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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
Interview G-0001, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill
Beginning with her family background and early childhood, Mary Price Adamson
traces the dynamics that led her to adopt her radical stance later in life.
Because both of her parents had attended college, Adamson and her siblings were
encouraged to pursue higher education. Though her father's death
placed the family in serious financial difficulties, Adamson's older
brothers paid for her to attend college. She enrolled first in the North
Carolina College for Women and then transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received
her degree in 1931 at the height of the Great Depression. For a time, she worked
in Greensboro, starting at the Greensboro Daily News and then
the Vick Chemical Company, where she learned secretarial skills. Shortly
thereafter, she joined her sister Mildred and brother-in-law Harold Coy in New
York City, where she moved through a series of secretarial positions. She
describes how young professionals lived and socialized during the Great
Depression. In the late 1930s, she accompanied her sister and brother-in-law on
a trip to the Soviet Union, and when she returned, she went to work for Walter
Lippmann. After several years with him, she took a job as an assistant reporter
for Business Week. In 1945, she left New York and returned to
North Carolina to open the state office of the Southern Conference for Human
Welfare. When Henry Wallace ran for governor in 1948, Adamson organized his
campaign tour through the South, and eventually the members of the Progressive
Party convinced her to run for North Carolina's governorship. That
summer, Elizabeth Bentley—an acquaintance from New York
City—accused Adamson of being a Soviet spy. For the next decade,
Adamson battled McCarthyism and accusations of Communism. In 1950, she had a
serious accident and went to Europe to recuperate. While abroad, she met and
married Charles Adamson. When she returned, she found that the FBI still
considered her a person of interest, a fact that made it hard for her to keep
jobs. Eventually, however, she went to work for the National Council of
Churches, a position she enjoyed greatly. However, a second serious accident
forced her to retire early and move to California to recuperate.
NOTE: Audio for this interview is not available.
Beginning with her family background and early childhood, Adamson traces the dynamics that led her to adopt her radical stance later in life. She also responds to the accusations that she had been a Communist spy and explains how the Red Scare affected her life.
NOTE: Audio for this interview is not available.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Let's make sure that this is recording. All right; let's begin and talk a little bit about your family background and your childhood. You were born in 1909?
That is correct.
In Madison, North Carolina, in Rockingham County.
That's right.
And you were born in an area where the Prices and the Moores had been for generations and generations. What came down to you as the youngest in a large family of Prices about the history of your families?
The history of my family, I have found out more about it in later years than I knew about it as a child. We just had a little community there, and we heard a lot about the names of Grandma Miranda and Grandma Emily, and so forth. But I didn't really know much about them.
Do you remember any of your grandparents?
Only Grandma Minnie Price is the only one. I remember her quite vividly because she stayed with us. She went from family, from one of her children to another, and so she stayed with us quite a bit, particularly since that was her home where we were living, you see, where she had spent her married life.
Was this your father's mother?
Yes, my father's mother. And we lived in my father's family home on a
farm, the Rose Bank Farm, we laughingly called it. I
No, not specifically, no.
Well, I'll tell you about Grandpa and about Grandma Minnie. Grandma
Minnie was the daughter of a very prosperous slave-owning family in
Alabama; Hillsboro, Alabama, I think was the name of the little
community where she lived. Grandpa started a tobacco factory, a place
there up, oh, within sight of the house where I grew up. It was used as
a barn by the time I came along. But he had started his tobacco factory
before the Reynolds and the Dukes, in Winston-Salem and Durham, started
their factories. According to the family information, anyhow from what I
was told, when the railroads were being built, the people in Madison
refused to have the railroad coming through Madison. Instead, it went
through Winston-Salem and another branch of the railroad through Durham.
So R. J. Reynolds and whatever his name wasDukestarted those and they
had easy access whereas Grandpa Price had to do all the merchandising of
his product, so
What had been the effects of the Civil War on your family?
I heard only reverberations about it. My grandfather's family had slaves,
and the most that I knew about it as a child was the slave graveyard in
our front yard; it was sort of toward the barns as was
When your father was running the farm, were they still farming tobacco?
