Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Fall/105i/Section 52/Arthur J. Moore

Overview
Arthur J. Moore was an African American man living in Charlotte, North Carolina in the 1900s. Moore worked as a pressing club owner for a laundry company. He had a wife and three sons.

Biography
Arthur J. Moore grew up on a small farm in Riverton. He attended a local school through the high school level and went on to college. After two terms, Moore dropped out of school to begin working. He met his wife while working as a presser for a cleaning company, and followed her to Mooresville where he got his first job in a pressing club. Moore and his wife got married and had their first son. Moore bought a house in Mooresville, and started a major renovation project on it with his wife. Soon after the Great Recession hit, Moore had a hard time paying the bills for his house and the renovations, and his wife took up work as a house cleaner for a wealthy white family. Even with the extra source of income, Moore could not pay for the house, and it was put on the market. Moore and his family moved back to Riverton to live in his parents' home until he could afford a small apartment in town. He got a job at another cleaning and pressuring laundry shortly after moving back. Moore and his wife had two other sons, who all got educations up to at least the middle school level. Moore spent the rest of his life running the pressing club, attending church regularly, and getting involved in his church community.

The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA)
In 1933 congress passed the National Industrial Recovery Act, also known as NIRA, which required companies to write codes of fair competition as a form of self-regulation. Work-sharing shortened work hours and distributed them to employees in an attempt to maintain employment rates. Wages and prices were raised in the economy to promote economic stability in growth. But since work-sharing decreased work hours, the wage increases did little to promote buying and selling in the economy because prices had also been increased.