Oral history interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976
Subtitle: interview G-0040-2, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, 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: 2006
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Women labor union members; Labor unions; Officials and employees; Industrial relations; Labor unions and education; Sexism; Organizing; Strikes and lockouts; African American labor union members; Southern Summer School for Women Workers in Industry (U.S.); Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America; United Mine Workers of America
Other titles: Interview G-0040-2, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: This is the second part of a two-part interview conducted with labor activist Eula McGill. In this interview, McGill focuses on her continuing work in the Southern labor movement from the 1930s to the 1970s. McGill begins by explaining her views on workers' education and labor leadership. According to McGill, teaching workers about the history of the labor movement was especially important. In the 1940s, McGill was an active participant in Operation Dixie; she describes in detail labor campaigns in Lafollette, Tennessee, (1943) and in Dixon and Bruceton, Tennessee (1947). During this time McGill also continued to work actively with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union throughout the South. McGill briefly remarried, but for the most part she dedicated her life to the labor movement. Here, she speaks in more detail about what it was like to be a single woman working within the predominantly male labor movement. She emphasizes the transient lifestyle and some of the challenges she faced as a woman trying to organize both men and women.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on May 7, 2008).

Interview participants: Eula McGill, interviewee; Jacquelyn Hall, interviewer.

Duration: 02:13:11.

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 Mike Millner.  Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers.

Text (HTML and XML/TEI source file) and audio (MP3); 2 files: ca. 210.3 kilobytes, 243 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series G, Southern women, interview G-0040-2, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Patricia Crowley. Original transcript: 59 p.

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

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

System requirements:  Web browser with Javascript enabled and multimedia player.