CHURCH, STATE AND THE SHELTER OF WHITE WORKING-CLASS WOMEN IN JOHANNESBURG PRIOR TO WORLD WAR TWO

Abstract

ABSTRACT Hostel accommodation for the young white female manufacturing labour-force of Johannesburg was established in the inter- war years. While the state endorsed a policy of providing separate accommodation for single white women it was reticent to fund hostel construction. Intercession by concerned religious groups over the moral purity of urban migrants living in city slums resulted in the early construction of single quarters. Racial occupancy restrictions on womens' hostels are shown to have provided some of the first segregated accommodation for poor whites in Johannesburg.