What if you were a black woman in the 1960s and your options were few and you had a family to feed? What if you were a white woman, wealthy or not, working or at home raising young children and trying to keep the household together? Thrown together because of need – one to earn money, one for help or companionship – these two women often spent long hours each day under one roof in an inherently unequal, but oftentimes surprisingly intimate relationship. The result was a dynamic that included shared secrets and shared parenting, and a range of emotions from genuine affection to resentment, from loyalty and dependency to isolation and loss. 

Under One Roof is a documentary film that will capture the stories of and give voice to the people whose lives were bound up in these complex relationships in the cities and suburbs of the North, after the Great Migration, and in the midst of the Civil Rights and Women’s movements. We will hear from the women, whose roles were not simply defined as that of employer and employee, but as mothers as well. And, we will hear from the children -- those whose lives were touched, shaped or changed by these surrogate mothers, and those whose lives were impacted by their own mother’s necessary absence. 

The stories will be told through present-day interviews, conducted on film and on audio, and interwoven with personal photographs, contemporary footage, artifacts and music in an effort to effectively and honestly convey the personal narratives within an historical context.

The stories will be grouped thematically by segments, allowing for the sharing of many voices. Possible themes and participants include: 

Crossing Race, Cultures and Class 

While there were differences of race, class, culture, and, oftentimes, religion between the housekeepers and the families that employed them, both parties often grew to respect, appreciate and embrace those differences - or ignore them altogether.

For instance, there were strong yet in many ways complicated bonds between the Jewish and black populations in the mid-twentieth century; while families of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds had help, there were a tremendous number of Jewish families with black housekeepers. As a result, many housekeepers came to learn about the religion, the religious practices, and the cultural aspects, like Jewish cooking, that were part and parcel of the household. As Michael describes in talking about Jessie: 

Jessie worked for so many Jewish people that she knew more about Judaism than some of us knew. She knew the holidays. She knew what happened over the Passover Seder; she knew what was going on at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Jessie just embraced Judaism because I would say that just about all of her clients were Jews.

Nate’s involvement with his white tennis coach led to the coach’s hiring of Nate’s mother as the housekeeper for his two daughters and working wife. Nate credits the coach and his wife for expanding his teenage world: 
	
Gertrude and Don both were like pistons on an engine pumping the brain. My parents were very good at allowing me to be exposed, but they knew they did not have the materials or the things that I needed to grow in order to move into the world I was moving in. 

When asked whether she felt self-conscious about having help as a child, Gwen, a 49-year-old white woman living in a suburb of Chicago, explained the role of her housekeeper, Sara, in her life this way: 

I always wanted to make the distinction between having help and having Sara . . . I knew it on some level, but I always wanted to make a distinction: Other people have ‘help,’ but you don’t get it -- it’s Sara. She’s not hired help, she’s one of us.

Two Women, One House 

Two women of different races, class and cultures often spent long hours each day under one roof. How did they maneuver in one household? How were their roles defined?

For Shirley, a turning point for her was her employer’s admonishment to her children that Shirley was in control and to be minded:

I remember the father would invite me to sit down and eat with them and I wouldn’t do it. Because that’s not the way I was raised. You didn’t sit down with the white people and eat. And I didn’t. But I’ll never forget working on the floor and the daughter walks on it before it got dry. And I told her, ‘Don’t walk on my floor.’ And she said, ‘It’s not your floor, it’s my mother’s floor.’ And I said, ‘As long as I am doing it, it is my floor.’ I told her mom about the experience and she said, ‘She’s right. Until that floor is dry, you don’t walk on it.’ That was really nice. That’s when I learned that all white people weren’t alike. And I finally sat down and ate with them.

