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ABSTRACT
Focusing on the establishment of maternity care services predominantly for young, working-class white and coloured unmarried mothers, this article examines social and institutional responses to and changing conceptions of single motherhood and illegitimacy in early to mid-twentieth-century Cape Town, then one of the country’s largest and most well-established urban centres. It suggests that despite growing organisational support for the plight of the unmarried mother, such women continued to be seen as deviant and were treated in a manner that affirmed this status, although it is possible to track significant shifts in the way in which social workers and the government understood single motherhood between 1910 and 1950. It also argues that in Cape Town specifically, competing racial and religious concerns modulated the language used to describe unmarried motherhood, determining what kinds of services were available, where and for whom.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Johan Fourie, Robert Ross, Jan Kok and Nicole Ulrich, as well as delegates at the Social Science History Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Social History Society Conference in Lincoln, England, for their insightful comments and valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this article. Research for this article was made possible through the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-funded project Biography of an Uncharted People.
Notes
1 C. Joffe, The Regulation of Sexuality: Experiences of Family Planning Workers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), 3.
2 Dutch Reformed Church Archives, SKBD, KS 1691.
3 S. Burman and M. Naude, ‘Bearing a Bastard: The Social Consequences of Illegitimacy in Cape Town, 1896– 1939’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 17, 3 (1991), 373.
4 K. Jochelson, The Colour of Disease: Syphilis and Racism in South Africa, 1880–1950 (Oxford: Palgrave, 2001), 4; S. Klausen, Race, Maternity, and the Politics of Birth Control in South Africa, 1910–1939 (Basingstoke, Palgrave: 2004), 1–5, 33.
5 R. Hodes, ‘Kink and the Colony: Sexual Deviance in the Medical History of South Africa’, c. 1893–1939’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 41, 4 (July 2015), 715–733, L. Chisholm, ‘Gender and Deviance in South African Industrial Schools and Reformatories for Girls, 1911–1934’, in C. Walker, ed, Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945 (Cape Town: David Philip, 1990), 193–313.
6 Much of this literature has focused on the sexual socialisation of African working-class youths in Johannesburg. However, Sarah Duff’s recent work promises to expand this literature to also encapsulate debates about the sexual socialisation and sex education provided for non-African youths. See S. Duff, ‘Facts about Ourselves: Negotiating Sexual Knowledge in Early Twentieth-Century South Africa,’ Kronos, Special Edition on the Micro-Politics of Knowledge, 41 (November 2015), 235. For a useful summary of this literature consult C. Glaser, ‘Managing the Sexuality of Urban Youth: Johannesburg, 1920s–1960s’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 38, 2 (2005), 301–327.
7 Drawn from state, church and university archives, it is a testament to how widespread concerns regarding unmarried motherhood were in early twentieth-century Cape Town that such a diversity of information is available on the subject.
8 An extensive body of documents pertaining to St. Monica’s home is housed at the University of the Witwatersrand Historical Papers Research Archive (hereafter WHPA), AB2029. Detailed documentation is also available for the Mary Rolt Hostel and is stored at the Western Cape Provincial Archives, AB2182.
9 M. Motapanyane, Motherhood and Single-Lone Parenting: A Twenty-First Century Perspective (Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2016), 1, 115. For evidence of the persistence of these stereotypes in South Africa specifically, consult C. MacLeod and K. Durrheim, ‘Racializing Teenage Pregnancy: ‘Culture’ and ‘Tradition’ in the South African Scientific Literature’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 25, 5 (2002), 778–801.
10 K. Hughes, ‘Law, Religion and Bastardy: Comparative and Historical Perspectives’, in S. Burman and E. Preston-Whyte, eds, Questionable Issue: Illegitimacy in South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1992), 1.
11 E. Thornberry, ‘Rape, Race, and Respectability in a South African Port City: East London, 1870–1927’, Journal of Urban History, 42, 5 (2016), 867.
