Working Women

While almost all of the letterheads reflect the business or professions of Newcomb fathers, there are two letters with the mother's name on the letterhead. One woman was a music teacher and one woman owned a pharmacy.

Historically, the southern woman was the guardian of the household. Southern women have a long history of working to support themselves and their families, and of struggling to gain fundamental rights in the workplace. Changes in the patterns of women's work in the South resulted from industrialization, the decline of agricultural labor and increased urbanization.