• 39%, Yes, at least one of my grandmothers was her family’s primary breadwinner for a period of time.
• 31%, Yes, at least one of my great-grandmothers was her family’s primary breadwinner for a period of time.
• 38%, No, I don’t think that any of my grandmothers or great-grandmothers were the primary breadwinner for her family.
• 5%, I’m not sure.

Readers Respond

Judy Swain, Concord, New Hampshire: My great-great-grandmother Ann (James) Oxspring (1817–1904) became the family breadwinner after her husband, John Oxspring, died in 1867 from tuberculosis, leaving her with four sons and four daughters. Ann continued to run the butcher shop the couple owned in Sheffield, England, until her death. (I was fortunate to find an 1893 image of “Mrs. Ann Oxspring's butchers shop” (with Ann in front) at PictureSheffield.com. I purchased a copy which now hangs in my living room.)

Martha Deed, North Tonawanda, New York: My great-grandmother Sara Elizabeth Saunders (1871–1959) was the primary breadwinner for her three daughters in the early 1900s. She was a pianist, organist, writer of Pilgrim pageants, producer of theatricals, a piano teacher, and a piano player for silent movies—a general jack of all trades for music, musicals, and theater productions. The family lived in Quincy, Massachusetts, but when she traveled for work, she boarded her girls at Brewster House in Kingston, Mass. I have postcards she sent her daughters from Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Sometimes she asked them to mail music from her files, and sometimes she ordered them to behave!

Bourge Hathaway, New Harbor, Maine: My maternal grandmother, Leah (Brown) Williams, left my domineering and emotionally abusive grandfather in 1920. Divorced, with two small daughters to raise alone, she worked in a candy factory, picked strawberries, and ultimately landed a job as an operator with the telephone company in Kansas City, Kansas. With only an eighth-grade education, she rose over the next thirty-six years to become a supervisor for Ma Bell and retired in 1956 with distinction and a lifetime membership in the Telephone Pioneers of America. The plaque that she was given to honor her achievements with the company today hangs on a wall in my study alongside my academic diplomas and those of my sister. In my mind, it has more value than any of them.

Sheryl Romasco, Uxbridge, Massachusetts: My great-grandmother Bronislawa Stodus immigrated from Austria/Poland to America in 1901. She married Josef Kupis in 1908, and they had two children. Her husband lost his arm in a carding machine accident sometime between 1915 and 1919 and returned to Poland because he could not get a job. Bronislawa said she would go back to Poland later—but she never did. She opened her home to boarders and worked as a weaver in a mill. By 1923, she had bought her own home.

Steve Aberle, Vancouver, Washington: In 1904, my great-grandmother Edith Olive (Fry) Whittlesey was widowed at age 39. Her three daughters were 4, 12, and 18. She converted her husband’s tea, coffee, and spices retail store in St. Paul, Minnesota, into a restaurant (perhaps more of a café or coffeehouse). Edith sold that business and, by 1905, had moved to Oregon, where she opened a boarding house near a law school in Portland. This decision was fateful for the family as each of her daughters married an attorney.