Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Spring/105i/Section 22/Bertha Medlin

Overview
Bertha Medlin was a white schoolteacher born in the late 1800s. Medlin was interviewed for the Federal Writers' Project by Katherine Palmer sometime in March, 1939.

Biography


Early Life
Bertha Medlin was a white schoolteacher born in the late 1800s. Medlin lived with her family on a farm east of Siler City, North Carolina. According to Medlin, throughout her childhood, she lived a happy life but was constantly reminded of her family’s poverty. Since the age of six, Medlin accounts for learning to help her mother with farm chores. Medlin had three other siblings, Lucy, Ted, and John Medlin. Medlin was enrolled as a student in the Siler City Graded School, where she was well-liked by all her teachers and popular amongst the other girls, according to her. The boys at her school weren’t very fond of her, Medlin recounts. At a young age, Medlin decided that she would go into teaching. In high school, Medlin excelled in all subjects, especially mathematics. Medlin and her family returned to struggle with poverty and her mother’s poor health caused her much anxiety.

Career as a Teacher
In 1909, Medlin took her teaching examination under the county’s superintendent and passed. Medlin’s first teaching job was at Hickory Mountain in Chatham County where her salary was $30 a month. Medlin left her teaching position to return home to her sick mother who died in the spring of 1917. She then enrolled at the Woman’s College at Greensboro in the fall. After graduating, Medlin got married to Fred Andrews. Medlin returned to teaching at Silk Hope, where she taught in the third grade and her salary was now $70 a month, but 7 years later she was offered a job at a school in Staley, NC where she would be paid $75 a month. After ten years of teaching at Staley, Andrews died, leaving Medlin alone and childless. Medlin had a black cook named Hannah, who allegedly dipped tobacco, sang hymns, and stole Medlin’s groceries. Medlin obtained a new teaching position at Ramseur in Randolph County, NC where her salary was $90 a month. Medlin spoke about her troubles with the student’s unwillingness to learn and would be faced with the dilemma of giving up on them or trying to inspire the students.

Later Life
During the Great Depression, salaries were being cut and Medlin’s early fear of poverty arose causing her lots of stress, and her health rapidly declined. Soon, it was decided that a teacher would be dropped from Silk Hope, and the anxiety of it being Medlin, who had been teaching there for over 20 years, overtook her mind.

The Effects of the Great Depression on Rural Education
During the Great Depression, teachers had to adjust to delivering education to students with resources unavailable to the institutions; some lower-funded rural schools saved money by removing cafeterias and cafeteria workers, meaning each student brought lunch from home. Lower-funded rural schools had to compromise by cutting certain courses from their curriculum such as foreign languages or music. While the sizes of the school and student body greatly affected day-to-day ordeals, lower-funded schools would use one teacher across many grade levels to account for salary cuts and firing workers. Most lower-income students would find themselves working jobs with their families rather than attending school, as money was valued over education at that time. Rural students who once relied on public transportation to and from schools had to find other ways to get to schools such as walking or biking. Students who were of wealthier backgrounds were not affected by the tolls of the Great Depression. Female teachers turned the classroom into workshops for motherhood and other homely practices, rather than actual learning as modern education systems do.

Progressiveness of Women's Roles During the Great Depression
During the Great Depression, women underwent a shift in public spheres in the United States. Prior to the Great Depression, middle-class and lower-class white women in America were primarily involved in traditional women-oriented domestic jobs. Throughout the Great Depression, white lower-class women fully entered the work force to work alongside their male counterparts, on top of their domestic jobs. Certain jobs such as working at coal mines were still overpopulated by male and black female workers, reserving the less labor-intensive jobs, like working at sewing factories, to white lower-class women. Due to the pressure of having to fulfill a role both at and away from home, women were less likely to get married during the Great Depression. When employers would fire employees due to budget cuts, they'd often fire the married women first because they had a husband they could rely on to provide for them. Women refusing to get married instilled a new sense of independence from the traditional nuclear family and later led to women's motivations to pursue their own careers.