"I was livin' in Alabama with my husband and daughter but they died in the flu epidemic of 1918, so I came up here to Kalamazoo to be near my sister and her family. Got a job cookin' for the Penniman family. Mr. Penniman owns a big factory on Pitcher Street making machines. I have a nice room in his house over on Stuart Avenue. I make 85 cents a day which is a good wage for me.This week I am buyin' a new hat to wear to church."
-Lulu Adams, Black woman, age 34
Photo captions: An example of a 1920s kitchen in an upper-class home (unidentified collection); unidentified women, cica 1920s (postcard unknow collection). House built in 1886, located in the Stuart neighborhood of Kalamazoo.
To find more historic photographs and artifacts related African American women or historic houses in Kalamazoo, visit KVM's searchable collections database.