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Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2022/Fall/Section093/Eugenia Martin

< Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories | 2022/Fall | Section093

Biography

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Background

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Eugenia Martin was the daughter of Thomas Collier and Lucy Frix. Her mother’s parents consisted of an unknown Cherokee Indian and Dr. Virgil A. Miller, an Anglo-Saxon physician. Her father’s mother was a pure, African woman who married “free” slave Rage Wooten. Wooten was his master’s son and therefore afforded many special privileges.[1]

Martin’s parents had a lavish wedding that was sponsored by their former masters just after the Reconstruction Period. The newlywed Colliers also received funds that enabled them to kickstart a prosperous farm. With their livelihood secured, Eugenia’s parents were able to have six sons and six daughters.[2]

Thomas Collier was a big supporter of education despite never receiving one himself. He sent four of his kids to college, two of which finished and two who dropped out to marry. As Martin put it, “Father's great desire was to see his race share the blessings of other people, equal rights, similar working conditions, decent living conditions, and educational advantages.”[3] Unfortunately, eight of his children would die before they could ever pursue an education.[4]

Martin was one of the four who went to college for six years. Her education was followed by a three-year career in teaching. Not one to stay in the same position for too long, she switched to working as a photography clerk.[4]

Married Life

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Ms. Martin married a minister for the Methodist Episcopal Church. She quit her photography job and wholeheartedly embraced the role of minister’s wife. She operated as her husband’s secretary, played as the choir organist, and worked as the ideal housewife. The couple moved around frequently. The Martins were hard working, and they saw their efforts rewarded with promotions that eventually enabled them to officially settle down in Atlanta, Georgia. There, Eugenia was relieved of her secretarial and household duties, as her husband could afford to hire maids and assistants.[5]

Works Progress Administration

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Worker for the WPA

Tragically, her husband fell suddenly ill while travelling for a work conference and died.[6] Martin was subsequently forced to return to work to afford the bills on her lavish home. She joined the WPA, where she would initially work for the ‘Survey for White Collar and Skilled Negroes.’ While working on the survey, she also returned to school and completed a two-year commercial night course. Next, Martin was transferred to the sewing project, where her prior experience with needlework enabled her to take on a managerial role.[7]

The opportunity that most impacted her was her third position in the WPA, the ‘Housekeeping Aid Project.’[8] Her experiences on the job enabled her to cross paths with many interesting individuals.[9] Generally, Eugenia had an abundance of patience for those in her care, though her educational background did lower her tolerance for ignorance in the superstitious and illiterate homes she visited.[10]

Beyond the WPA

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At the time of her interview, Martin was just fired from her WPA position. Her removal was instituted by new legislation that required laying off employees who worked for the organization for more than 18 months.[9] This made it incredibly difficult for her to make ends meet, but she maintained a hopeful attitude that she would soon have a new source of income and things would get better.[11]

Social Context

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Educational Opportunities for African Americans Post-Emancipation

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Before Jim Crow Laws were instituted, many African Americans were able to use their voting rights under the 15th Amendment to enact meaningful change, particularly in terms of educational reforms. Southern voters teamed up with white organizations, and these “blacks and their white allies were the architects and advocates of free and universal state schools in the South.”[12]

Eventually, the segregation policies routed resources away from black schools, but African Americans did leave an educational legacy, as “whites who hoped to restore the old political order after Reconstruction did not dismantle the common school systems.”[13]

Social Stigma Around Mixed-Race Individuals

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Biracial ex-slave in her home

Mixed race individuals globally have faced “unique types of discrimination and microaggressions”[14] for centuries. In the United States, this trend can be traced to the societal perception of "mulatto" individuals in the Antebellum period. These biracial individuals were considered taboo, as having parents with different ethnic backgrounds meant that “multiracial children were … considered illicit results of … illegal marriages and relationships.”[14]

