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Neither Mothers Nor Breadwinners: African-American Women's Exclusion From US Minimum Wage Policies, 1912-1938

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  • Ellen Mutari
  • Marilyn Power
  • Deborah Figart

Abstract

We examine two key US labor market policies: state-level minimum wages for women from 1912-23 and the federal minimum wage established under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Each of these regulations implicitly defined which groups were and were not expected to conform to the hegemonic male breadwinner/female homemaker model of gender relations. In fact, social reformers and labor leaders advocated these policy measures as a means of extending the male-breadwinner family to recent European immigrants and white southerners. The male-breadwinner family and public policies designed to foster it became one means of defining a commonality of whiteness among different ethnic groups during a period of assimilation. Through the inclusion and exclusion of particular occupations and industries, African-American women were assigned a subordinated gender identity as neither full-time mothers nor legitimate breadwinners. They responded by forging their own gender identity as co-breadwinners.

Suggested Citation

  • Ellen Mutari & Marilyn Power & Deborah Figart, 2002. "Neither Mothers Nor Breadwinners: African-American Women's Exclusion From US Minimum Wage Policies, 1912-1938," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 37-61.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:8:y:2002:i:2:p:37-61
    DOI: 10.1080/13545700210160988
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Harry Weiss, 1944. "Economic Coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 58(3), pages 460-481.
    2. Alston, Lee J & Ferrie, Joseph P, 1993. "Paternalism in Agricultural Labor Contracts in the U.S. South: Implications for the Growth of the Welfare State," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 852-876, September.
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    4. Jane Humphries & Jane Humphries, 1976. "Women: Scapegoats and Safety Valves in the Great Depression," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 98-121, April.
    5. Marguerite J. Fisher, 1948. "Equal Pay for Equal Work Legislation," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 2(1), pages 50-57, October.
    6. Christina D. Romer, 1993. "The Nation in Depression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 19-39, Spring.
    7. Ellen Mutari, 1996. "Women's employment patterns during the U.S. inter-war period: A comparison of two states," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(2), pages 107-127.
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    Cited by:

    1. Nina Banks, 2022. "Sadie T. M. Alexander: Black Women and a "Taste of Freedom in the Economic World"," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 205-220, Fall.
    2. Zdravka Todorova, 2024. "Social processes of oppression in the stratified economy and Veblenian feminist post Keynesian connections," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(1), pages 25-54, January.
    3. Heather Boushey, 2013. "The role of the government in work–family conflict in the US," Chapters, in: Deborah M. Figart & Tonia L. Warnecke (ed.), Handbook of Research on Gender and Economic Life, chapter 19, pages 307-322, Edward Elgar Publishing.

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