Oral history interview with Kathryn Killian and Blanche Bolick, December 12, 1979
Subtitle: interview H-0131, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Bolick, Blanche, 1907-2001, interviewee; 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: 2007
Place of publication: [Chapel Hill, N.C.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Interviews; Women textile workers; Glove industry; Employees; Farm life; Social life and customs; Cottage industries
Other titles: Interview H-0131, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Kathryn Killian and Blanche Bolick, December 12, 1979; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Kathryn Killian and her sister Blanche Bolick recall their upbringing near Conover, NC, and their careers making gloves. They fondly remember the distant world of their childhood, rich in family bonds and community connection. They are less nostalgic for their working lives, however. Killian is the more talkative of the pair, eager to share her dislike for factory work. Her work arrangement was an unusual one: after the death of her husband, who was crushed by a tree, her employer, also her brother-in-law, set up a glove-making machine in her home, making her both a stay-at-home mom and a working mother. This interview offers a useful look at the working lives of women in the early 20th-century South.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on July 3, 2008).

Interview participants: Kathryn Killian, interviewee; Blanche Bolick, interviewee; Jacquelyn Hall, interviewer.

Duration: 01:00:42.

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. 149.7 kilobytes, 111.1 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series H, Piedmont industrialization, interview H-0131, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Dorothy M. Casey. Original transcript: 32 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.