Additionally, multiracial people, especially women, were culturally considered to be “symbols of rape and concubinage”.[15] Beyond being illegal, the birth of a mixed-race child was proof of a white master taking advantage of a slave. This position resulted in biracial women frequently being targeted for sexual assault. Once conceived, biracial children were legally defined as black to ensure they served as slaves, which offered a continued source of labor to Southern white society, even after the importation of slaves was banned.[15]

After emancipation, slavery no longer served as an equalizer and social norms shifted. A study done in the early 1990’s measured the effect of skin tone on the ability of individuals to get educational, economic, and other opportunities. This shift demonstrates that “the dominant white society had historically extended social and economic privileges, not available to darker blacks, to light-skinned blacks.”[16] and “so, light skin color continued to be a distinctive characteristic of upper-class status and to shape the opportunity structure in the black community well into the 1920s.”[17] Overtime, the privilege of the light-skinned waned, and through the Great Depression up to the modern day, multiracial children continued to be “subject to institutional discrimination from government, private and public organizations.”[14]

Minorities and Women in the WPA

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When the Depression struck in the 1930’s, Franklin Roosevelt developed the New Deal to aid struggling Americans. Women working for organizations under this program were generally paid less and either given next to no hours or forced to work long, grueling ones. Initially, the program emulated the societal standards from before. However, with time “the New Deal opened new doors to women,”[18] particularly the WPA. Organizations like the NIRA, FERA, and NYA generally treated women like “servants and housewives,”[19], but the WPA offered them white collar positions. Additionally, the CIO demonstrated the possibility of overturning discriminatory practices by increasing wages twofold.

As for black citizens, early in the Depression, the rate of unemployment was incredibly high. But “by 1934, things changed, and Blacks were pleasantly surprised.”[20] Eleanor Roosevelt, along with members of African American advocacy groups like the NAACP, succeeded in obtaining near equal opportunities within New Deal programs.

The inclusion of women and African Americans in workplace reforms within the New Deal had a lasting impact, enabling these groups to be self-sufficient and create a foundation for self-advocacy that would last through World War II. These developments would make way for second wave feminism and the “emergence of the Civil Rights movement.”[20]

Footnote

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  1. ↑ Geneva Tonsill, “I Managed To Carry On,” 3349
  2. ↑ Ibid., 3349-3350
  3. ↑ Ibid., 3350
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Ibid., 3351
  5. ↑ Ibid., 3351-3352
  6. ↑ Ibid., 3353
  7. ↑ Ibid., 3353-3354
  8. ↑ Ibid., 3354-3355
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Ibid., 3355-3357
  10. ↑ Ibid., 3357-3360
  11. ↑ Ibid., 3360
  12. ↑ David Tyack 1986, 238
  13. ↑ Ibid., 239
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Astrea Greig 2013
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 David Pilgrim 2000
  16. ↑ Verna Keith 1991, 761
  17. ↑ Ibid., 764
  18. ↑ Fethia Braik 2017, 68
  19. ↑ Ibid., 69
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Ibid., 70

References

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Braik, Fethia. 2017. “New Deal for Minorities.” Revue Traduction et Langues 16, no. 2 (February): 67-76. https://www.asjp.cerist.dz/en/downArticle/155/16/2/31871

Greig, Astrea. American Psychological Association. 2013. “Seven essential facts about multiracial youth.” CYF News. Last modified August 2013. https://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/newsletter/2013/08/multiracial-youth

“I Managed To Carry On,” Interview by Geneva Tonsill, date November 1939, Folder 254, Federal Writer's Project papers #3709, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/03709/id/738/rec/1

Keith, Verna M., and Cedric Herring. 1991. “Skin Tone and Stratification in the Black Community.” American Journal of Sociology 97, no. 3 (November): 760-778. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2781783

Pilgrim, David. Ferris State University. 2000. “The Tragic Mulatto Myth” Jim Crow Museum. Last modified 2012. https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/mulatto/homepage.htm

Tyack, David, and Robert Lowe. 1986. “The Constitutional Moment: Reconstruction and Black Education in the South.” American Journal of Education 94, no. 2 (February): 236-256. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1084950

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