{"id":51486,"date":"2022-07-21T07:57:33","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T11:57:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/?p=51486"},"modified":"2022-07-21T07:57:33","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T11:57:33","slug":"history-feature-the-moonshining-matriarch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/lifestyle\/history-feature-the-moonshining-matriarch\/","title":{"rendered":"History Feature: The Moonshining Matriarch"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bootlegging Past of Grace McAbee<\/h2>\n

By Lauren Stepp<\/p>\n

Grace McAbee\u2019s back was against the wall. With her husband making low wages, she needed to eke out her own living. But there were few options.<\/p>\n

She could take in laundry, as many women did then. Or, she could join the legions making up Asheville\u2019s \u201cshadow economy.\u201d McAbee chose the latter.<\/p>\n

\"\"

J.A. Baker Packing Strike. Photo courtesy of the Asheville Citizen<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cShe ran a bootlegging operation on a scale larger than I can even begin to fathom,\u201d says Katherine Cutshall, the collections manager at Buncombe County Special Collections. Cutshall began unveiling McAbee\u2019s gutsy life history while sorting through boxes of her father\u2019s keepsakes. She came across a police report about a teen arrested for chicken theft. As it happened, that teen was McAbee\u2014the sister of Cutshall\u2019s great-grandmother.
\nIntrigued, Cutshall dug deeper. She discovered that McAbee was born in the Ivy Hill community of Haywood County in the early 1900s. As a young woman, she moved to Asheville. Then, she and her husband built a home in the West End-Factory Hill neighborhood located in the area now known as Chicken Hill.<\/p>\n

Today, Chicken Hill is a hip hamlet within walking distance of art galleries and gastropubs. But during McAbee\u2019s time, it was a place defined by a \u201cconstant racket of machinery and polluted air,\u201d says Cutshall. \u201cLife for women in the West End was pretty rough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though some women stayed at home to care for young children, many joined their husbands in factory jobs, laboring at Asheville Cotton Mill or Hans Rees Tannery. But the money was never enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cWages were really depressed during this time,\u201d says Cutshall. At J.A. Baker Packing, a meat distributor where McAbee\u2019s husband worked, wages stagnated below 20 cents per hour\u2014proportionally less than today\u2019s federal minimum wage of $7.25.<\/p>\n

Paltry pay combined with the economic downturn of 1929 pushed many families to the brink of desperation. \u201cIt became important for women to fill in the gaps,\u201d says Cutshall. Some found domestic side hustles, like housekeeping or laundering, while others took up less savory ventures like prostitution and petty theft. Then there were the emboldened few, like McAbee, who became bootleggers.<\/p>\n

From oral histories, Cutshall learned that McAbee\u2019s operation\u2014however illegal\u2014was truly ingenious. Though her brothers ran \u2018shine through the mountains in cars, McAbee stuck to the rails. Each week, trains would wheeze to a halt next to her home. Pints of liquor would then be unloaded, stashed in holes dug under the tracks and later retrieved.<\/p>\n

Despite careful planning, McAbee was eventually found out and sentenced to a term of labor on the roads. She also served time at Federal Prison Camp Alderson. Rap sheet aside, Cutshall thinks we can all relate to McAbee and other matriarchs of the West End. \u201cThey were like any other women in any other city in the US,\u201d says Cutshall. \u201cThey were just trying to do what they could to make ends meet.\u201d<\/p>\n

To learn more about the history of Chicken Hill, visit ChickenHillNC.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grace McAbee\u2019s back was against the wall. With her husband making low wages, she needed to eke out her own living. But there were few options. She could take in laundry, as many women did then. Or, she could join the legions making up Asheville\u2019s \u201cshadow economy.\u201d McAbee chose the latter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":51488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heritage","category-lifestyle"],"yoast_head":"\nHistory Feature: The Moonshining Matriarch - The Laurel of Asheville<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thelaurelofasheville.com\/updatestage\/lifestyle\/history-feature-the-moonshining-matriarch\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"History Feature: The Moonshining Matriarch - The Laurel of Asheville\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Grace McAbee\u2019s back was against the wall. 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