Item Information
Title
Transcript of the interview with Zelma Montgomery Murray and Charles Murray, 4 March 1976 (H-0034)
Description
Two consecutive interviews are combined here, one each of Zelma Montgomery Murray and her husband Charles Murray. The couple speaks about their life in North Carolina mill towns and their jobs in the mills. They discuss the lack of control that workers had over their own lives: factories provided the housing and turned off the lights at prescribed bedtimes, company stores provided the only places to shop, and workers lived in relative isolation. The Murrays also recall how joining a union was not really a practical option given the level of control asserted by mill owners and the vulnerability of the workers. However, neither of the Murrays exhibits any self-pity or regret for the lives they've led. Charles Murray talks about the 1918 influenza pandemic in Burlington, N.C. (pp. 20-21).
Source
Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Date
4 March 1976