12 R. Solinger, ‘The Girl Nobody Loved: Psychological Explanations for White Single Pregnancy in the Pre-Roe v. Wade Era, 1945–1965’, Frontiers, 11, 2 (1990), 45. See also L. Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare, 1890–1935 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 24.
13 In his recent work, Wayne Dooling has argued that in black and coloured communities in Cape Town respectability was a relatively amorphous or malleable concept, but that this was largely a product of low wages and limited social mobility and not inherited characteristics. In Dooling’s own words, the individuals in these communities ‘actively pursued lifestyles that might be described as respectable. But respectability was expensive, and poverty – characterised by poor housing, ill health and shortened lifespans – stood in the way of some of its most essential elements: cleanliness, sexual restraint, sobriety, and the creation of nuclear and gendered households’. W. Dooling, ‘Poverty and Respectability in Early Twentieth-Century Cape Town’, Journal of African History, 59, 3 (2019), 414.
14 I have aimed, throughout this article, to be consistent in my use of racial terminology and to make clear the religious identity of the persons to whom I refer. On most occasions I identify individuals simply as ‘black’ (that is, African), ‘white’ or ‘coloured’ – racial terminology that, despite the reservations of academics, remains in regular usage in South Africa today. That said, terms such as ‘non-European’ and ‘non-white’ (used to describe all persons not of European origin), as well as ‘native’ or ‘Bantu’ (used to describe individuals of African descent) and ‘Malay’ or ‘Mohammedan’ (used to describe practicing Muslims at the Cape, usually coloured in complexion), were more commonly used by the state and charitable institutions to describe race at the time, and have occasionally been included for the purposes of contextual accuracy.
15 Cape Town grew from a city of just 20,016 in 1838 to a bustling metropolis of 187,331 in 1911 and continued to expand at a similar rate in subsequent decades. Figures are taken from the 1838 Cape of Good Hope Blue Book and the 1911 Union Census. See Republic of South Africa, Bureau of Statistics, Population Census 1911, Report (Pretoria: Government Printers, 1913), 24.
16 L. Vincent, ‘Bread and Honour: White Working Class Women and Afrikaner Nationalism in the 1930s’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 26, 1 (2000), 61.
17 At 4.20, the Cape female-to-male worker ratio was better than the Union average of 4.64. For more information, see the 1936 Union Census.
18 E. Brink, ‘Only Decent Girls Are Employed: The Respectability, Decency and Virtue of the Garment Workers on the Witwatersrand during the Thirties’, History Workshop Working Paper (9–14 February 1987), 10. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39666677.pdf, accessed 5th May 2020. Brink has written widely on Afrikaner women and their involvement in the South African Garment Workers’ Union. Much of her work is about how these women sought to redefine themselves in the eyes of the public, asserting their respectability and dignity, even in the face of widespread social ostracism.
19 Report of the Labour Commission (Cape Town: W.A. Richards & Sons, 1894), 80, quoted in S. Duff, Changing Childhoods in the Cape Colony: Dutch Reformed Church Evangelism and Colonial Childhood, 1860–1895 (Oxford: Palgrave, 2015), 119.
20 Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled, 24.
21 For more background detail see P. Scully, ‘Rape, Race, and Colonial Culture: The Sexual Politics of Identity in the Nineteenth-Century Cape Colony’, South Africa, The American Historical Review, 100, 2 (1995), 335–359.
22 V. Bickford-Smith, The Emergence of the South African Metropolis: Cities and Identities in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 113–129.
23 S. Burman and P. van der Spuy, ‘The Illegitimate and the Illegal in a South African City: The Effects of Apartheid on Births out of Wedlock’, Journal of Social History, 29, 3 (1996), 614.
24 S. Patterson, Colour and Culture in South Africa: A Study of the Status of the Cape Coloured People within the Social Structure of the Union of South (London: Routledge, 1953), 149, 150.
