Oral history interview with Margaret Skinner Parker, March 7, 1976
Subtitle: interview H-0278, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Huske, W. Weldon, interviewer; Huske, Isaac Hall, Mrs., 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: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Women employees; Textile workers; Social conditions; Company stores; Social life and customs; Economic conditions
Other titles: Interview H-0278, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Margaret Skinner Parker, March 7, 1976; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Margaret Skinner Parker was born in Ireland, but in this interview she discusses her experiences working at the company store of a cotton mill in Cooleemee, NC. She and Mrs. Isaac Hall Huske, another Cooleemee resident, remember some of the daily routines of this mill town, dwelling on what they did for fun: singing, attending church suppers, competing for prizes at craft fairs, and watching movies. But life in Cooleemee was not all fun. The pair remembers also the privations of the World War II period and the strike that shut the mill down and led to some economic hardship. This interview is not particularly detailed, but will be useful to researchers trying to form a broad picture of southern mill town life in the first half of the 20th century.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Dec. 3, 2008).

Interview participants: Margaret Skinner Parker, interviewee; Mrs. Isaac Hall Huske, interviewee; W. Weldon Huske, interviewer.

Duration: 01:27:30.

This electronic edition is part of the UNC-Chapel Hill 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. 188 kilobytes, 160 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series H, Piedmont industrialization, interview H-0278, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Patricia Crowley. Original transcript: 45 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.