Date of Award
Spring 5-2019
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Program
History
Department
History
Major Professor
Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell
Second Advisor
Dr. Connie Zeanah Atkinson
Third Advisor
Dr. Charles Chamberlain
Abstract
For decades, scholars have debated the significance of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), emphasizing its political, economic, and artistic impact. This historiography is dominated by the accomplishments of white men. In an effort to highlight the long-neglected legions of black women who contributed to WPA projects and navigated the agency’s discriminatory practices, this paper will examine WPA operations in New Orleans where unemployment was the highest in the urban south, black women completed numerous large-scale projects, and white supremacist notions guided relief protocol. By analyzing the New Orleans WPA Photography collection, along with newspapers, government documents, and oral histories, a new perspective of the WPA emerges to illuminate the experiences of marginalized black women workers, illustrate how the legacies of slavery and effects of segregation impact black women’s employment opportunities, and highlight how black women made substantive contributions to public projects in the face of societal constraints.
Recommended Citation
O'Dwyer, Kathryn A., "‘Posed with the Greatest Care’: Photographic Representations of Black Women Employed by the Work Progress Administration in New Orleans, 1936-1941" (2019). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 2630.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2630
Included in
African American Studies Commons, Labor History Commons, Photography Commons, Political History Commons, Women's History Commons
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.