Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Fall/105/Section 061/Arthur J. Moore

Arthur J. Moore
Nationality	American
Occupation	Laundry Pressing Club Operator

Overview

Arthur James Moore was an African American Pressing Club Operator from Camp Polk, North Carolina. On July 14, 1939 Arthur was interviewed by Cora Bennett in Charlotte, North Carolina for the Federal Writers Project Papers.

Biography

Childhood and Family

Born in the 1890’s, Arthur J. Moore grew up in rural North Carolina in a working class family. His father, a dedicated farmer, owned a small farm in Camp Polk, North Carolina where he rented extra land for farming. It can be assumed; however, this information is unknown, that his mother worked in the home, taking care of her sixteen children. Despite having fifteen other siblings, Arthur claimed that his family “lived pretty good for country folks”. However, Arthur was an avid believer in small families, but against the growing birth control practices at the time because of its unknown dangers to a person’s health. Unlike many other African American children during the 1890’s, Arthur and his siblings were able to walk to town to attend the all black school, which over the years would only provide them with an education equivalent to the seventh grade. After schooling in Camp Polk, Arthur attended college for two terms to learn tailoring, but moved back home and gave up on this ambition after they didn’t give him the trade.

Adult Life and Career

Arthur’s siblings went on to live in various places including Ohio and cities in the North, but he stayed close to home and worked in Charlotte as a presser for a laundry company. At the time his wage was $6 a week, which was enough to live on until he met his wife. Arthur decided to move to Smith’s Junction to marry and live with his wife for about three years. Deciding to move closer to his parents, Arthur, his wife, and their first baby moved to Charlotte where Arthur was able to get a job in the cleaning and pressing department at a laundromat that paid 9 dollars per week which he continued to work at for over twenty four years. After moving his family to Charlotte, him and his family initially lived in an apartment until Arthur was able to “reach one of [his] goals in life- to own [his] own home”. Arthur was extremely content with life at the time until his wife brought up the idea of remodeling the old house. By the time they remodeled, it would be the same amount to completely tear down the house and build a new one, so they built an eight-bedroom house. Arthur’s wife was able to find a job as a maid and he was getting $35 a week, so they were financially stable for about three years. However, when his job cut his wage down from $35 to $20, there was no way for Arthur to pay back the $15.68 a week for his house loan and still have money for his three children, so he had to sell his home. Arthur worked tirelessly to avoid selling his home, but he claimed that “the depression just got [him]” so he had no other option. At the time of the interview in 1939, Arthur said that he guessed his family would live in an apartment for the rest of his life. He tried to persuade his sons to go to college after they completed high school in order to make a better life for themselves than he did, but they didn’t want to. After the Great Depression hit and he lost his home Arthur occupied himself by taking part in lodges organizations and going to church. Despite all the hardship he endured, Arthur claimed, “there's not a thing I can do about it all now” and decided that he would face every situation in the future with a positive attitude, and the rest he would let go.

Historical Context

Birth Control

During the Great Depression around the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, there was a rapid growth in the contraceptive industry in the United States. This growth was reflected by birth control ads published in women’s beauty magazines. An example of one magazine, McCall, published in 1933, said, “Fewer marriages would flounder around in a maze of misunderstanding and unhappiness if more wives knew and practices regular marriage hygiene” (465). These ads are representative of how the birth control industry targeted women, not men, to purchase female contraceptives. Desperate to reduce family size in the post-depression era, most women opted in to taking these new forms of birth control because they could not financially afford to have more children. This was the first time in history that there was a mass market for contraceptives, which thrived off building a permanent consumer base. It sadly seems that “contraceptive manufacturers in the 1930’s exploited this vacuum to their advantage, retailing devices that were often useless and/or dangerous in a manner that kept the birth-control business on the right side of the law” (486). Therefore, contraceptive manufacturers in the 1930’s successfully preyed on women’s desperate desire to limit family growth and their ignorance of the unknown dangerous of these birth control methods.

Racism and Segregation in North Carolina during the 1930’s

The 1910’s and 1920’s in America were marked by oppressive cruelty and injustice towards African Americans. However, several acts of resistance in the 1930’s paved a way for the civil rights movement to emerge in the 1960’s. These developments that helped weaken the notion of segregation in America included, but were not limited to, anthropologists rejecting the claim that African Americans were genetically inferior, the interracial movement by the CIC, an increase in African American involvement in politics, and the rise of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). One major event that helped strengthen equal rights was the Thomas R. Hocutt v. Thomas J. Wilson Jr., Dean of Admissions and Registrar, and the University of North Carolina (Hocutt v. Wilson) court case. In 1933, Thomas Hocutt, an African American college student was rejected admission from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s pharmacy school because of his race. Hocutt lost this case, however this event caused Durham to create a strong black community that fought to create good race relations in the town. Therefore, “viewed through a narrow lens, the Hocutt case had failed to achieve its immediate objective. Viewed in its larger context, however, this 1933 legal action marked a turning point in the African American struggle for equal rights and social justice” (308).

Bibliography

• Garraty, John A. “UNEMPLOYMENT DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION.” Labor History. 17, no. 2 (1976): 133-159, Academic Search Premier.
• Gershenhorn, Jerry. “Hocutt v. Wilson and Race Relations in Durham, North Carolina, during the 1930s.” North Carolina Historical Review 78, no. 3 (July 1, 2001): 275-308, Academic Search Premier.
• Klein, Christopher. "Last Hired, First Fired: How the Great Depression Affected African Americans." HISTORY. Last modified April 18, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/last-hired-first-fired-how-the-great-depression-affected-african-americans.
• Mohun, Arwen P. "History of Laundromats." Laundry Solutions Company. Last modified August 17, 2020. https://www.laundrysolutionscompany.com/history-of-laundromats/.
• Moore, Arthur J. "Ups and Downs." By Cora Bennett. Federal Writers Project Papers. Accessed October 16, 2020. https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/03709/id/705/rec/1.
• Tone, Andrea. “Contraceptive consumers: Gender and the political economy of birth control in the 1930s.” Journal of Social History 29, no. 3 (March 1, 1996): 485-506, Academic Search Premier.