Yes, it was a tobacco farm. I don't know how large the farm had been originally, whether it was the same size. But by the time that I came along, there were about 2,000 acres in the farm.
Who worked on the farm? Who did he have to help him?
Tenant farmers and my brothers.
Were they black?
They were black; let's see, I guess there were one or two white tenant
farmers. There were aboutI could stop to count thembut there were about
six or eight
Did you have any contact with those tenants?
Yes, very much I had contact with those tenants. For one thing, Martha Oliver lived within sight of our house. It seemed to me like a considerable distance at the time, but now if I saw it it doubtless would be not very far away because we could see her house up the road, on the way to Madison. She was really more the house servant. She had a small plot of land, but she really didn't work in the fields. What she did was she worked at our house. Her older daughter, Nora, was my nurse, and so I was particularly close to her. And then Martha's youngest girl was just about my age. I can't remember her name right now. And there was a son Petras who was just older than I, so that I was associated with them very closely. Then the other tenant farmers were within walking distance but a little farther away. So when I started to school at the Gold Hill School, why, we had to go past some of these houses. Well, I just knew about them.
I perhaps should clarify something as far as time was concerned. My
father was having a very difficult time, my parents were having a very
difficult time about the time I was born. I was the tenth child, and
that would
After they came back.
Yes. So my earliest memories are of the hotel in Leaksville-Spray where they moved, my parents moved again in an effort to make a living. There was a small hotel where mostly the drummers stayed. You know what a drummer is?
No.
Now they would be called traveling salesmen, but then they were drummers. There was a railroad that went through, it was a cotton mill town, so the drummers came through in connection, I suppose, with the tobacco and the cotton business there. They needed to have a place to stay. And how large the hotel was? It seemed quite large to me as a child, but in later years when I went through Spray, why, it seemed a very small establishment. Anyhow, the idea was that they would have a place for the family to live, and then they could make some money in running the hotel. So it also was a very difficult life. My parents really, really had a hard time making a living.
Did they stay in Spray for a very long time?
Well, since I was born in the farm and how old I was when we went there,
a year, not more than two years, my first memories are in the hotel in
Spray. Then we moved back to the farm when I was five
What had your father's life been like all along? He was born, I believe Teeny told me, quite early. He was quite a bit older than your mother, in other words.
No, he was only seven
Do you remember hearing stories about or having him tell you what his life had been like when he was a child?
No, I don't. He had a friend in Madison, Mr. Pickett, Mr. Nat Pickett. He
and Mr. Pickett loved to sit and talk. Mr. Pickett would come out to the
farm on a Sunday, and they would sit on the porch and rock back and
forth and discuss various and sundry things. Mr. Pickett was a more
sophisticated kind of man. He had lots of books in his house,
You knew that in some way you were a child of the Confederacy.
Yes, he went to the University of North Carolina, but he was not able to
stayI believe it was two years that he was therebecause my grandfather
died. Whether it was a heart attack, I don't know what it was, but
something rather suddenly. Grandma Minnie had a half a dozen childrenI
could stop to count to tell you how many. But anyhow, my father was the
oldest one, so it was taken for granted that he had to
By the time you were born, several of your older brothers and sisters had already gone to school, right?
My brother, Tom, my oldest brother, was in the university at Chapel Hill.
He was in the class of 1909, I think. That was the year that I was born.
My sister, Ruth, went to Salem College. She was there at the time I was
born. I remember her saying she was quite irate about coming home and
finding another baby in the family. She would have to look after me,
We talked a little bit about your father's earlier life and his. . . .
His what?
His earlier life and going to college for two years, and you said your
mother also went to college for two years. What do you
Hers was a very devoted, close family. Her father had a mill on the
Belew's Creek, which flows into the Dan River and then on down to
Danville. Incidentally, it's been dammed up by the Duke Power Company
and my mother's childhood home
They were sort of from the same social group in the county?
They were definitely of the same social level in the county, so it was normal that the two of them should meet.
What sort of plans do you think were made for your mother's life? Was she sort of raised to be a southern lady, or was she . . .
