Seeking a specific slice of life

January 2, 2020 5:25 PM

I'm looking for recommendations for autobiographies/memoirs written by American women who were in their teens/twenties around 1925-1935. I'm interested in first-hand, day-to-day experiences of being a member of the working poor, first generation Irish/Italian/German immigrant, or middle class in small town America during that time period -- no Zelda-style wealth & excess, please.

Bonus points if the writing reflects the style of speaking of that age -- fads, lingo, what young women did for fun, social and dating etiquette of the day, etc. Thanks!

posted by egeanin to Society & Culture (11 answers total)

Best answer: It’s nominally fiction, but bear with me here. The work of Betty Smith is heavily autobiographical. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn takes place a bit earlier than your target, but there are two not-quite-sequels, Joy in the Morning and Tomorrow Will be Better, which move into the 1920s and follow the lives of second- or third-generation Irish-American women in the Midwest and Brooklyn, respectively. (Both protagonists could plausibly be a slightly older Francie, the central character of Tree.)
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 5:49 PM on January 2, 2020 [5 favorites]

I’m not sure how you’ll feel about this, but Adventures of a Hollywood Secretary is pretty fascinating: https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Hollywood-Secretary-Private-Letters/dp/0520247809
posted by Miko at 6:33 PM on January 2, 2020

Best answer: Tillie Olsen, born in Nebraska in 1912 to working-class, Jewish immigrant parents. Her Yonnondio: From the Thirties is an unfinished, heavily autobiographical novel. Olsen, who'd left school at age 15 to earn a living (from poorly-compensated jobs: waitress, laundry worker, hotel maid, assembly-line jar capper, etc.), began Yonnonido in 1932; her first child arrived later that same year, and the novel would be set aside for four decades.

Wikipedia entry excerpt: Olsen's non-fiction volume, titled Silences, published in 1978, presented an analysis of authors' silent periods, including writer's blocks, unpublished work, and the problems that working-class writers, and women in particular, have in finding the time to concentrate on their art. One of her observations was that prior to the late 20th century, all the great women writers in Western literature either had no children or had full-time housekeepers to raise the children.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:35 AM on January 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

Ashes of Roses by Auch is a little early and is about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.
posted by childofTethys at 4:35 AM on January 3, 2020

Best answer: Mary McCarthy's memoirs Memories of a Catholic Girlhood and How I Grew. Her early autobiographical novel The Company She Keeps might qualify, though it is mostly set in New York City.
posted by JonJacky at 10:04 AM on January 3, 2020

Best answer: The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald; maybe also Anybody Can Do Anything and The Plague and I.

Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish

We Had Everything but Money is a compilation of personal accounts of living during the Depression; I don't know how many are accounts from women or the ages of the authors.

caveat: I have not read these books
posted by carrioncomfort at 10:37 AM on January 3, 2020

Seconding A tree grows in Brooklyn. Fiction based heavily on fact. One of my all time favorite books!
posted by LaBellaStella at 12:49 PM on January 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Cheaper by the Dozen is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, published in 1948. The sequel, Belles on Their Toes, was published in 1950. It covers food preparations, servants, summer vacation, dating and other "growing up" subjects. Jaunty, humorous tone.

The father was an efficiency expert and the family (12 children) is unusual because their father times them with a stopwatch in their normal activities.
posted by ohshenandoah at 8:05 PM on January 3, 2020

Ruth McKenney published a series of short stories in The New Yorker, which were the basis for her memoir My Sister Eileen. Plays and musicals (including two films) focused on her years as a budding writer in 1930s Greenwich Village with her younger sister Eileen McKenney. However, she also wrote extensively about the misadventures of her childhood in Indiana and Ohio.
Be aware that some books purchased online may be copies of the play, not the book form of the short stories.

You may have to settle for Hayley Mills and Rosalind Russell in the film The Trouble With Angels (1966), based on the novel Life With Mother Superior by Jane Trahey. The time frame may be a little past the period you are looking for. Copies of the book are rather expensive.
posted by TrishaU at 4:53 AM on January 4, 2020

Similar to Betty Smith, Kathryn Forbes wrote Mama's Bank Account. It is fiction/fictionalized, though based on her Norwegian working class immigrant relatives, and is set in San Francisco in the early 20th century.
posted by gudrun at 7:12 AM on January 4, 2020 [1 favorite]

Check out The Orchard. It is a beautiful account of an educated young woman struggling to revive her family's apple farm during the Depression. It's lyrical, marvelously evocative of the time and well-written. A real pleasure to read.
posted by Kangaroo at 4:53 PM on January 4, 2020 [1 favorite]