Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2024/spring/Section14/Nancy Nolan

1: Biography

Goodman, Jon, Lange, Dorothea, photographer. Migrant mother, Nipomo, California. California, 1982. [New York: Aperture, Millerton, New York: Photogravure Workshop, Silver Mountain Foundation] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2009631019/.

1.1 Nancy Nolan was a widow with three sons, who’s husband had been a farmer near the town of Echo, Alabama, in Dale county. Her boys were aged 2 to 9 at the time of his death circa 1898. Her oldest son, John, was born in 1889, with her two other sons born in 1891 and 1896, respectively. They had been sharecroppers, being allowed to use their piece of land to farm in exchange for a share of their profit. Suddenly struggling to make ends meet as a single mother, she continued to work the land alongside her eldest son for an additional five years. She then moved to Barbour county in 1903 to work in a textile mill. She was unable to afford her older sons an education, as the two of them had to work at the mill alongside her so they had enough to to house and feed themselves. After her wages were raised, her youngest son attended school, with her older children finally becoming semi-literate at the same time. Her first and middle son both continued to live in Barbour country, with her youngest son moving to Columbus, Georgia. Nolan never remarried, but continued to work at the mill until she moved in with her eldest son in 1933. All of her sons attained their own homes, which they owned outright, and married with children. Her grandchildren were able to receive proper education, from kindergarten through grade school, by the time of the interview in 1938.

2: Social Context

2.1. Poverty in the rural South: Although black populations fared the worst economic hardships, many rural white southerners struggled under dire economic conditions before and during the Great Depression. “Southern…whites had less money, less education, and poorer health than white Americans in general.” (Boney, 1). Many poor white farmers also struggled to accrue any form of generational wealth whatsoever, as industry downturn or simple necessity could often mean frequent uprooting for the many farmers trying to work the same slices of land. The dominant economic system of the time, sharecropping, meant that farmers would often accrue debt that trapped many in continuous poverty. Textile workers in the early twentieth century shared in a similar fate, while not necessarily accruing debt due to the nature of their employment, like tenant farmers, they would often work long, dangerous hours for very little pay.

2.2 Lack of Education

Lack of education: Education among white southerners halved in the decades following the Civil War and heading into the early twentieth century, despite the fact that there was only a “minor role for a drop in school quality.” (Bleakley, Hoyt, Sok Chul Hong, 1). This was largely due to growing poverty after the disruption of the civil war and the negative economic consequences of Reconstruction which engulfed the south in the postbellum period. The problem was worsened due to the fact that ““mass education was scorned by the landed aristocracy… and investment was hampered by empty public coffers” (Bleakley, Hoyt, Sok Chul Hong, 5). Pre and post war attitudes towards education held by the Southern planter elite discouraged investment into public education, and what limited attempts were made to develop the South’s public education was hampered by the general poverty of Southern states during and after Reconstruction. This regional disparity would continue largely until the New Deal policies of the late 1930s.

2.3 Single motherhood

Single motherhood in the early twentieth century was an extremely challenging position for families to find themselves in. There was very little social support system for mothers whose husbands passed away or abandoned families, and almost nothing in the way of federal or state support for those struggling economically. As men were the main income generators for families, losing this income generator was a large hit to familial income that many struggled to recover from. The most common response to this was to have both the mother and any able children work in the father’s place, which in turn meant that children would often not be able to be educated, due to work or lack of income. This cycle of poverty is described as such: “The death or departure of a spouse.. had a particularly devastating economic and emotional impact on working-class women...Women who found themselves temporary or permanent heads of households were economically and socially vulnerable…it was almost impossible for women to earn sufficient wages to successfully support themselves, let alone their children.” (Morton, 91). This cycle often trapped children in low wage menial jobs and deprived them of gaining higher value skills that could lift them out of poverty in the future. These conditions affected a large number of American youth, as “By the opening of the (twentieth) century, nearly one in five of the nation’s 10-15 year olds were employed” (Mirel, J., & Angus, D. 491). While single motherhood was not necessary to incite these conditions, it was almost a certainty for those families affected by it, and losing the husband could toss families who formerly had an upward economic trajectory into this cycle for generations. The condition of child labor meant that even if the children managed to maintain a successful nuclear family, their families would often be kept in a low economic status due to the men being limited to low skilled labor. While some managed to lift themselves out of this cycle, many others would struggle to do so.