25 WHPA, AB2029/BA, Annual Report (1932), p. 7–8; for similar arguments see Cape Times, ‘Disease Due to Social Evils’, 21 June 1929.
26 Chisholm, ‘Gender and Deviance’, 301.
27 WHPA, AD843RJ, NC1, SAIRR Report on Coloured Child Welfare, 1940; WHPA, AD843B, 52.3.4–5, Proceedings and Report of a Departmental Committee of Inquiry Appointed by the Minister of Justice to Inquire into the Alleged Increase of Serious Crime in the Cape Peninsula, 1943.
28 Mental testing refers to the administration of psychological tests designed to be an objective and standardised measure of intellectual capacity. Growing out of an intellectual and social climate heavily influenced by eugenicist theory, the mental testing movement rose to prominence in Europe and the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. It later spread to other parts of the world, including South Africa where it was used to justify growing racial segregation. For a thorough history of mental testing in South Africa, see J. Shingler, ‘Education and the Political Order in South Africa 1902–1961’ (PhD thesis, Yale University, New Haven, 1973). Also see S. Dubow, ‘Mental Testing and the Understanding of Race in Twentieth Century South Africa’, in T. Meade and M. Walker, eds, Science, Medicine and Cultural Imperialism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991), 148–177.
29 Quoted in L. Chisholm, ‘Aspects of Child-Saving in South Africa: Classifying and Segregating the Delinquent 1917–1934’, African Studies Seminar Paper No. 251 (Paper presented at the University of the Witwatersrand, April 1989), 20. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/8522, accessed 6th July 2020.
30 Cape Archives (hereafter CA), AB2182/16.
31 Cape Times, ‘Houses – More Houses and More Houses’, 15 June 1929; Cape Times, ‘Helping Factory Girls’, 8 May 1926.
32 Cape Times, ‘Helping Factory Girls’, 8 May 1926.
33 Die Kerkbode, ‘Stedolike Bearbeiding’, October 1938.
34 The Anchor, ‘The Work of the House of Mercy’, March 1924; The Cape Times, ‘Girl Workers in Need of a Club’, 23 October 1936.
35 CA, AB2182/27, Mary Rolt Hostel Annual Report 1938.
36 Rand Daily Mail, ‘Vultures Driving Fine Cars’, 15 December 1927.
37 Dutch Reformed Church Archives, ‘Schema van Werksaamhede’, presented to the Dutch Reformed Church Synod by the Kommissie Van Orde, 1932.
38 Die Huisvrou, ‘Reinheid: Aan die Dogters van ons volk veral’, 27 April 1937, quoted in A. Fairbairn Rommelspacher, ‘The everyday lives of the white South African housewives' (MA thesis, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, 2017), 85.
39 Solinger, ‘The Girl Nobody Loved’, 47.
40 L. Young, ‘The Unmarried Mother’s Decision about Her Baby’, Journal of Social Casework, 28, 1 (1947), 27.
41 A. Loots, ‘Die Ongehude Moeder: Volgens ‘n Studie in die Inrigtings vir Ongehude Moeders in Kaapstad’ (MA thesis, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, 1951), 50.
42 Young, Out of Wedlock: A Study of the Problems of the Unmarried Mother and Her Child (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953), 22.
43 Solinger, ‘The Girl Nobody Loved’, 45.
44 Burman and Naude, ‘Bearing a Bastard’, 412.
45 UCT Special Collections, BC700, letter dated 10 January 1900. Here Waterston writes that her ladies ‘work steadily day after day for long hours giving relief and seeing that the wrong people do not get it’; her motivation for not administering to unmarried mothers is further explained in L. Bean and E. van Heyningen, eds, The Letters of Jane Elizabeth Waterston, 1866–1905 (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1983), 252–253.
