Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Fall/Section018/Joe Vaughn

Biography

Joe Vaughn was a southern farmer who lived and worked through the Great Depression, America's most devastating recession.

Early Life

Joe Vaughn was born in Canada to an Englishman and French Canadian woman. Vaughn’s father moved directly from England to Canada and immediately met Vaughn’s mother. When Vaughn was at a very young age, he moved to New Iberia, Louisiana where he stayed for sixty-three years.

Working Life

In New Iberia, Vaughn worked as a farmer, who also frequently enjoyed fishing and hunting. After the Great Depression started, the recession impacted workers and laborers all across the country. New Iberia was hit hard, so the work became slow and not sufficient for Vaughn and his family. A friend briefly encouraged Vaughn and a couple other farmers to work in Biloxi, Mississippi, however Vaughn quickly left and set up shop in Bayou La Batre, Alabama instead. In Bayou La Batre Vaughn and his wife worked for Dorgan McPhillips Packing Company, a shrimping and oyster shucking camp.

Personal Life

Joe Vaughn met and married a French native of Louisiana named Ezora during his time in New Iberia. The woman could not speak any English and was slightly older than Vaughn himself at sixty-seven years of age. Together, the couple had ten children, five boys and five girls. Tragically, one of the sons drowned in a river when he was young, and four others had since passed away. When Vaughn and Ezora moved to Bayou La Batre, there were only five children left, as well as many grandchildren.

Social Context

The Great Depression

The work that Vaughn did in Alabama was drastically different from what he was accustomed to before the Great Depression. The factories Vaughn worked for in Bayou La Batre would shut down for months at a time due to labor and union strikes, leaving them with only so many pay days but still a family to feed. Although they were only able to make about $7.00 in a good week, Joe and Ezora remained stable and grateful considering they were part of the record low 67% of the population that kept jobs during the depression.

Farming in the Late 1920's

Many historians believe that a major cause of the Great Depression was an overproduction in farming. There were too many crops being produced that people could not afford to buy. That then caused a sudden stop in farming, affecting many people's jobs such as Joe Vaughn’s career as a farmer. Labor unions and strikes were also common, and Vaughn faced many of those working in Bayou La Batre at the shucking company.

Bibliography

Konkel, Lindsey. “Life for the Average Family during the Great Depression.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, April 19, 2018.

“Farming Not Simple, Unemployed Warned; South Carolina Expert Urges Barring of Unsuitable Land to Forestall Failure.” The New York Times. The New York Times. Accessed October 7, 2021.

Federico, Giovanni. “Not Guilty? Agriculture in the 1920s and the Great Depression.” The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 4 (2005): 949–76.

Bordo, Michael D., Christopher J. Erceg, and Charles L. Evans. “Money, Sticky Wages, and the Great Depression.” The American Economic Review 90, no. 5 (2000): 1447–63.

Steiner, Michael C. “Regionalism in the Great Depression.” Geographical Review 73, no. 4 (1983): 430–46.