Mama Learned Us To Work Summary

Students are always taught about slavery, segregation, war, and immigration, but one of the least common topics is farm women in the 1930’s. Lou Ann Jones, author of Mama Learned Us to Work, portrayed a very clear and clean image to her readers as to what the forgotten farm-women during the 1930’s looked like. This book was very personal to me, as I have long listened to stories from my grandmother who vividly remembers times like these mentioned by Jones. In her book Mama Learned Us to Work, author Lou Ann Jones proves that farm women were a major part of Southern economy throughout the content by the ideology and existence of peddlers, the chicken business, and linen production.
One could easily assume that the peddlers were like “family”.

Hassan Mohamed was Lebanese, and after coming to the United States in 1911, he left New York and landed in Clarksdale, Mississippi where he decided to become a “peddler”. He did not even have the knowledge between the one, five, or ten dollar bill. Being a peddler, attempting to earn money, this sounds like it could be an issue. But, thinking back to the times painted to society as the “good ‘ole days”, Mohamed trusted the honesty of his customers. His best customers were colored plantation workers, one in which was his normal customer. The text reads “If she and her family were working in the fields when he arrived, Mohamed napped in the shade until she came to the house.” Earlier in the book, Jones mentioned that during this time, women would not go to the grocery store, and if they did the men sitting on the porch of the store would look her up and down. Jones also exemplifies the idea that Mohamed knew exactly where said specific customer left her money under the rug. The fact that Mohamed’s special customer and Mohamed trusted one another to nap in her shade, for Mohamed to know where payment method was stashed, and to honestly make change is a very eye-opening idea about these peddlers. Because most of the time peddlers were not very wealthy, the southern farm women boosted their income, further having a greater impact on the economy as a whole. Men typically were not the ones who dealt with the peddlers, they were busy sitting on the porches of grocery stores, or something else. Using personal knowledge of oral tradition, my grandmother went on to say that the women would save up their eggs during the week. They knew they could trade those for the necessities that the peddler would have. This is also proof that women alone played a very important role in the economy at this time.
Just like any other lady with a “mother’s instinct”, Vanona Patterson aspired for her set of twins to be able to obtain an education. Realistically, Mrs. Patterson knew that education neither came free nor cheap. After selling pecans and gaining some revenue, she realized the pecan business just was not going to make her dreams for her children become reality, so she decided to go into the business of chickens. She loaned money from her mother-in-law, a veteran in the business, which she later repaid by selling roosters. In the text, Jones makes it clear that Mrs. Patterson did not have any help with purchasing the chickens from her husband. This relates back to the importance and influence that farm women had on the southern economy. Soon enough, Vanona Patterson achieved her goal, and both sons graduated from North Carolina State. Patterson was not the only southern farm lady to take part in this revenue option. The chicken business was a hit and women aided in building the “foundation for the agribusiness poultry industry that emerged post World War II.” One recollection of raising chickens states that a woman’s flock was once worth more than $700. To a broke college student, this seems like a pretty chunk of change, so think about how beautiful those three numbers looked to a family in the 1930’s. “Mrs. H. P. McPherson of Moore County, North Carolina, emphasized that poultry income bestowed an independence that she valued highly. ‘Farmers’ wives and daughters,’ she observed in 1907, ‘generally have a busy life, and no matter how generous and considerate the husband and father may be, there is always a feeling of dependence unless we have some way to make a little money of our own to spend as we please’” (pg. 87).
Women have Mary Franklin, Harriet Echols, and Lettie Chastin, along with many other southern farm women to thank for the evolution of fashion.

In the text, one learns of how bags, or toe-sacks as I have always heard, were turned into bed linens, bath linens, undergarments, cookware, and dresses. The fact that women were smart enough to re-use feed bags for necessary household and personal care says a lot about the southern farm-women’s mind. They are already supporting peddlers, making their own money to become economically stable, and now they are making their own beautiful linens. One story of this wonderful invention comes from north Georgia’s Harriet Echols who says “I’d try to go buy feed so I could match the bags with what I had at home… I’d take a bag of every color that I had.” Later in the nineteenth century, cotton bags became a more popular source of bags. Cotton bag clothes were given to those who were not economically stable yet to help in times of need. The Georgia Emergency Relief Administration was one of the most successful relief projects and were “classes for young girls who longed for pretty things but could not afford to buy them and could not make them.” Southern farm women gained much attention for the way that they thought of things; for thinking up the idea of sewing feed sacks to make high-demand linens. Here we are in late 2016, still using the ideology based off of sewing feed sacks. Not only was this idea very unique, but it was also beneficial. This was another clever way in which women found to excel in the economy. If they were only sewing for themselves or their family, they did not lose money because they were using recycled products and in the grand scheme of things were making clothes basically at no cost. If they were selling their linens to others who maybe had no interest or time in sewing, they were using recycled sacks and could have sold their linens so they were actually gaining profit. By these women re-using feed sacks,

they had to buy the feed sacks from a feed store. In doing so, they were putting money back into the economy by spending a portion of their profit in the local stores. Because they spent money at the feed store that day, the owner was able to continue feeding his family, and his employees (if he had any) were able to continue bringing revenue home after getting paid.
Lou Ann Jones’ Mama Learned Us to Work was a very eye-opening read. I appreciated the small details that she provided, but there were also major game-changers. Personally, this book hit really close to home. I was able to relate personal knowledge and oral traditions told by my grandmother that relay right back to what Jones wrote. Reading the accounts of the driving role of Southern women in the 1930s has inspired me to become a driving force in today’s world. I thoroughly enjoyed the quoted conversational language combined with the informational facts cited from various sources. This book can easily encourage and inspire women of all ages to stand alone without the help of a man. Throughout the text, vivid pictures of women’s strength to stand alone, upholding the southern economy are painted over and over. In conclusion, Mama Learned Us to Work that every young lady should read.