Oral history interview with Ethelene McCabe Allen, May 21, 2006
Subtitle: interview C-0316, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)
Contributors: Allen, Barbara C. (Barbara Carol), 1967- 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; Childhood and youth; Rural women; Farm life; Rural families
Other titles: Interview C-0316, Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007); Interview with Ethelene McCabe Allen, May 21, 2006; Oral histories of the American South.
Description: Ethelene McCabe Allen was born in 1934 to tenant farmers and spent most of her childhood moving around Wayne County and Johnson County, North Carolina. This interview is the third in a thirteen-part series of interviews conducted by her daughter, Barbara C. Allen. In this interview, Allen focuses on describing her childhood and relationships within her family. Beginning with a brief description of her parents' relationship, Allen moves to a discussion of how her parents disciplined their children. Allen recalls that while her parents exercised stern discipline, she and her siblings were never treated cruelly. Overall, Allen describes a happy childhood, although she also contends that her parents never displayed overt affection towards their children. Throughout the interview, Allen offers numerous anecdotes regarding her parents' work as tenant farmers, their leisure activities, and her mother's efforts to abide by prescribed gender ideals for domestic work. She briefly describes the effects of her father's death in 1958, when her mother and her younger brother had to assume the duties of the family's farm. Most of the interview, however, centers around Allen's memories from her childhood during the 1930s and 1940s. Researchers will be especially interested in Allen's vivid recollections about her upbringing for their ability to shed light on the kinds of family dynamics that were characteristic of typical tenant farming families during this era.
Notes: Title from menu page (viewed on Nov. 14, 2008).

Interview participants: Ethelene McCabe Allen, interviewee; Barbara C. Allen, interviewer.

Duration: 01:50:14.

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. 220 kilobytes, 201 megabytes.

Original version: Southern Oral History Program Collection, (#4007), Series C, Notable North Carolinians, interview C-0316, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 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.

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