Women - Migrant Domestic Workers

The Life of Migrant Domestic Workers, Culturally Investigated

"I worked hard to serve God and to see that my three girls didn't have to serve nobody else like I did except God. I satisfied to know I came a long way. From a kitchen down home to a kitchen up here, and then able to earn money, but live with my children and grands."

--Orra Fisher, in an interview with Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, 2 August 1982

The potential for new work opportunities lured an abundance of young, female African-Americans to the North. Upon their arrival, the women experienced their first taste of the North-segregated communities. Such communities gained their lifeline and organization from well-established, African-American institutions such as businesses, churches and schools. African-American migrants quickly learned the reality of their dream vision once moving to northern communities. Established northern African Americans often harbored anti-migrant biases, making it difficult for recent African-American arrivals to gain access to employment in their new northern homes. As a result, the large number of female migrants took on employment as domestic workers.

It is important to address these women's lives before their migration, as the cultural factors that shaped their lives in the South in turn shaped the ways in which they adapted their lives to the often unexpected conditions of the North. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, African-American girls in the rural South grew up with the ready understanding that their lives would encompass years of strenuous, difficult work. One migrant worker from Virginia explained learning to accept the toils of life:

By four you'd do field work; by six you'd be doing small pieces in a
tub every washday and bring all the clear water for rinsing the clothes.
By eight, you'd be able to mind children, do cooking, and wash. By ten
you'd be trained up. Really, every girl I know was working-out by ten.
No play, 'cause they told you: life was to be hardest on you-always.
(Naomi Yates, as cited in Clark-Lewis 199-200)

For these rural, southern women, the family served as an important source of support. This structure, along with the church, provided the necessary outlets for cultural expression and communication. In order to help support the family, the education of many women was restricted. A young girl devoted most of her time to the family farm, taking care of young children and learning the tasks of older women. Often, girls in such situations would witness their mothers leaving the home to work as domestics in white households. Sometimes they would work alongside their mothers, gaining experience for their own lives as domestic workers. Many girls began domestic work as children, working in white homes. Bernice Reeder did so, "at just nine years old! I was so scared….Nobody cared if you were a child….You was a worker to them" (Bernice Reeder, as cited in Clark-Lewis 200-201). As it would become so for African-American mothers in the North, domestic labor in the South proved an economic necessity, one crucial for survival.


The Life of Migrant Domestic Workers, Culturally Investigated

"I worked hard to serve God and to see that my three girls didn't have to serve nobody else like I did except God. I satisfied to know I came a long way. From a kitchen down home to a kitchen up here, and then able to earn money, but live with my children and grands." --Orra Fisher, in an interview with Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, 2 August 1982


The potential for new work opportunities lured an abundance of young, female African-Americans to the North. Upon their arrival, the women experienced their first taste of the North-segregated communities. Such communities gained their lifeline and organization from well-established, African-American institutions such as businesses, churches and schools. African-American migrants quickly learned the reality of their dream vision once moving to northern communities. Established northern African Americans often harbored anti-migrant biases, making it difficult for recent African-American arrivals to gain access to employment in their new northern homes. As a result, the large number of female migrants took on employment as domestic workers. It is important to address these women's lives before their migration, as the cultural factors that shaped their lives in the South in turn shaped the ways in which they adapted their lives to the often unexpected conditions of the North. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, African-American girls in the rural South grew up with the ready understanding that their lives would encompass years of strenuous, difficult work. One migrant worker from Virginia explained learning to accept the toils of life: By four you'd do field work; by six you'd be doing small pieces in a tub every washday and bring all the clear water for rinsing the clothes. By eight, you'd be able to mind children, do cooking, and wash. By ten you'd be trained up. Really, every girl I know was working-out by ten. No play, 'cause they told you: life was to be hardest on you-always. (Naomi Yates, as cited in Clark-Lewis 199-200)

For these rural, southern women, the family served as an important source of support. This structure, along with the church, provided the necessary outlets for cultural expression and communication. In order to help support the family, the education of many women was restricted. A young girl devoted most of her time to the family farm, taking care of young children and learning the tasks of older women. Often, girls in such situations would witness their mothers leaving the home to work as domestics in white households. Sometimes they would work alongside their mothers, gaining experience for their own lives as domestic workers. Many girls began domestic work as children, working in white homes. Bernice Reeder did so, "at just nine years old! I was so scared….Nobody cared if you were a child….You was a worker to them" (Bernice Reeder, as cited in Clark-Lewis 200-201). As it would become so for African-American mothers in the North, domestic labor in the South proved an economic necessity, one crucial for survival.