No, she was raised to be good; southern lady's not the right term. She
was raised to be upright, is what she was. As I say, her family was very
strong Methodist. My grandfather had married Marinda Branson. And she
was a ladyI don't know whether you
Had they tossed out the regular history books, I guess, when the war broke out or when they seceded?
I imagine it was a combination of those things. There just weren't any
books available for study, and
Interesting.
So anyhow, Grandmother Marinda died. She
Do you think that your Grandmother Marinda's plans for the children
having books to read and all, that she planned to have her
I assume from the fact that both of those aunts, Aunt Mary and Aunt Grace, married young men in the area at fairly early ages and had lots of children that that was the accepted social pattern. But just why those children . . . well, as I was saying, Aunt Grace and Aunt Mary went to Greensboro College for two years, and that was two years only because the times were so tough. Apparently they had what passed for what education was available.
Did any of those women work for the suffrage movement that you know about?
I never heard any word to that effect. Now, just what their interests
were, I don't know. But Aunt Mary was a very lively person. She had this
great drove of children, and her husband, Uncle Jim Wall, his name was,
wasI don't know, there was sort of the implication that Uncle Jimwas not
as energetic as he might have been. Anyhow, Aunt Mary went to Greensboro
and started running a boarding house and brought up her large brood of
children. Then when the children were at least teenage, they read
somewhere about Idahothat it was the land of opportunity, that people
could go out there and they could get land, and there was an open
opportunity.
Do you remember people in the family talking about them leaving? What was the reaction to her scooting off to Idaho with all these children?
I was very young, and so my memories are vague; but anyhow, I'm telling
you these stories,
Did your mother ever participate in any of the women's club movements?
Oh, there was Madison was five miles away, and out in the country there
was nothing to do. We even had to go to Madison to go to a Presbyterian
church, five miles away, and we didn't go very much, even though my
parents were quite religous, because it was too much to get all of
She had a cousin whose name was Eugene Branson, who was a professor at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Now you would call him
a sociologist, but his specialty was on the rural conditions in the
South. He was quite an accepted scholar and professor, so that when we
moved to Chapel Hill, my mother thought that what she would like to do
would be to go
Did she take courses for several years?
Yes, I think it was for at least two years, and perhaps she took only one
course a year. Woman's Home
Companion, or some magazine, about a cake. She chose a name for
it that she called "Royal Tropic Aroma Cake."
Was she ever interested in politics?
I don't know. It would not have been appropriate. My father was very
interested in politics. He was a registrar. When my grandfather, the
tobacco manufacturer, was alive and in business, he had what we called
the "office" in the front yard of our place where he ran his tobacco
businessgoodness, I've lost the train about what I started to say about
the office. Oh, it was in the office where the voting in the precinct
and the registration took place; my father was the registrar. So anybody
in that precinct
How did he and your mother both interact with the people who worked for them and with the people who worked for them both as tenants and also in the house, and other people in the community?
Never any harshness, anything at all. They got along very well indeed
with them. And there again, I have only a child's analysis of the social
scene. But something that I remembered quite well. I was telling you
about Martha Oliver who lived there and who had been so very close to
our family. Martha married or went to live with someone who was said to
be a white man. I don't know whether he really was or not. Anyhow, he
lived some miles away. So when she wanted to move over there, my father
went up and he took his wagon and the team and so forth, and helped
Martha with the moving. For some reason
No. I've wanted to ask if you were aware of sort of the nature of the relationship between your mother and father. They ran this farm, they had trouble making a living, they had children together. How did they get along together? What was it like? Your mother often went out to work, I mean, she taught school outside the home. How did your father react to that? How did they get along?
I never heard any harshness at all between them. As a matter of fact, it
was not permitted for the children ever to have any harsh words. I mean,
my father would say, "We won't have any snaps, please."
Another thingI remember these things; there's no rhyme nor reason about what I remember, certain things I don't, and others I do. But I remember sitting on the porch, the front porch, one time and my father talking about the contempt he had for the people in the little town of Madisonwho, incidentally, considered themselves very much socially above us because we lived out in the country. So the Madison people fancied themselves as being much above those country people. My father was talking about the Madison social set, and to show his disdain for them
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
. . . concern. He would
As the youngest of ten children, who were your closest companions on the farm? Were they your brothers and sisters or . . .
