Women and Children during the Great Depression

by Rachael Bollinger

        Tillie Olsen was one of the few proletarian writers of the Great Depression who created the most powerful depictions of the working class in America. Olsen’s stories and writing style developed in relation to her “socialist upbringing, working class life, motherhood, the Depression and communist party” involvement (Dawahare 261). She was a left feminist writer who criticized the way women were viewed in society due to the lack of assistance and trust women received from the government during her time. Tillie Olsen’s autobiographical story, “I Stand Here Ironing,” shows us “motherhood bared, stripped of romantic distortion, and re-infused with the power of insight to the problems of selfhood” as a result of the Great Depression (Frye 287).

            The Depression was an economic collapse during the 1930s which resulted in a quarter of the nation’s families to have no financial income. Parents who lost their jobs felt immense guilt and suffered from self-doubt as a result. During this time, women were forced to take then full responsibility of child-rearing while also working, resulting in poor child care and unsatisfactory work circumstances. The Depression also affected children, who took on greater responsibilities at an earlier age than later generations.

These new accountabilities and environmental stresses initiated guilt in mothers and as we see in “I Stand Here Ironing,” Olsen questions her own guilt for Emily’s lack of individualism and development during the Depression. However, she defends herself by describing guilt as “a word used far too sloppily, to cover up harmful situations in society that must be changed” (1064). Olsen places the blame for Emily’s separateness on the government by repeatedly stating “they said…They persuaded [her]” (1066-1067). By doing so she conforms to society and became a “part of the general cultural pressure which operates to define and limit the power of individual choice” (Frye 290), especially that of women. Nonetheless, by working and raising her children, Olsen developed a sense of class consciousness and class agency that created an opportunity to develop into a representative of history. Although she is limited by external constraints and her gender, she is able to “assess her own responsibility, her own failure, and finally her need to reaffirm her own autonomy as a separate human being who cannot be defined solely though her parental role” (Frye 289). Olsen realizes that her wisdom came too late. She became skeptical of her daughter’s life and begins to limit her talents. She does not want Emily to be defeated but to only let some of her abilities prosper because “She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear” (1070). The Depression deprives children of their imagination and hope for a future because they see the toll it leaves on their parents and other role models.   

            At the end of the story, Olsen refers to Emily as being “more than [the] dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron” (1070). She fears that Emily will match society the way that she did and instead is hopeful for a promising future. As a mother, Olsen debates her parenting style and how her actions affected Emily’s growth as an individual. During this time period, should Olsen feel guilty for the way that Emily was raised? And in your opinion, does the Great Depression take a greater toll on Emily or her mother?    

Work Cited

Charters, Ann. "I Stand Here Ironing." The Short Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martins, 2011. 1064-1070. Print.

Dawahare, Anthony. "'That Joyous Certainty': History And Utopia In Tillie Olsen's Depression-Era Literature." Twentieth Century Literature 44.3 (1998): 261. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Apr. 2012.

Frye, Joanne S. "'I Stand Here Ironing': Motherhood As Experience And Metaphor." Studies In Short Fiction 18.3 (1981): 287. Academic Search Complete. Web. 8 Apr. 2012.