Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 10/Bonnie Baste

Overview
Bonnie Baste was a beautician and entrepreneur in Louisburg, North Carolina. She was interviewed by Harry Fain for the Federal Writer's Project on January 2, 1939

Early Life
Baste was born in Louisburg, North Carolina in 1898 to an upper middle class family relative to the surrounding area. Her father was a carpenter who did farming as a part-time job, her mother's occupation is unknown. Baste was raised along with two sisters. Baste notes an early fascination with beauty and hairdressing, starting as early as 12 years old. Even at a young age, she had mothers from across the town bringing their children in to get their haircut. Despite this early fascination, Baste remarks that makeup and hairdressing had an intense negative perception from the local church, which likened beauty to poor moral character. However, this stigma around beauty did not stop her from choosing beauty as her profession.

WW1
When WW1 started, Baste first got married to a private in the military. However, due to infidelity on the husband’s side, the marriage ended shortly after. Following this, Baste got married to a Spanish man, Pedro Baste. They ended up having a son together, named Pedro after his father. Pedro Sr. ultimately sent off Bonnie and Pedro Jr. on a boat back to America, while he stayed in Spain. Not much is known about her third marriage. However, between her third and fourth marriage Baste sent Pedro Jr. off to school, sold her beauty shop at the time, and went off with her fourth husband. This marriage lasted a short amount of time with the husband ultimately leaving the marriage.

Later life (1939-1979)
After this marriage had ended, Baste took Pedro Jr. out of school, and they moved to Louisburg. She started up another beauty store here, however due to the increase cost of operating a beauty shop, Pedro had to help her with her business. Due to the rushed nature of the move, and the shifting economics of the beauty business, they had to significantly downsize their living conditions. Despite this, Baste was able to maintain and operate her own beauty store in her hometown for the remainder of her life. Her son, Pedro, died in 1948, and Baste died in 1979.

Women entrepreneurship in the Beauty Business
Being a women entrepreneur during the early 1900s was an extremely uncommon sight. Even with social progress, we still see a noticeable amount of neglect towards women entrepreneurs. One of the few fields that women were able to be successful in was the beauty business. Common issues with being an entrepreneur in the field during the time was the rising reliance on expensive machinery and the cultural stigma around beauty. With the increased use of machines in the beauty business, most entrepreneurs had to invest in them, making margins smaller and starting up new businesses even more troublesome. Furthermore, there was a moral judgement attached with makeup and beauty. A common thought during the time was that makeup was associated prostitution and a "lack of virtue ." Despite these problems, the beauty business still proved to be one of the best avenues to provide women with social mobility.

Motherhood during 1920-1940
Being a single mother during this time faced its unique set of issues. Not only did one have to face the idealized mother stereotype during this time, but there was an intense lack of resources for single mothers. The stereotype of the idealized mother was that as a mother, you are only a mother, not leaving any room for a personal career or other personal goals. This can be easily seen in popular media during the time, as a study of articles and advertisements from North America showed the depiction of mothers during this time was extremely one-dimensional around being a perfect housewife. Along with this traditional view of mothers, there was also the very tangible issue of mothers lacking resources around the early 1900s. This included but wasn't limited to healthcare, schooling, and financial aid. For anyone outside of the highest class, a common sight during the time were children being forced to leave education early to help support their families, an issue further exacerbated when it is a single parent household. These problems were getting alleviated during this time, however activism for mothers faced enormous social backlash, and the limited change was slow.