Making Choices, Making Do

Making Choices, Making Do is a comparative study of Black and white working-class women’s survival strategies during the Great Depression. Based on analysis of employment histories and Depression-era interviews of 1,340 women in Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and South Bend and letters from domestic workers, Lois Helmbold discovered that Black women lost work more rapidly and in greater proportions. The benefits that white women accrued because of structural racism meant they avoided the utter destitution that more commonly swallowed their Black peers. When let go from a job, a white woman was more successful in securing a less desirable job, while Black women, especially older Black women, were pushed out of the labor force entirely. Helmbold found that working-class women practiced the same strategies, but institutionalized racism in employment, housing, and relief assured that Black women worked harder, but fared worse. Making Choices, Making Do strives to fill the gap in the labor history of women, both Black and white. The book will challenge the limits of segregated histories and encourage more comparative analyses.
 

Working-class white and black women practiced the same Depression survival strategies across race. Archived 1930s interviews with 1,340 Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and South Bend women, and letters from domestic workers articulate common resourcefulness in employment, housework, and acquisition of relief. Institutionalized racism in employment, housing, and relief, however, assured that Black women worked harder, but fared worse.

Lois Rita Helmbold is an independent American historian and women's studies scholar. She was a professor and chair of the women's studies department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas until she retired. She is now an anti-racism social activist in Oakland, California. 

Preface: My History and Positionality
Abbreviation in Text and Notes
Citation Conventions
Introduction
1. Urban Working-Class Daily Lives and Work in the 1920s
2. Job Deterioration and Unemployment: "You just can't depend on a steady job at all."
3. Employment Strategies and their Consequences
4. The Family Economy: Daily Survival and Management of Resources
5. Interrupted Expectations: Loyalty and Conflict in the Family Economy
6. Outside the Family Economy: “Most times I’d go to a friend.”
7. Relief: "I never thought I would come to this. I am so willing and anxious to work."
Conclusion: Working-Class Women’s Class and Race Consciousness
Acknowledgements
Appendix 1: Interview Sources
Appendix 2: Women’s Bureau Social Scientists
Appendix 3: The Census
Tables
End notes

"Making Choices, Making Do is a remarkable study that recasts the 1930s working class through the lens of black and white women's experiences during the Great Depression. Analyzing how race, immigration, and gender shaped women's survival strategies, Helmbold opens up fresh interpretive possibilities and an intersectional, comparative, and feminist methodological approach to defining class."

"Deeply researched in remarkably rich sources, this fine study takes us into the lives of working class women—their budgets, jobs, struggles, interactions with authorities, worries, and dreams. Full of insights regarding gender, immigration, and family, the book especially succeeds in its careful comparisons of women’s lives across the color line dividing African American and white women, capturing both common oppression and critical differences."

"No one knows the social history of working-class women better than Lois Helmbold, and no one has written with more insight and sensitivity. By uncovering the everyday lives and struggles of working women, she manages to recast the story of the Depression-era labor upheavals in completely new light. Making Choices, Making Do ought to be required reading."

"Making Choices, Making Do is a remarkable study that recasts the 1930s working class through the lens of black and white women's experiences during the Great Depression. Analyzing how race, immigration, and gender shaped women's survival strategies, Helmbold opens up fresh interpretive possibilities and an intersectional, comparative, and feminist methodological approach to defining class."

"Deeply researched in remarkably rich sources, this fine study takes us into the lives of working class women—their budgets, jobs, struggles, interactions with authorities, worries, and dreams. Full of insights regarding gender, immigration, and family, the book especially succeeds in its careful comparisons of women’s lives across the color line dividing African American and white women, capturing both common oppression and critical differences."

"No one knows the social history of working-class women better than Lois Helmbold, and no one has written with more insight and sensitivity. By uncovering the everyday lives and struggles of working women, she manages to recast the story of the Depression-era labor upheavals in completely new light. Making Choices, Making Do ought to be required reading."