46 Dutch Reformed Church Archives, Ref 193.
47 Young, Out of Wedlock, 8; Dutch Reformed Church Archives, SKDB KS 1691.
48 Burman and Naude, ‘Bearing a Bastard’, 411.
49 W. Dooling, ‘Poverty and Respectability’, 414.
50 A. Stoler, ‘Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexual Morality in 20th-Century Colonial Cultures’, American Ethnologist, 16, 4 (1989), 643–645.
51 On a visit to Cape Town in 1911 Maurice Evans, a Natalian expert on the ‘native question’, explained that ‘As a rule whites and coloured people keep apart and do not mix, but there are very many exceptions … . Young white men will be seen walking with well-dressed coloured girls, and an older European may often be seen with a coloured wife and children of varying shades’. M.S. Evans, Black and White in South East Africa (London: Longman, 1916), 296–297.
52 WHPA, AD1715, 9, 4, 4. South African Institute of Race Relations, T. Shadick Higgins, ‘Infant Mortality, Tuberculosis, Venereal Disease’, Paper Presented at the Third Session of the Social Survey Conference, Cape Town, 19 February 1942. Deaths related to the 1918 influenza epidemic are excluded.
53 SSC, PAM 18 CHI.
54 The Right Hon. Arthur H.D. Acland, former Minister of Education in Britain, speaking at South Africa’s first Child Welfare Conference in 1917, SSC, PAM 18 CHI. For more on the South African child welfare movement see J. Muirhead, ‘“The Children of Today Make the Nation of Tomorrow”: A Social History of Child Welfare in Twentieth Century South Africa’ (MA thesis, Stellenbosch University, 2012).
55 Dutch Reformed Church Archives, SKDB KS 1691; SSC, PAM 18 CHI.
56 T. Shadick, ‘Public Health Influences’, The South African Medical Journal, 8, 18 (1934), 678.
57 L. S. Fitzpatrick, ‘The care of the unmarried European mother and her illegitimate child: the construction of gender and sexuality in the Mary Rolt Hostel, 1920–1970’ (BA Dissertation, University of Cape Town. 1994), 31; Cape Times, 13 June 1925.
58 For an excellent summary of the ‘white slavery’ debate and the various moral panics over female sexuality throughout the twentieth century see J. Doezema, ‘Loose Women or Lost Women? The Re-emergence of the Myth of White Slavery in Contemporary Discourses of Trafficking in Women’, Gender Issues 18, 1 (1999), 23–50.
59 WHPA, AB2029/Ha 4–6.
60 WHPA, AB2029/Ha 4–6.
61 Burman and Naude, ‘Bearing a Bastard’, 384.
62 E. van Heyningen, ‘Poverty, Self-Help and Community: The Survival of the Poor in Cape Town, 1880–1910’, South African Historical Journal, 24, 1 (1991), 129.
63 WHPA, AB2029/JA14.
64 WHPA, AB2029/Aa, St. Monica’s Minute Book 1927–1933, 10 December 1928.
65 Cape Times, ‘What Muslims Want’, 19 June 1925; Burman and Naude point out that even if this motive did exist, ‘it is unlikely that the ultimate aim was to become part of the white community, since Muslims were distinguished for the most part not only by skin colour and religious and dietary laws, but also by the adoption of a special form of dress’. Burman and Naude, ‘Bearing a Bastard’, 385.
66 The Moslem Outlook, ‘St. Monica’s Mission Home’, 11 July 1925.
67 For a landmark case that reflected some of the tensions at the heart of this debate see Solomons v. The Child Life Protection Society, reported in The South African Law Reports [1917] Cape Provincial Division, edited by Hon. Judge A. F. Russell, 276.
