed slaves and the poor white people who blamed them for their situation.

Footnotes:

References:

Brewer, William M. “Poor Whites and Negroes in the South Since the Civil War.” The Journal of Negro History 15, no. 1 (1930): 26–37. https://doi.org/10.2307/2713897.

Granados, José A Tapia. “Bank Failures, Mortality and the Great Depression.” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (1979-) 66, no. 5 (2012): 477–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23215970.

Historic Events for Students: The Great Depression. . Encyclopedia.Com. 18 Sep. 2023. Encyclopedia.Com, CENGAGE, 5 Oct. 2023,

www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-and-education-magazines/public-health-1929-194

1#:~:text=Counties%20in%20the%20rural%20South,health%20simply%20was%20not%2 0necessary.

Latzko, David A. “MAPPING THE SHORT-RUN IMPACT OF THE CIVIL WAR AND EMANCIPATION ON THE SOUTH CAROLINA ECONOMY.” The South Carolina Historical Magazine 116, no. 4 (2015): 258–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44289835.

“Mamie Collins” Interview by Anne Ruth Davis, date December, 1938, Folder 839, Federal Writers’ Project papers #3709, Southern Historical Collection, the Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Neuritis.” Neuritis - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics, 2020. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/neuritis.

“The Great Depression Hits Farms and Cities in the 1930s.” Iowa PBS. Accessed October 16, 2023. http://www.iowapbs.org/iowapathways/mypath/2591/great-depression-hits-farms-and-cities-1930s.