Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Spring/105i/Section 22/Mattie Ingram

Overview
Miss Mattie Ingram, “Miss Brunson," was a nurse during the late 1920s and on. She practiced institutional and private nursing for nine years and continued to do public nursing for several years. The Federal Writers' Project interviewed Ingram on January 31, 1939.

Early Life
Ingram was born in Southern Georgia on an unknown date. She was raised there along with her eleven siblings. Ingram's father was unable to afford college for her, so she decided to become a nurse after high school. She took a training course at Macon Hospital, which she completed in 1920. Ingram worked as a private nurse for nine years before switching to public health work and moving to coastal South Carolina.

Nursing Career
Ingram’s public work consisted of conducting clinics, instructing a weekly class of midwives, and examining and vaccinating school children. According to her Federal Writers' Project interview, Ingram found it difficult to improve the health conditions of the African American people she treated during that time because many of them lived in poverty and lacked access to information about health and medicine. The Works Progress Administration employed several of the families she treated, but in 1939, the administration experienced a decline resulting in layoffs. Ingram witnessed many mothers struggling to provide necessities for their children. She helped these families by conducting three venereal clinics and three prenatal and well-baby clinics, as well as doing home visits. In her interview, Ingram spoke about her struggles with specific cases:

"'What can you do about a case like that?...I could get some medicine to relieve Jake's pain perhaps, but he can never get well and with the best of treatment could only hope to drag out a miserable existence. It makes you wonder what is the best thing to do.'"

Although her career required difficult work, Ingram also said she was "able to see a slow and steady advancement which is so satisfying..." She lived with her widowed sister and her niece and continued nursing in her predominately black county for many years. The date of Ingram's death is unknown.

Decline of the Works Progress Administration (1935-1943)
During The Great Depression, the unemployment rate reached 24 percent, the highest in U.S. history. President Roosevelt created the Works Progress Administration to combat unemployment, specifically for those working in the arts, by providing public works projects. The projects primarily included road building and constructing buildings. Harry Hopkins directed the program in New York. During its peak in 1938, it provided 3.3 million jobs to Americans.

The WPA also provided many jobs for African Americans who found it especially difficult to find work. In 1935, the WPA employed approximately 350,000 African Americans, about 15 percent of its total workforce. Around 45 percent of the country's African American families were on relief or employed by the WPA in 1938.

However, the WPA was criticized for its wastefulness. Politicians and members of Congress argued that the administration was spending more money on its projects than it was making. Some of the WPA's projects cost three to four times as much as private projects. With World War II production increasing, many men joined the army, and the need for the Works Progress Administration declined. As the administration reached its end, it laid-off several of its workers. Many people who depended on the WPA were unemployed again. The WPA dissolved in 1943.

The Effects of Lack of Access to Birth Control on the Black Community
By the end of the 1920s, state and federal legal restrictions on access to birth control remained unchanged, despite a large movement in support of birth control during the 1910s. The debated over access to birth control continued during the 1930s. Many couples and young women believed birth control was necessary during a time of economic hardship between 1929 and 1933 when people found it difficult to make ends meet.

African American's were disproportionately affected by the lack of access to contraceptives because white Americans were employed at much higher rates. Generally, African Americans had more children per family but could not afford to care for them as white families could. In 1941, The National Council of Negro Women became the first national women’s organization to officially endorse the practice of contraception.

The fight for access to birth control continued. and in 1939, national groups advocating for birth control joined together to form the Birth Control Federation of America. The organization changed its name, in 1942, to Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

The wealth of the contraceptive industry continued to grow as it profited off of people's desire to limit family size. In 1970, Congress passed Title X of the Public Health Service Act. The act created a federal grant program dedicated to providing low-income individuals with comprehensive family planning services, which included contraceptives.