Oral history interview with Paul and Pauline Griffith, May 30, 1980
Subtitle: interview H-0247, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Tullos, Allen, 1950- interviewer; Griffith, Pauline, 1908-1990, interviewee; 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; Textile workers; Women textile workers; Social life and customs; Farm life; Textile factories; Accidents; Technological innovations; Married people in church work; Labor unions; Social conditions; Looms; Milliken Judson Mill (Greenville, S.C.); Judson Mill (Greenville, S.C.)
Other titles: Interview H-0247, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Paul and Pauline Griffith, May 30, 1980; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Paul and Pauline Griffith were married in 1927 in Greenville, South Carolina. Paul's family moved from Mauldin, South Carolina, to the area in 1905 in search of work. Initially, his father worked as an overseer on a cotton plantation, but in 1912, when the Judson Mill was built, he became a machinist for the mill while his mother went to work as a weaver. Pauline's family moved to Greenville in 1915 from Hendersonville, South Carolina. She and her family found that it was increasingly difficult to survive as farmers, so they moved to Greenville so that her father could work in the Judson Mill. Both Paul and Pauline describe growing up in Greenville as well as the conditions they faced in the Judson Mill, where both spent their entire working careers. They also describe the changes in technology and work strategies in the mills from the 1920s to the 1970s; how life in Greenville changed during the Great Depression and World War II; and the importance of religion in their lives.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on May 21, 2008).

Interview participants: Paul Griffiths, interviewee; Pauline Griffiths, interviewee; Allen Tullos, interviewer.

Duration: 02:29:13.

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. 265.1 kilobytes, 273 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series H, Piedmont industrialization, 1974-1980, interview H-0247, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Dorothy M. Casey. Original transcript: 64 p.

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

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

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