Balancing work and family in a textile mill town
Shockley describes her decision to begin working when her third child was two years old in 1927. According to Shockley, it was typical in Glen Raven, North Carolina, for both parents to work because one salary was not sufficient to sustain a family. Shockley, like many other women who worked in the mills, hired an African American woman to provide care for her children during the day. She recalls that at the time there were no set policies for women who gave birth, but when she had her last child in 1937 she was able to take off three months both before and after the birth without losing her job. Her memories here are revealing of the ways in which working people in this community balanced the demands of work and family.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Ethel Bowman Shockley, June 24, 1977. Interview H-0045. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ETHEL BOWMAN SHOCKLEY:
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I told my husband one morning, "The children's getting up to
some age, and we need some more money, and I want to go to
work." That's when they'd just said they was going to bring
winding in. So he went up there and told Mr. Williams, and he said for
me to come up there and go to work.
- CLIFF KUHN:
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Did your husband mind your working at all?
- ETHEL BOWMAN SHOCKLEY:
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No, he didn't mind it. So then we got a colored woman to come and keep
house for us.
- CLIFF KUHN:
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Was that usual, for people to have a woman come and keep house?
- ETHEL BOWMAN SHOCKLEY:
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Oh, yes, if you worked.
- CLIFF KUHN:
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In how many families did both the mother and the father work in the
mills?
- ETHEL BOWMAN SHOCKLEY:
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The biggest part of them worked in the mill, because they had to.
- HAZEL SHOCKLEY CANNON:
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The only one I can think of that she didn't work was Mrs. Williams.
Everybody else worked.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
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Did women usually just stay out for a few years while their children were
real small?
- ETHEL BOWMAN SHOCKLEY:
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Back then, they said some of them had their babies one week and went back
to work the next, but I didn't see it like that. But they didn't stay
out too long. Now they've got a period, I think, you've got to be out
before you go back to work. But back then, you went back when you felt
like it, I guess.
- CLIFF KUHN:
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So when you had your last baby in '37, you stayed out for how long?
- ETHEL BOWMAN SHOCKLEY:
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I think it was three months before she was born and three months
afterwards; I believe was the way that the insurance people had it
then.
- CLIFF KUHN:
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Could you automatically get your job back?
- ETHEL BOWMAN SHOCKLEY:
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Oh, yes. You got a relief for so many months, and then you went back on
your old job.