New Deal Flashcards
Roosevelt policies
bias towards male breadwinner, little to raise self-confidence of women
Eleanor
re-defined first lady, memeber of women’s trade union and league of women’s voters
hosted white house confereance addressing emergency need of women in FERA provision
speech on women needing ‘other stimulus’ than housework
does CCC inspired She-She-She for unemployed women to learn labouring skills, 28 camps but fed money soon dries
only 2% of congress female
Other women
Mary Bethune-first AA female into gov. director of Negro Affairs
Francis Perkins- first woman into cabinet secretary of labour, receiving backlash from male unionists, did little women’s reform
Ellen Woodward- head of woman’s section FERA ensured a woman headed section of WPA to help unemployed females
32
Federal Economy act
married women can’t work in civil service if husbands do
33
NRA Perkins
cemented wage gap under Perkins (avg. 1/2 of males wage)
33
CCC
only 7% jobs created went to women
35
WPA Woodward efforts
employed 460,000 in it’s peak 36. usually jobs in school, making clothes and bedding too
Wagner Act (NRLA)
800,000 women joining unions, organised e’g in CIO but under male leadership, lack self-determination
35
SSA
welfare benefits for poor married women, doesn’t cover those in domestic service tho which was most female preoccupations (esp. AA women)
also aid to lone parent mothers, largely given to white women, applying for aid was humilitating
38
FSLA
minimum wage, reduced hours, but lower pay accepted (female teacher 20% less)
excluded domestic, retail clerks agricultural workers so female spheres of employment
38
Comstock Lifted
many states continued to bar use of contraception so WC women resorted to illegal
think 3s
Economic developments
TU mem. trebled, 3 million more women in work in this period, more married women too
women on advisory boards did niche
political impact
Eleanor pushes for more women in public office not seen again untill 60s, but more symbolic and did little to sort women’s reform
most fed agencies run by men not with female relief in mind, having political rights meant little for women having say on legislation (hence SSA bars a lot of women mainly AA and CCC exclusion too)
