Oral history interview with Louise Rigsbee Jones, October 13, 1976
Subtitle: interview H-0085-2, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Frederickson, Mary E., 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; Courtship; Social life and customs; Families; Religious life and customs; Textile workers; Social conditions; Working mothers
Other titles: Interview H-0085-2, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Louise Rigsbee Jones, October 13, 1976; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: This is the second interview in a two-part series with Louise Riggsbee Jones about her life in Bynum, North Carolina. Born in 1897, Jones lived her entire life in Bynum, North Carolina. Here she focuses on life and work in that working community. Jones describes again the importance of church, discussing in detail the role of religious revivals in her community during the early twentieth century. In addition, she describes her own courtship and marriage at the age of 25. Like many of her peers, Jones was pregnant and had a baby within her first year of marriage, which she attributes in part to the absence of birth control and sexual education. Before the birth of her first child, Jones had worked as a winder in the Bynum cotton mill and she returned to that post during the Great Depression in order to help the family make ends meet. Jones describes working as a winder in the mill, focusing on such issues as work conditions, gender, balancing work and family, relationships between workers, and workers' benefits (specifically Social Security).
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on May 30, 2008).

Interview participants: Louise Jones, interviewee; Mary Frederickson, interviewer.

Duration: 02:12:05.

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. 223.5 kilobytes, 241 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series H, Piedmont industrialization, 1974-1980, interview H-0085-2, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Jean Houston. Original transcript: 64 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.