Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses 1-1-2003 Women Adrift, Sporting Girls and the Unfortunate Poor: A Gendered History of Homelessness in Portland 1900-1929 Leanne Claire Serbulo Portland State University Let us know how access to this document benefits you. Follow this and additional works at:http://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Recommended Citation Serbulo, Leanne Claire, "Women Adrift, Sporting Girls and the Unfortunate Poor: A Gendered History of Homelessness in Portland 1900-1929" (2003).Dissertations and Theses.Paper 741. 10.15760/etd.741 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please [email protected]. THESIS APPROYA L The abstract and thesis ofLeanne Claire Serbulo for the Master ofUrban Studies were presented June 18,2003 and accepted by the thesis committee and the school. COMMITTEE APPROYA LS: Karen Gibson M Representative ofthe Office of Graduate Studies SCHOOL APPROYA L: ABSTRACT An abstract ofthe thesis ofLeanne Claire Serbulo for the Master of Urban Studies presented June 18,2003 Title: Women Adrift, Sporting Girls and the Unfortunate Poor: A Gendered History ofHomelessn ess in Portland 1900-1929. This purpose ofthis study is to incorporate women into the history of homelessness. Women's experience is missing from the narrative of industrial era homelessness, which causes researchers to make a distinction between the modem day homeless population and its predecessors. This distinction prevents researchers from examining the long term structural causes of homeless ness and analyzing the role homelessness plays in U.S. society. This study explores the population characteristics and living conditions of three groups ofwomen who were considered homeless during the early decades of the twentieth century in Portland. These groups include single working women who lived away from their family, prostitutes, and single mothers. This study also traces the development ofcharitable institutions and social welfare programs that arose to meet the needs of homeless women during this era and examines the relationships between homeless women and the reformers and charities that took up their cause. The inclusion ofwomen's experience into the history ofearly twentieth century homelessness necessitates a broadened definition ofthe homeless phenomenon. Women's homelessness during this era was both defined and determined by their family situation. Women who lived outside ofthe patriarchal family were considered homeless and suffered economic hardship because oftheir non-traditional living arrangements. Incorporating an analysis of home back into homelessness will result in non­ gendered policy implications. Labor market remedies and affordable housing solutions are still needed, but changes to the structure ofthe household economy are also called for. The unpaid labor women traditionally perform must be socially and economically valued and the sexual division oflabor within the home needs to be challenged. WOMEN ADRIFT, SPORTING GIRLS AND THE UNFORTUNATE POOR: A GENDERED HISTORY OF HOMELESSNESS IN PORTLAND 1900-1929 by LEANNE CLAIRE SERBULO A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements ofthe degree of MASTER OF URBAN STUDIES Portland State University 2003 DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the memory ofClaire Rose Toth who taught me tolerance and passed on her love ofreading. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE List ofTables 111 I INTRODUCTION 1 II DOWN AND OUT IN THE CITY OF ROSES 20 III WOMEN ADRIFT: WAGE EARNING WOMEN 32 ON THEIR OWN IV SPORTING GIRLS: THE PROSTITUTION 64 ALTERNATIVE V THE UNFORTUNATE POOR: BREADWINNING WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN 90 VI CONCLUSIONS 115 127 References LIST OF TABLES TITLE PAGE Primary Determinants of Homelessness According to Gender, 1990-1929 13 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION I'll be ever' where-wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there .. .I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an' -I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build-why I'll be there. l The words ofSteinbeck's hero Tom Joad continue to reverberate today as a rallying call for social and economic justice. The story ofthe Joads evoked public sympathy and raised national awareness about the plight ofhomeless families during the dustbowl. Tom Joad lives on in our cultural consciousness as a symbol ofthe resistance of the downtrodden. But where, in our collective memory, are the stories of Ma Joad, who presses the family's last dollar in the hands of her fleeing son, or Rose of Sharon Joad, who physically sustains the community at the end ofthe tale? The historical experiences ofhomeless women, like this fictional mother and sister, are the focus ofthis study. This research project examines homelessness among women in Portland during the first decades of the twentieth century. The primary question addressed is how did women experience homelessness in Portland from 1900 until 1929? Homelessness is an enduring social phenomenon that has plagued our nation since colonial times. Public awareness ofthe homeless waxed and waned over the last three centuries. The first recognition of homeless ness as a national social problem occurred in the early 1800s and it reemerged as a critical issue again the latter part of the nineteenth century.2 However, it wasn't until the Great Depression, when 1 homeless families overwhelmed local social services, that the federal government enacted the first national legislation addressing the problems of homelessn ess and poverty. By the end of World War II, the suffering ofthe very poor had disappeared from the public view and it did not resurface until the recession ofthe early 1980s when men and women were once again, visibly sleeping on city streets. With the exception ofthe Great Depression, the history ofhomeless ness has been researched and retold as a history ofhomeless men. While historians acknowledge women's presence among the ranks ofthe colonial homeless, women are absent from the conventional descriptions of the nineteenth and early twentieth century urban homeless who accompanied industrialization? The popular conceptualization ofthe homeless ofthis era is the hobo, or the male migratory or seasonal worker who utilized skid row institutions. This association ofindustrial era homelessness with marginal status in the labor market and the urban neighborhoods and services these laborers frequented leads to the omission ofhomeless women from the historical record. Not only were women less likely to be working for wages at this time, but rooming houses frequented by female laborers may not have been located within the tightly defined boundaries ofthe skid row neighborhood.4 Industrial era researchers and historians who studied skid row focused only on their male transient residents and failed to consider prostitutes and other women who lived and worked within the neighborhood as members ofthe skid row homeless community.s Finally, social service organizations that arose to meet the needs ofhomeless women emerged separately and distinctly from skid row charities.6 2