Oral history interview with Eva Hopkins, March 5, 1980
Subtitle: interview H-0167, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Hopkins, Kenneth, interviewee; Jones, Lu Ann, 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 textile workers; Textile factories; Employees; Child labor; Textile workers; Health and hygiene; Company towns; Politics and government
Other titles: Interview H-0167, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Eva Hopkins, March 5, 1980; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Eva Hopkins is a third-generation cotton mill worker who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. This interview includes her observations on what the Charlotte mill communities were like and why so many families worked together in the mill. She traces the tasks required in millwork through her experiences and those of her mother, then describes social activities like church, parties, movies, and swimming. Her earliest work experiences happened during the Depression, so financial need kept her on the job until federal policy forced her to leave for a year. She remembers occasional union activity though she did not join the local union. She also recalls some health hazards presented by the cotton lint in the mill and conditions in mill housing.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on May 30, 2007).

Interview participants: Eva Hopkins, interviewee; Kenneth Hopkins, interviewee; Lu Ann Jones, interviewer.

Duration: 01:21:53.

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. 147.9 kilobytes, 149 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series H, Piedmont industrialization, 1974-1980, interview H-0167, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Sharon King. Original transcript: 36 p.

Funding from the Institute for 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.