User:Kameronbhall/sandbox

Overview
Eliza Hall was an African American woman born in Middleton, North Carolina. She was a washwoman for man years living in present day Stokes County. Hall was interviewed by the Federal Writers Project on April 4, 1939 in Walnut Cove, North Carolina.

Early Life
Hall was born in North Carolina along the Dan River in the mid 1890's. Her exact date of birth is unknown. She was born to Pete and Lucy Hall along with eight siblings. Her father was a former slave, owned by John Hall on a plantation in Stokes County. Hall's surname was passed on to her father from his previous owner before emancipation. Her mother was a washwoman and her father became a tenant farmer. As an African American girl growing up in a poor family, education was not a priority. She attended classes for 5 months total in a makeshift school that once served as a church building. Hall said that education was not important to her or her siblings as African Americans because it made them "uppity" and "dissatisfied."

Personal Life and Work as a Washerwoman
As soon as she was old enough to work, Hall entered the washing business. It is unknown if she worked out of her own home or in the homes of her customers. At the time of this interview, she had been working as a washwoman for 40 years and had never missed a day of work. She spoke little on the specifics of her occupation.

During her time as a washwoman, Hall married Ed Hall at the age of 18. They moved away from her childhood birthplace to Walnut Cove, where they both worked multiple jobs. Ed was a mason, tobacco stringer, and farmer in his later life. Hall worked alongside her husband in the tobacco industry while also continuing work as a washwoman. They had two daughters, Sadie and Elsie.

Ed became ill after working in his crops and was later diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia. He died a week later. Hall's two young daughters also died to unknown diseases.

Later Life
Little is known of Hall's life after the death of her husband and children. She continued to work as a washwoman and live with her sister and her grandchildren. Hall was an avid churchgoer and attended Rising Star Baptist Church. She struggled financially to pay off burial debts for her husband and daughters for many years. Hall was a devoted gardener and was disinterested in politics and voting. Her date of death is unknown.

The Atlanta Washerwomen Strike of 1881
In the years following the Civil War and the Reconstruction Era, African Americans were still facing extreme oppression and racial violence. Segregation and Jim Crow Laws limited their access to labor unions, restricting them from demanding fair wages and working conditions. During this period, more African American women worked as washwomen than any other type of domestic labor. They most commonly worked for white middle and upper class households. Washing was difficult work; It often consisted of making their own soap, assembling a washing tub, making rounds to households to collect garments, and carrying heavy loads of water and iron. The average monthly income was between $4 and $8, working 7 days a week.

The Atlanta Washerwoman Strike of 1881 was an effort made by a group of African American women in Atlanta, Georgia to demand respect and appreciation for their work. This strike stands out in union history as an action to, "remind the city’s white majority whom they depended on for the clothes they wore." Women who were widows, single mothers, or divorced were especially disproportionately affected by insufficient wages and made up the majority of the strike's population.

African American Voting during the Great Depression
Beginning in the 1920’s, the Republican and Democratic parties developed a “push-and-pull” relationship in terms of civil rights for African Americans. The Republican party that once claimed the majority of African American vote had alienated its loyal voters, so the shallow efforts of the Democrats to open opportunities for African Americans gave them motivation to realign.

The 1932 Presidential Election took place against the backdrop of the Great Depression and was a turning point in the history of African American votes. In his previous terms, Republican Herbert Hoover had not fulfilled his economic promises to help African Americans disproportionately affected by the Depression. Despite this, he received nearly two-thirds of the urban African American vote. This was less out of the allegiance to the Republican party, and more out of the unwillingness to support Franklin D. Roosevelt, a candidate affiliated with the Democratic party that suppressed Southern African American political rights.

However, the nation’s financial collapse motivated African American politicians to switch parties for their own career gains and were consequently followed with public support. Black voters nationwide left the Republican party because of the political advertisement of Democratic organizations that would benefit them during the time of crisis - one of these known as the New Deal.

While the New Deal disparately provided economic aid to African Americans versus white citizens, it gave black Americans a tangible sense of support from the system that once denied them entirely. Many African Americans were inspired by Roosevelt's New Deal programs and his urgency to rebuild the country socially and economically. Roosevelt's plans for housing and employment projects for African American citizens looked good for his campaign and minority groups took his promises to the polls.

However, Roosevelt's assistance programs denied loans to many marginalized African American communities and effectively drew lines between white and black neighborhoods. This reinforced housing segregation that would last for generations to come.

Despite the uneven aid that Roosevelt’s multiple New Deal programs provided to white citizens and African American citizens during the Depression, the 1932 United States presidential election was a turning point for African American party affiliation and allegiance. "The economic support received by African Americans under the New Deal solidified their new-found loyalty to the Democratic Party. By 1936, more than 70 percent of African Americans voted for Roosevelt, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.” Roosevelt's willingness to recognize African Americans as true Americans won their votes in the 1936 election and paved the road for the political and social landscape for Black America.