The Unpaid Labor of Survival
Martha Jane Hall files for divorce, citing a decade of her husband's refusal to work or provide, leaving her to support their three children alone.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Martha Jane Hall commenced a suit for divorce yesterday in the superior court against Isaiah Q. Hall, to whom she was married April 6, 1881, in Illinois. According to her complaint, they removed to Washington in 1888, and during the last ten years the husband's conduct has become unbearable. He failed to provide a suitable home, food or clothes and has compelled her to take in washing and to go out and do washing and other house work in order to support herself and her three children, aged 12, 7 and 4. The husband is alleged to be a skilled carpenter, but has refused to make any provision for the family, and actually lives on the earnings of his wife. She abandoned him in May 1893, owing to his cruelties becoming unbearable.
“He failed to provide a suitable home, food or clothes and has compelled her to take in washing... to support herself and her three children.”
This case illustrates the economic exploitation of women within 19th-century marriages, where the 'breadwinner' model often broke down, forcing women into the informal service economy to survive. Today, this mirrors ongoing discussions about the gender wage gap and the disproportionate burden of unpaid care work in Seattle households.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.