H-0254_Audio |
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Object Description
Interview no. | H-0254 |
Restrictions | No restrictions. Open to research. |
Project | H.7. Piedmont Industrialization, 1974-1980: Greenville, S.C. |
Project description | Interviews, 1976-1980, about industrialization in Greenville, N.C., chiefly documenting the growth of the textile industry there. Topics include the development of the prosperous town, the neighborhoods in which black servants lived, and the mill villages; work experiences and daily lives of mill workers, most of whom migrated from farming communities; moving from farming to industrial work; work conditions; safety; stretchouts; wages; paternalism; the division of labor by gender; home work; the impact of the Depression and World War II; violence in the mills; unionization; and health concerns. Interviews were chiefly conducted as part of the "Perspectives on Industrialization: The Piedmont Crescent of Industry, 1900-1940" project. |
Date | 8 June 1979 |
Interviewee | Osteen, Letha Ann Sloan. |
Interviewee occupation |
Textile workers Factory workers |
Interviewee DOB | Unknown |
Interviewee ethnicity | Whites |
Interviewer | Tullos, Allen, 1950- |
Abstract | Mrs. Osteen talks about her work as a child on her father's farm and in Poe Mill. She spent most of her life living in rural South Carolina in a family of eleven children, her father, stepmother, husband, and six children. Most of the interview deals with the specific tasks involved in working at a textile mill, including responsibilities, and how workers were treated by employers. She also discusses how families handled working in the mill together, common illnesses, wages, and the death of parents. In her experience, families tended to be large and migratory, often working together in mills throughout the region. That changed with the Great Depression, when jobs became so scarce that people were more likely to stay in one town and maintain smaller families. |
Subject Topical |
Women textile workers--South Carolina. Textile factories--South Carolina. Textile factories--South Carolina. Textile workers--South Carolina. Child labor--South Carolina. |
Subject Name | Osteen, Letha Ann Sloan. |
Citation | Interview with [interviewee name] by [interviewer name], [interview date] [interview number], in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Description
Interview no. | H-0254_Audio |