Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Summer II/Section 013/Selema Mills

Overview

Selema Mills was an African American woman living in rural North Carolina before and during the Great Depression. She worked as a cook and maid in white households to support her family, and was interviewed on April 20, 1939 in her garden by writers from the WPA's Federal Writers' Project. Her interview is archived at UNC Libraries.

Biographical Information

Early Life

Selema Mills was an only child born in North Carolina to George Mills and his wife. She worked with her family as a field hand for white farmers from a young age. Her father left the family due to some trouble when she was very young, but returned seven years later, and would remain until his death when Mills was a teenager. At this point, Mills' mother would remarry a white man, and they would hire Mills off as a field hand during the day, and confiscate her pay at night. This would continue until Mills ran from home to find other work.

Mills soon married her first husband, Leelie. She had a child with Leelie named Jessie. After Jessie's birth, Leelie became abusive and alcoholic, presumably because she was the main worker in the family, which caused marital tensions. Mills would soon leave Leelie with her son Jessie, and some white friends helped her get a divorce. Soon after her divorce she would have her second child, Paul.

An African American woman working as a maid in the mid 1900s.

After this tumultuous period in her life, Mills began to work seriously as a domestic maid and cook in white households to buy and maintain her own home. She succeeded in doing this, and soon married a younger African American man named John. John treated Mills well, but he was an alcoholic, which would eventually lead to his death in a drunk driving incident. Mills had two other children by John, and John left her his home in Tryon, North Carolina, which she lived in at the time of the interview in 1939.

Later Life

Mills continued to work in domestic positions, especially as a maid for a white woman named Miss Maude. During this time in her life, she reconnected with her childhood sweetheart named Clarence, who was only half African American. Against her better judgement she married Clarence, who she was apart from for months to work in Miss Maude's beach house. Once she returned to Clarence, although he treated her very well, he began to suggest that she deed her home to him instead of her four children. Mills soon realized that unlike herself, Clarence in his advanced age had not accumulated any property, and Mills separated from Clarence rather than give over her hard-earned possessions.

Mills would eventually retire to her home in Tryon, North Carolina (previously John's home). In these later days of her life she enjoyed tending a beautiful garden, which she was occupied with on the day of the interview.

A jonquil, one of the flowers Selema Mills cultivated in her garden.

Economic Issues

The Great Depression and the New Deal

The Great Depression was and remains the most catastrophic economic crisis in United States history. The economic downturn caused millions of Americans to become unemployed, and made food and basic necessities hard to come by. Only once President Franklin Delano Roosevelt enacted his New Deal plan did the country begin to heal. The New Deal included both economic and social initiatives to create jobs for the millions of unemployed such as the Works Progress Administration.

The Works Progress Administration and the Federal Writers' Project

A poster for an art project commissioned by the Works Progress Administration.

The Works Progress Administration was a program created through FDR's New Deal. The WPA not only created construction jobs but also employed artists, writers, and performers to record histories and create art about the United States. One of the projects undertaken by the initiative's writers was called the Federal Writers' Project. This project was meant to document the lives of everyday Americans, especially post-slavery African Americans and other minorities. Personal histories were documented through a variety of mediums including interviews.

African Americans and the Great Depression

Although the Great Depression damaged the entire nation, no group was as affected as the African American community. This is because due to racism and segregation, especially in the American South, African Americans were the "last hired, first fired" individuals in the workforce. This left many African Americans in economic positions even more dire than their white neighbors. Although New Deal programs did lend economic aid and create new options for employment for many African Americans, the program still had its faults. This is because most New Deal programs and benefits were distributed by state governments which in the Jim Crow South were very discriminatory, resulting in many African Americans having to veritably fend for themselves economically during the Great Depression.

Social Issues

Alcoholism in Post-Slavery African American Communities

Comparatively, African American communities after slavery did not display rampant drunkenness. This is attributed to the fact that during slavery, many white slave-owners strictly kept alcohol from African Americans except on special occasions. However, those special occasions could have played a role in the more individual cases of alcoholism seen in the African American community during the Great Depression. This is because slave-owners encouraged drunkenness on special occasions because they thought it would "prevent Africans from thinking about their plight or doing anything that might lead to freedom". In turn, some African Americans would, in their economic hardships, turn to drink to numb the stress and shame of not being able to support their families how they wanted to.

Domestic Violence in Post-Slavery African American Households

Domestic violence in post-slavery African American households was actually fairly common. Some households only used slight physical abuse on children to reprimand them, but in others husbands would violently beat their wives. One possible motivation for domestic violence by husbands to wives is that men wanted to "preserve masculine authority" in their households. During the Great Depression, many gender roles were subverted or even reversed as wives were forced to look for work outside the home to support their families when their husbands became unemployed. Many African American women in the South found successful employment as domestic maids and cooks, which allowed their family a steady income that their husbands could not always match. This inequity in earning power sometimes "threatened [men's] identities," leading them to take their frustration out on their wives and families.