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Object Description
Interview no. | H-0014 |
Restrictions | No restrictions. Open to research. |
Project | H.2. Piedmont Industrialization, 1974-1980: Burlington, N.C. |
Project description | Interviews, 1977-1984, about industrialization in Burlington, N.C., an early textile industry site and home to Burlington Industries, at one time the largest textile corporation in the world. Interviews focus on former workers of the E.M. Holt Plaid Mill, owned by the Holt family, and on the Pioneer plant, owned by Burlington Industries. Work, family, and living conditions are covered extensively. Other topics include geographic and job mobility; the transition from family ownership (the Holt mills) to corporate management (Burlington Industries); technology; work organization; the impact of the Depression and World War II; occupational sex roles; and child labor. Interviews were chiefly conducted as part of the "Perspectives on Industrialization: The Piedmont Crescent of Industry, 1900-1940" project. |
Date | 25 April 1979 |
Interviewee | Carden, Stella Foust. |
Interviewee occupation | Textile workers |
Interviewee DOB | 1907 |
Interviewee ethnicity | Whites |
Interviewer | Murphy, Mary, 1953- |
Abstract | Mrs. Stella Foust Carden worked in textiles mills almost her entire life before retiring at the age of 65 in 1957. She has worked at Schoolfield, Burlington, and Glen Raven mills since 1928. Her father was a farmer in Virginia who decided that millwork would bring in more money for the family. While it did, he did eventually went back to farming before he died in 1937. She discusses what it was like growing up on a farm and in a milltown during the Spanish Flu pandemic and World War I. She states that things are different now because life moves faster, people don’t want to help each other out as much, and nobody works hard anymore. Carden also discusses how she stopped going to school at age 8 and that she has never felt like her lack of education kept her from succeeding in life. There are discussions of the different types of jobs she had at the mills, as well as her thoughts on labor unions and the women’s liberation movement. Carden states that she is against both, even though she does agree that wages should have been higher and women should be paid the same as men. She also discusses the mill operations during the Depression and how even though things looked rough, they always made it through. Finally, there is a discussion on race relations. Both Carden and her own mother hired black women to watch after their children while they worked and agreed that black people were for the most part good. However, she does not agree that the races should mix anywhere other than a public setting. |
Subject Topical |
Textile workers--North Carolina. Labor unions--North Carolina. Strikes and lockouts--Textile industry. Women textile workers--North Carolina--Burlington. |
Citation | Interview with Stella Foust Carden by Mary Murphy, 25 April 1979 H-0014, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
Description
Interview no. | H0114_Audio |