Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2018/Fall/Section 3/Lola Roberts

Overview
Lola Roberts was a Caucasian widow who was interviewed by Douglas Carter for the Federal Writer's Project. The interview is titled, "Neurotic" due to the neurotic tenancies she displays.

Biography

Roberts was born in Georgia. Roberts met her husband in New Jersey. They married and in 1916 she gave birth to their daughter, Helen. Roberts's mother died around 1932. In 1933, Roberts had another daughter named Alice. Roberts's husband's business started to fail around this time which caused her to have a nervous breakdown. Roberts's husband proposed a divorce after Roberts accused him multiple times of cheating on her. Roberts suffered another nervous breakdown and Roberts's husband moved away. Eventually, Roberts agreed to the divorce. Roberts's ex-husband committed suicide after his business plummeted. Roberts was able to collect some of her ex-husband's life insurance and one of the policies gave her a $150 per month for life. She moved the South with her daughters in search for a new home. The date and cause of Roberts death is unknown.

Social Issues
Suicide Rates

During the Great Depression, many people suffered from economic loss such as foreclosures and business failure. There has been talk in academic circles that economic status correlates with suicide rates since the Great Depression had a higher suicide rate than average. Also suicide rates reach its highest point during the years 1921, 1932, and 1938 when unemployment peaked. Only suicides increased out of the majority of causes of deaths in the 1930s. Although, one study has proven this theory wrong citing the cause of such high mortality rates during the Great Depression to be from diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes and the lack of health policies implemented.

Neurotic Women

In the 1930s women were viewed as the weaker sex and idealized to be the homemaker in the family. Sigmund Freud hypothesized that women are inferior because of obsessional neurosis which symptoms include impulses to do unnecessary repetitive actions during a situation such as cleaning. Freud also believed that women had penis envy which lowered their moral standards making them subordinate to men. It has been proven in a recent study that women with high attachment anxiety are linked with traits of neuroticism and show a more strong connection towards implicit and explicit neruoticism compared to men. On the five-factor model women scored higher than men in neuroticism.

Family Dynamics

Family dynamics changed as men lost their jobs and could no longer provide for their families. Women were taking on the role of the authority figure in the house as employment rates for females increased which threatened men's masculinity. Men often turned to alcohol for comfort and some left their families. Women also reinforced stereotypical gender roles while trying to relieve the effects of the Great Depression by growing gardens and patching torn clothes. Arguments between husband and wives became more frequent as men stayed home frustrated from their economic situation. The stress parents felt from the crippling economy led them to committing domestic and child abuse. Children left their families and stopped their education to find work. Often they would hitchhike or train hop to travel which gave them the label of "hobos".

Bibliography

Bryson, Dennis. "Family and Home, Impact of the Great Depression on." In Encyclopedia of the Great Depression, edited by Robert S. McElvaine, 310-315. Vol. 1. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004. Gale Virtual Reference Library (accessed October 1, 2018). http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3404500173/GVRL?u=unc_main&sid=GVRL&xid=5f784225.

Chapman, Benjamin P., Paul R. Duberstein, Silvia Sörensen, and Jeffrey M. Lyness. “Gender Differences in Five Factor Model Personality Traits in an Elderly Cohort.” Personality and Individual Differences 43, no. 6 (2007): 1594–1603. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.04.028.

"Children, and Adolescents, Impact of the Great Depression On." "Children and Adolescents, Impact of the Great Depression on." Encyclopedia of the Great Depression. 2018. Accessed October 11, 2018. https://www.encyclopedia.com/economics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/children-and-adolescents-impact-great-depression.

Donges, Uta-Susan, Anne Jachmann, Anette Kersting, Boris Egloff, and Thomas Suslow. "Attachment Anxiety and Implicit Self-concept of Neuroticism: Associations in Women but Not Men." Personality and Individual Differences 72 (2015): 208-13. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.08.043.

Federal Writers' Project papers #3709, “Neurotic”, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"Freud." Psychological History of Women. Accessed October 21, 2018. http://psychistofwomen.umwblogs.org/sexuality/pre-kinsey/freud/.

Granados, José A. Tapia, Ana V. Diez Roux, and Alejandro Portes. "Life and Death during the Great Depression." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, no. 41 (2009): 17290-7295. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40485181.

More Foreclosures and Suicides than during the Great Depression. Chatham: Newstex, 2013. http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1352755702?accountid=14244.

Stuckler, David, Christopher Meissner, Price Fishback, Sanjay Basu, and Martin McKee. "Banking Crises and Mortality during the Great Depression: Evidence from US Urban Populations, 1929—1937." Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (1979-)66, no. 5 (2012): 410-19. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23215959.

Tahir, Sobia. "Freud's Obsessional Neurosis-Origin of Slavery, Status of Women and Technology: Indian and Greek Civilizations Revisited." Pakistan Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 12, no. 2 (2014): 38-42. http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1842851004?accountid=14244.

Wulfhorst, Ellen. "MENTAL HEALTH." The Globe and Mail (1936-Current), May 02, 2009. http://libproxy.lib.unc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1411777596?accountid=14244.