68 CA, A2182/27, MRH Annual Report 1931.
69 E. Murray. Broken Lilies (Cape Town: The Rustica Press, 1922), 2–5.
70 Chisholm, ‘Gender and Deviance’, 302.
71 Dutch Reformed Church Archives, SK 1691.
72 E. Murray. Broken Lilies (Cape Town: The Rustica Press, 1922), 2–5.
73 Dutch Reformed Church Archives, Ref 193.
74 The Anchor, ‘The Work of the House of Mercy’, March 1924.
75 CA A2182/27, Annual Report 1929.
76 CA, A2182/27, Mary Rolt Hostel 30th Annual Report.
77 M.F. Smith, ‘Changing Emphases in Case Work with Unmarried Mothers’, The Family, January 1934, 311.
78 CA, A2182/14, Letter to Mrs Moore dated March 1921.
79 Dutch Reformed Church Archives, KS 1691, Memorandum 1962.
80 Formal adoption was legalised in South Africa only in 1923. Prior to this a system of formal foster care existed under the Child Life Protection Society.
81 Child Welfare Society, Wynberg: 6th Annual Report of the CLPS, 1914, 5; Cape Argus, ‘Farming-out System Caused Many Deaths among Babies’, 9 July 1960. The article said: ‘About 200 babies born to domestic servants died last year – many as a result of their mothers farming them out to foster parents to avoid losing their jobs in private homes … . Deaths [in this instance] are mostly caused by gastro-enteritis, the result of neglect and unhygienic conditions in the homes of foster parents’.
82 CA, SWP/7/27/1, General Correspondences, Children’s Act.
83 Hughes, ‘Law, Religion and Bastardy’, 1–3.
84 CA, SWP/7/27/1, Children’s Act, Response from the CLPS, 4.
85 Young, Out of Wedlock, 8.
86 CA A2182/27, Mary Rolt Hostel Annual Report May 1922.
87 WHPA, AB2029 Ba, St. Monica’s Annual Report 1949; Cape Archives A2182/1, St. Monica’s Annual Report 1944.
88 WHPA, AB2029 Aa, St. Monica’s Minutes August 1937.
89 That the relationship between Alice and the hostel staff remained very positive is reflected in her case notes, which read: ‘Alice often comes to the hostel’ (1927), ‘Alice came regularly to the Lent talks and often comes here with Austin’ (1928), ‘Alice came to tea in July and August’ (1928). Alice remained in touch with the Mary Rolt Hostel until 1932, and was listed as attending a Christmas party at the hostel that same year. CA, AB2182/25, Case Book, September 1922–November 1926.
90 Cape Archives, AB2182/16, Letters from Miss Scott dated 18 and 23 June 1939.
91 CA, AB2182/25, Case Book, May 1927–May 1932.
92 CA, AB2182/25, Case Register, 1932–1947.
93 CA, AB2182/25, Case Register, 1932–1947.
94 Roughly 8.5 per cent of the 200 cases transcribed from the register between 1932 and 1947 resulted in unmarried mothers leaving the hostel early. CA, AB2182/25, Case Register, 1932–1947.
95 CA, AB2182/25, Case Register, 1932–1947.
96 CA, AB2182/25, Case Register, 1932–1947.
97 WHPA, AB2029 Aa, Minutes April 1938.
98 WHPA, AB2029, Aa, St Monica’s Minutes August 1937.
99 It is difficult to find evidence of this kind of case, but the existence thereof is alluded to in several hostel reports.
100 P. Thane, Happy Families: History and Family Policy (London: British Academy, 2010), 13.
101 Stoler, ‘Making Empire Respectable’, 634.
102 Stoler, ‘Making Empire Respectable’, 635.
103 WHPA, AB2029 Ha6, Speech Notes, 1.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Laura Richardson
Laura Richardson is a South African scholar based at Cambridge University, with an interest in the social history of sexuality and reproduction, particularly within urban settings in the Global South. For her doctoral research, she is writing an oral history of courtship, sexuality and family planning in three racially distinct working-class areas of Cape Town between 1948 and 1982, i.e. the period between the rise of the apartheid state and the first reported case/s of HIV/AIDS in South Africa.