My sister, Teeny, who was two and a half years older than I was the
person I was closest to. And then my brother, Wright, who was five years
older than I; I saw quite a bit of him. Then in a large familyI
understand it's a general customwe sort of divided up into cliques. The
first five children were boys, with one girl, and the last five were
girls, with one boy. So the boys in the upper bracket sort of adopted
one of the girls in the lower bracket, and to these days, my brother
Paul, who was myI don't know what you would call him, but anyhowI'm
going to see him for his eightieth birthday in Greensboro on the second
of May. That's really one of the objects of going to see him, although
Paul and I have very little in common. He is a shrewd businessman and
very conservative as far as political and social As far as race
relations are concerned, I can only say that he's deplorable, and I'm
well known as being one who has worked and felt that the rights of the
black people are something that's very important to me personally and to
the society. So, despite these things, Paul and I have never had any
disagreement at all, even when I was active in politics in North
Carolina on the opposite side of the Democratic party's affairs than he
was.
I was very interested in looking at what most of the boys went on to do and the kinds of things the women in your family went into. It's almost like you and your brother Paul, it's almost diametrically opposed in a way. Do you have any hints about why that happened? Did it have to do with them being older, or the women coming along at a different time?
I have speculated about that quite a bit over the years and have never
come to any answers that satisfied me. The only thing that would be a
comment that I would make about it was that the boys, being the first
five children, came along when the family had more social pretensions.
The economic status was not as hard as it was for the last five.
Although Wright one of the last five, takes after the boys, and my
sister Ruth, who was the girl
Could it have had anything to do with the relationship that you had with your parents, the girls perhaps being closer to your mother or the boys being closer to your father?
I never, never thought that that was true. Of course, the boys worked in
the fields, and it was strictly forbidden for the girls to work in the
fields, no matter how hard up our family was. The girls did not work in
the fields because that would have been below our social
Were you closer to one parent more than the other?
Yes, I was very much closer to my mother because she was my first teacher in school. Then my father died when I was eleven, I think it was, twelve, I suppose it wasin 1921; I was born in 1909, so I must have been twelve years old. My mother had very difficult years with trying to get along on the farm and finding she couldn't do it, and moving to Chapel Hill to run a rooming house so that the children could go to school there. There again, she maintained the drive. So that it was only as a grown person that I looked back on my father and our relation, and I'm very critical of myself for not having understood him better. I think he must have been quite a person. He was irritable and a very stern parent. He didn't permit nonsense from the children. But he was very good and always encouraging about reading and helpful about information, and just trying to guide us in the way that we should go. And I think that if I had known him later on, I would have liked him very much. As a child, I was very disapproving of him.
Because he was so stern?
Because he was so stern, and because he was difficult to get along with, and he was very unhappy about his not being able to "provide."
Earn a living?
Provide. He was brought up, you know, the head of the family and it was his job to "provide." I can see it was just a terrible assignment that he gave himself.
Did he feel as strongly that the girls in the family should have as much education as the boys?
Definitely. Both of the parents felt very much that the girls should have
an education. Mildred may tell you about
What about higher education, about sending them to college or making available some kind of advanced training for them?
Just as the boys had to go to college, except Paul. Paul wouldn't go to
college. He flunked out of prep school. He just flatly refused to take
up with the academic life at all. His three older brothers were
brilliant students, and he would have none of it at all. Paul has a very
sharp mind and is a successful businessman. I don't know why he got the
different perspective. But anyhow, both parents were intent about the
girls having an education. I told you about Ruth going to Salem College,
and that she only went there for a couple of years. But that seemed to
fit the mold all right since my parents had only been able to go to
college for a couple of years. Those couple of years fitted Ruth to
teach school and to earn her living, to be in a position to support
herself. When my mother moved to Chapel Hill, one of the reasons was
because Mildred and Branson were both of college age, and Wright also,
the three children of college age, so that two of them could live at
home. Mildred and Wright could live at home so it would be fairly easy
for them to go to college. But Branson had been a big woman on campus.
