Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 01/Mary Bloomberg

Overview

Mary Mae Jane Jones Bloomberg was born in 1908 and died on December 22, 1988. Bloomberg’s location of birth is unknown, but her body is laid to rest in the Greenleaf Memorial Park in New Bern, North Carolina. She died in the Craven Regional Medical Center at the approximate age of 80.

Biography

Mary Jones attended school up until the seventh grade, where she met her to-be husband, Rudolph Bloomberg at the age of 14. She left school and got married and soon after she began to have kids. At the age of 25, Bloomberg had ten children, not including those that had already passed away. Having these children had taken a toll on her health and her family’s savings. Before one of her children was born, Bloomberg’s neighbor had assisted her in getting treatment, but suggested that she give up her child. Their family income was approximately $1.50 in 1939, the equivalent of $27.53 in 2020. All that Bloomberg wished for in 1939 was for a stable income and some food with a functioning home to protect her family.

Social Issues

Poor Housewives surviving the Great Depression

Many families have been put through financial struggles and physical stress. The Great Depression took a toll on men in America, along with the women married to them. Women are expected to manage the house and children if there are any, along with the chores of using what their husbands provide to feed the family. She is shown to look like a trophy wife, one of innocence and elegance. Unemployment rates had risen to 25 percent, yet women are expected to feed the family as if there were no change in income. The families that were well set before the stock market crashed had to make uncomfortable adjustments to their lifestyle, even if it was not as extreme as those who were suffering more.

Postpartum Health

Pregnancy is a time for a woman to be very precautious of her health, both during and after. A mother after birth can be drained and could experience postpartum depression from lack of communication or from anxiety from the inability to provide for her child. Most women went through with at-home deliveries, but not all physicians visit the homes of poor or immigrant mothers. These women had to go to the hospital in order to receive the proper checkup of herself and her child, especially because it was believed that spontaneous births could potentially give both life-threatening illnesses.

References

Black, Clementina. Married Women’s Work. New York:, Garland Pub., 1980. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id =uc1.b4265995&view=1up&seq=24 DollarTimes.com, The value of $1.50 in 1939 Find A Grave, Mary Mae Jane Jones Bloomberg Memorial, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/74962997/mary-mae_jane-bloomberg Interview, Miller, Harold H. and Edwin Massengill on Mary Bloomberg, January 25, 1939, Folder 652, Federal Writing Project Papers, Southern Historical Collection, UNC Chapel-Hill https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/03709/id/570/rec/1 Martell, Louise K. The Hospital and the Postpartum Experience: A Historical Analysis. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing, Vol. 29, no. 1, 2000, pp. 65–72., https://ww w.jognn.org/article/S0884-2175(15)33798-9/pdf Mitchell, Damon. These 1930s Housewives Were the Godmothers of Radical Consumer Activism. Sept. 26, 2018., Narratively.com., https://narratively.com/these-1930s-housewives-were-the-godmothers-of-radical-consumer-activism/ Newspaper Archives, New Bern NC Sun Journal, December 22, 1988, Page 2 https://newspaperarchive.com/new-bern-sun-journal-dec-22-1988-p-2/ Palmer, Phyllis. Domesticity and Dirt: Housewives and domestic servants in the United States, 1920-1945. Temple University, Philadelphia. 1989. Google eBook. https://books.google.com/ books?id=RTtZbcGGsesC&printsec=copyright#v=onepage&q&f=false Wadler, Joyce. Making Ends Meet in the Great Depression. April 1, 2009. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/garden/02depression.html