For some, looking back, there was clearly a gap between their perceived closeness with the housekeeper and the truth. As Elizabeth outlines in talking about the relationship between her mother and Lee, between employer and employee:

Mum would always save Tuesdays so she could have lunch with Lee, and she would save up all of the stuff she wanted to talk to Lee about. Mum would describe it as “us talking and sharing.” But, although Lee would tell her a little bit . . . it was a very, very, very asymmetrical best friendship. Let’s just put it that way. 

For others, acknowledging the nature of the relationship was complicated by the pre-assigned roles and the times as Reva suggests in talking about her mother and Louise, who was the family’s housekeeper for close to 50 years:

I wish my mother could have said, “She was my best friend,” but she wouldn’t. It was too much of a power differential . . . because she was the boss.


Bonding with the Children 

Outside of ironing, vacuuming, dusting, and, perhaps cooking, the housekeeper’s role often extended to minding the children. Whether once a week or live-in, the housekeeper was not only a physical presence in the household, but oftentimes connected on a deep emotional level with the children as well. For many white children, she became a surrogate mother: She didn’t judge, but she commanded respect; she offered love and devotion; and she enjoyed reciprocated love and loyalty, all of which contributed to relationships that have in some cases lasted a lifetime. 

[My favorite memory is] the love I got from them [the children], and they treated me so good. If I said, “Don’t do it,” they didn’t. I’ve never been a mean person, but I think they made me more loving, says Ethel, regarding the three children she co-raised during the 1960s and 70s.

Even today, she considers them “her babies,” and they look to her, still, as a mother figure: 
 
Adam went to buy some shoes and I come ride with him. And I went inside the store with him, but I stopped at the front. He went up there and he got the shoes. He told the man, “I want to let my mother see them,” so he comes with the man. When they got up there to me, the man, his eyes, he bugged his eyes. Adam said, “They O.K.?” I had him walk around and then I say, “Yeah.” And so they [the salesman] look so funny, but that’s just the way they do. 

And although Kim only enjoyed the company of Mrs. King for four years - four years when her parents were going through a very contentious divorce - Mrs. King had a profound effect on Kim’s life:

My mom is tough and ambitious and she’s not a cook or a baker. So I got the luxury of having this super ambitious super–role model mom, architect mom, professional, and then I had this sweet and good and kind Mrs. King, or this more domestic experience. Whatever sweetness I have in my life is from Mrs. King. ‘Cause she was all good; she represents all good to me.

Turbulent Times

Workplace and neighborhood integration, school desegregation, white flight, Black pride, women’s rights, and affirmative action policies were some of the many social and civil rights changes that were discussed in the media, on the streets and in homes in the 1960s and 1970s. 

As Shirley, an African American former housekeeper now in her 70s, told her employers when they moved into an apartment building in Chicago and explained the building’s rules regarding black employees:

I ain’t comin’ through no backdoor. Haven’t gone through the backdoor since leaving Mississippi. 

Shirley also remembers the rioting that occurred in Chicago after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, and how her black neighbors rallied to protect another one of her employers, a white woman who worked as the principal of the neighborhood childcare center on Chicago’s South Side:

You could almost see the fire [from the school]. When she would come into the city to the school, some of the fathers of the school would meet her and follow her in and follow her out. And when they closed the schools and went on strike, the church opened their doors and let her in. 

Then there is the other side -- Diane reflects back on her relationship with her housekeeper’s eldest daughter, Colleen, who seemed to be very uncomfortable about her mother’s employment situation:

I think she was angry that her mother worked for a white family. I always got that sense. Colleen didn’t come over very often. It was very clear that she wasn’t happy about it; her body language showed it. She would never engage with me, and, as a child, I never understood that.

Audience
Under One Roof will appeal to a wide audience of all ages, races, ethnic and cultural backgrounds by offering an honest glimpse into the personal relationships that existed in the midst of a tumultuous period in American history. It will speak to not only the generation of people who grew up in the 50s and 60s, but it will also attract the interest of younger viewers as it touches on social, racial and historical issues that shaped their parents’ and grandparents’ lives.