Beyond the Family Economy: Black and White Working-Class Women during the Great Depression

Social scientific studies of prescribed drug use have played an important part in heightening awareness that their use can best be understood when considered within a social context. From a sociological point of view, however, these studies often suffer from limitations which restrict their descriptive and explanatory power. This paper discusses these limitations before attempting to develop an alternative approach which focuses on the meanings attached to prescribed drug use, and relates these meanings to the ways in whch the users of these drugs manage their everyday lives as members of particular collectivities. In order to bridge the gap between structure and experience prescribed drugs are conceptualised as resources which, along with other material and socio-cultural resources, are both differentially available and variously experienced. Taking minor tranquillisers/hypnotics (e.g. Valium, Mogadon) as a test case attention is focused first on these drugs' availability to samples of black and white working-class women and the meanings which they attribute to these drugs. The different patterns of drug use which are found are then related to these women's varying access to and experience of a range of other resources (including paid work, social supports, leisure, cigarettes and religion). This provides a basis for explaining different patterns of drug use and hopefully illustrates the usefulness of ‘resource’ as a bridging concept between social structure and everyday life.

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Job Opportunities of Black and White Working-Class Women

Social Problems ◽

10.2307/799749 ◽

1975 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 510-533 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Sally Hillsman Baker ◽

Bernard Levenson

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

Black And White ◽

Job Opportunities ◽

White Working Class ◽

Working Class Women

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White Working-Class Women and the Race Question

International Labor and Working-Class History ◽

10.1017/s0147547900006220 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 54 ◽

pp. 80-102 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Dana Frank

Keyword(s):

Working Class ◽

White Men ◽

The Other ◽

White Trash ◽

White Writers ◽

White Working Class ◽

Working Class Women

In Towards the Abolition of Whiteness David Roediger tells the story of Covington Hall, the editor of a newsletter published by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers in Louisiana in 1913 and 1914. Roediger deftly analyzes efforts by Hall and other white writers in the brotherhood to construct cross-racial unity within an otherwise racially torn working class. He shows how Hall redrew the lines of solidarity: On one side were the degraded, of any race.On the other were enlightened workers who eschewed racial divisions, racist language, and stereotypes. “There are white men, Negro men, and Mexican men in this union, but no niggers, greasers or white trash,” proclaimed Ed Lehman, a soapbox speaker for the Brotherhood. A headline in the newsletter similarly asked readers to choose, “SLAVES OR MEN, WHICH?” Still more graphically, a cartoon commanded, “Let all white MEN and Negro MEN get on the same side of this rotten log.”

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