Oral history interview with Dora Scott Miller, June 6, 1979
Subtitle: interview H-0211, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Jones, Beverly Washington, 1948-2020, 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 tobacco workers; African American women employees; Race relations; Farm life; Social conditions; Tobacco industry; Tobacco workers; Health and hygiene; Labor unions; Black Labor unions; Shop stewards; Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company
Other titles: Interview H-0211, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Dora Scott Miller, June 6, 1979; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Dora Scott Miller grew up in Apex, NC, and finished high school before marrying and taking a job at the Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company in Durham, where she spent nearly four decades. During her tenure there, Miller watched the company evolve into a racially integrated, unionized company. But much of this interview focuses on her experiences there before World War II, when a non-union workforce primarily consisting of black women worked long hours for little pay under white foremen. Miller and her coworkers kept their mouths shut to keep their jobs, but maintained enough strength to vote in a union when it arrived and to form a supportive community outside of the workplace. This interview should prove a rich source of information for researchers interested in southern industrial work from the perspective of an African American woman.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on March 13, 2008).

Interview participants: Dora Scott Miller, interviewee; Beverly Jones, interviewer.

Duration: 01:17:18.

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. 196.6 kilobytes, 141.5 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series A, Southern politics, interview H-0211, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Transcribed by Sharon King. Original transcript: 44 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.