She was vice-president of the student body and so forth, and so a
terrific effort was made that she should continue to go to what was then
. . . Female Academy, the female college, Greensboro Female College, I
think was the name of it. Anyhow, both Mildred and Branson had gone
there for the three years, I guess. How in the world my parents had
managed to pay for it, I just don't know. Anyhow, they did and then not
You mentioned that your family couldn't go to church very often because it was so far away and it was hard to get there. But how much of a part did religion play in your lives?
A great deal. My father was an elder of the Presbyterian Church. My
mother's family had started the Methodist Church in that part of the
county where she lived.
Oh, but they did go sometimes?
Sometimes they went, I mean, to keep the social relations and the family relationship because Ida was the only one . . .
What was their disagreement with the Primitive Baptists? In what ways were they critical of that religion?
You know, I don't exactly know about why they were so critical, except
the preacher. They only had services about once a month at this church
and there was a traveling preacher. My sister Mildred, to this day, can
put on a dinner entertainment by preaching a sermon by the minister,
whatever his name was, I've forgotten.
The style was different than the Presbyterian.
Yes it was. And they had foot washings, so that was always something
that, well, we just looked down our noses at . . .
Do you remember ever going to a black religious service or church?
No, it just wasn't in the mores for us to do that. Not at all. I went to
some revival meetings at the white, and I went to a baptism up in the
creek, which was several miles from where they would, you know, immerse
people under the water. I went to some of those, but they were not, oh,
certainly not integrated. They were not black. So what the black
services were like, I just don't know. I do know that Martha and her
family were quite religious, and Nora, my nurse, married a minister
whose name was Frank Barum. Just exactly the mechanics of
I wondered if any people in your family had maintained contact with maybe some of the tenants on your father's farm or people you knew.
Not for any reason other than that our home place was sold, had to be sold, and the people who bought it were people that my father did not like at all. We very much looked down our nose at them. We said he was a local bootlegger. Whether he was or not, I don't know.
Anyhow, that sort of cut off our base in the area. Then my cousins who
lived up at my mother's home place, when their father died it was too
difficult for them, for the women, to live out on the farm. The two
daughters of that family, they wanted to get jobs, and they moved to
Winston-Salem where they were able to get jobs and lived. So we just had
no base. I was talking about Mr. Pickett, who was my father's friend in
Madison. He had a daughter who was just my age. When Mr. Pickett came
out to see Pa, why, Nancy always came. Then I would be invited every so
often to go into town to visit her. When I was living in North Carolina
in the 40's, I saw Nancy and her husband, and it just runs me mad that I
can't remember what her husband's name is and exactly where it was that
she lived, that I should have forgotten, because we were close friends
for a long time and good enough friends so that I got in touch with her
and I went down to see them. Otherwise, there just is no base
I had asked you about the church being a part of, or religion playing a part in your family's life. How did it affect you as a child, do you think?
It affected me in this wayI wasn't close enough to be an active Sunday
school participant, but the town churches always . . . was it more than
one church? I don't know. Anyhow, there was a big church picnic out on
our place almost every year because we had a big yard and there were
creeks on both sides of the place. So it was a good place for them. I
had that contact. But I really wasn't close enough to do anything about
it. And once during those early yearsthis was before we lived in Chapel
HillI went to Winston-Salem to visit Uncle John and his family. He had
two daughters I think I told you. He had three daughters. One of them
was a year younger than I, one a year older, and one three years older,
just the age of my sister Teenie. So they were very strong in the First
Presbyterian Church of Winston-Salem.
No, I haven't.
She's one of my favorite writers. Her books are really quite good. One of
them was set in that Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, much to my
interest. The Reynolds family were also members of that church. My Aunt
Carrie much admired the Reynolds and the Hanes families and the other
members of the church. But anyhow, once when I was staying with them
there was a big revival meeting in Winston-Salem. You're acquainted with
revival meetings, I'm sure. A traveling evangelist would come through.
