The Tale of Two Irenes: White When Needed

Miss Irene had two identities under federal records: one white and one Black. As a naturalized citizen, Irene married a white man 12 years her senior in 1919 named Paul at the age of 18. In 1920, the census reported Paul as the head of the household, Irene as his spouse, and a 3-year-old girl named Lula as his sister. Everyone was listed as white. By 1924, Irene would be divorced from Paul and married to a Black man named Charles. By then, Irene would identify as Black. Even more strikingly, 1927 would end the second marriage to Charles and list Lula as a daughter, not a sister.

            Throughout my dissertation, I am very critical of the Detroit Urban League and describe the organization as an invasive entity seeking to control the Black public identity through social work. But the Detroit Urban League is more to the interwar Black community than I write. I explain how the Jewish Social Service Bureau has the staff and finances to spend more time with their clientele. In addition, Jewish Detroiters are not facing the same public crisis as Black Detroit, so patience, connection, and friendship are more present in JSSB’s social work cases, which can span 100s of pages while overworked DUL social workers are limited to a notecard. In both communities, DUL and JSSB are viewed as organizations their respective communities can turn to when in crisis. Irene was one of those clients in the Detroit Urban League records.

            In April of 1920, Irene contacted the DUL in request of “fare to her sister’s home in Chatham, Ontario.” DUL gave her two dollars and “advice concerning divorce.” The 20-year-old found herself in a sensitive situation.  She was pregnant and the father was not her 30-year-old white husband, Paul. DUL so aptly wrote, “the girl is colored, husband white, father of the child is colored.” In a previous case, a husband contacted the DUL to investigate his wife suspecting her was having an affair and social workers mediated between the two. In this interracial marriage, the husband was in a peculiar predicament; which organization could he use? The Detroit Urban League also had a peculiar response: no contact with the husband for reconciliation. In all these cases, the social worker would talk to all parties involved but this one had a swift solution; the young woman would divorce her current husband and marry the father of the child. There was no push back to her plan nor any reconciliation efforts that usually occurred. The case notecard wrongly listed the 3-year-old child, Lula, as both her and her husband’s. Public records listed the 3-year-old child as Irene’s sister, Lula.

There are many possible reasons why the Detroit Urban League went against their normal procedure of mediation with a married couple. Her commitment to marry the father of the child may have resolved the concern of financial dependence so mediation was not needed. The Detroit Urban League’s exclusive dealings with the Black community put the social workers in uncharted territory. The interracial aspect may have created a sensitivity that the organization was unwilling to approach. I want to argue the Detroit Urban League avoided mediation as to not disclose she was Black. Federal records all categorized Irene as white. If the Detroit Urban League had intervened, her husband may have found for the first time he married a Black woman. There could have been many negative outcomes from this revelation that could reach the public sphere and create more tension for Black citizens. It could also endanger the life of Irene. Despite Irene’s initial contact in 1920 seeking a divorce, she and her husband would not divorce until September of 1924. It is unknown how they reconciliated but Paul, her husband, initiated the divorce and listed “cruelty” as the cause for divorce. The divorce decree listed zero children.

More confusedly, public records had Irene marrying her child’s father, Charles, the month before the divorce was granted. Charles, Irene, and child were listed as Black. The child once listed as sister was revealed to be their daughter Lula and the previous marriage begins to make more sense. As discussed in my dissertation, marriage allowed women to either escape or enter the cycle of poverty. At the time, single motherhood almost guaranteed a cycle of poverty unless the women had familial financial help. Irene married Charles, a machinist at one of the auto factories, for financial stability. It is unknown if Paul knew the child was Irene’s and agreed to report to the census that Lula was a sister. One could also argue that Lula’s white passing time was limited, and Irene needed to lie about her whiteness, her child, and marry a breadwinner to survive. Charles, Lula’s father, always reported to the census he was Black. When they married, all three of them would identify as Black. In 1920, Irene was not pregnant. Charles, the father of Lula, was the person she truly wanted to marry.  She would technically be a bigamist for a month in 1924, married to both Paul and Charles under two different races. Three years later, she would file divorce from her second husband due to “non-support.” Alimony was granted. Irene would marry again. Throughout her life, Irene and her immediate family would slip in and out of the white category depending on their location but in the end, Irene would continue to report her and her child’s Blackness.