Oral history interview with Murphy Yomen Sigmon, July 27, 1979
Subtitle: interview H-0142, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Sigmon, Murphy Yomen, Mrs., interviewee; Dilley, Patty, interviewer; Southern Oral History Program; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Documenting the American South (Project); University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library
Edition: Electronic ed.
Publisher: University Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Published: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Textile workers; Women textile workers; Attitudes; Social life and customs; Hosiery industry; Machine knitting
Other titles: Interview H-0142, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Murphy Yomen Sigmon, July 27, 1979; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Murphy Yomen Sigmon entered the workforce at the age of fourteen and held a variety of jobs in North Carolina industries before a mill shutdown ended his long working life. He began his laboring life in a shoelace factory, held a number of positions in a cotton mill, ran his own sock-making outfit, worked in a hosiery mill, and at the time of the interview, was dabbling in furniture-making out of a home workshop. In this interview, Sigmon describes these experiences, from taking swimming breaks while working as a doffer in a cotton mill, struggling to find work during the Great Depression, or enlisting his wife to help him start a sock-making business. Most of this interview addresses the details of the mill as a workplace, but the interviewer does take some time to ask Sigmon his opinions on subjects such as unions and social stratification among southern laborers.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on June 3, 2008).

Interview participants: Murphy Yomen Sigmon, interviewee; Mrs. Sigmon, interviewee; Patty Dilley, interviewer.

Duration: 01:30:43.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-CH digital library, Documenting the American South.  It is a part of the collection Oral histories of the American South.

Text encoded by Jennifer Joyner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 144.5 kilobytes, 166.1 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series H, Piedmont industrialization, interview H-0142, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Jean Houston. Original transcript: 36 p.

Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview.

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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