This one was a Reverend Culpepper, they called him. So the Reverend
CulpepperI don't know why they didn't speak good English; you'd think
they would. But anyhow, that's what they called him. He had a big
revival meeting, and I was there visiting Uncle John's girls. So we went
to the revival meeting several times. Once when the call came to come up
front and give yourself to Jesus, why, I proceeded up front
Did they ever find out?
I don't know whether they did or not. They never said anything to me about it if they found out. I just don't know whether they found out about it and just thought it would be better to ignore the whole thing as childish, which it was.
Did you ever get any feeling, or do you have any feeling now that your family was in some way non-traditional when you were very young, the time especially when you were living near Madison? Or were they pretty much in the tradition of the families in that area and what people had been doing for a long time?
They were and they weren't. They were in that their family plans and
procedures are very much the same. But they were differentand our
neighbors thought we looked down on them, even some that were remote
relativesbecause they were so intent on the education and trying to know
what was . . . they were interested in cultural things. One of the big
events in my life was when my father went to Winston-Salem to sell his
tobacco crop one year, and there was comparatively good prices on them.
So he bought an Edison phonograph and about six or eight records. This
was the most wonderful thing that happened to us. We would sit every
night after we'd had our dinner, supper I guess we called it. We would
gather around and play all of the records. There
When you think about your family background, do you have any sense of how your own values, the values that led you into such progressive causes later, where they came from in that background?
I have wondered about that. The only answer I have that I was very much
influenced by my sister Mildred, but that isn't an adequate answer.
Mildred got an M. A. in sociology at the University of Chicago, and then
she got acquainted with the YWCA when she was in Chicago. She went to
work for the YWCA as the industrial secretary. I was of an
impressionable early teen age, and she was working in Lynchburg,
Virginia. I went up to stay at the YW camp with her, and there was just
a whole new approach to life as far as I was concerned. Mildred is a
very decisive kind of person. She never takes a mild stance. She has
keen ideas. She and Branson both were much influenced by men they
metEdward Linderman, a sociologist, who was at the Women's College in
Greensboro when they were there. He befriended them and my sister Teenie
also and had a tremendous influence. He was an editor later of the New Republic. He was concerned with what was going on
in the world. So I got from them that interest in current events,
current affairs. But there must have been other things, but I have never
been
How do you think your position in the family as youngest influenced you? What effect did that have on you?
I was a terribly spoiled brat for the simple reason that I had three
serious illnesses before I was five years old. I had pneumonia when I
was just an infant, then I had an awful case of measles, and what was it
. . . smallpox. No, I didn't have smallpox. I got vaccinated for
smallpox. It was while we were living in Spray that I had a very serious
illness. Whether it was my character or the fact that I really did just
need to have attention, but I remember that I was quite old enough to
figure it out for myself that when I started going out with boys, about
the time I was living in Chapel Hill, it was better not to cry when
things didn't go my way. I mean, this was a
I wanted to ask you what some of your early school experiences were. You started at the Gold Hill School very close to your home, and you and your mother went off through the path every day to school.
That's right. And then later on, Helen Rankin started. It got to be a two-teacher school, and she taught there. She married my brother Paul, so that's another link-up in the county. Her family was down in the other end of the county, down closer to Reidsville.
You mentioned Miss Mary Trotter too. Was she . . .
Oh, now that was in my mother's childhood. You see, Miss Mary Trotter and cousin Eugene had lived in my grandfather Moore's house to tutor the children because there was no school for them to go to.
But you didn't know her did you?
No. No, so far as I know I never saw . . . I must have seen Miss Mary
Trotter, but I don't remember anything about it. Cousin Eugene I knew
very well when we lived in Chapel Hill because he lived in Chapel Hill
naturally. Then after I went to the secondI'm not sure whether the third
grade at Gold Hill Schoolmy sister Ruth and my mother started teaching
at Bald Hill School, which was a little bit larger school and a little
bit farther away from us. We went in the surrey to there. I went there,
it must have been, through the third and fourth grades. Then my sister
Ruth got a job of teaching at a school up in the mountainsGlade Valley
School. I think it must have been a church school, but I don't know.
Anyhow, the family times were so hard. This was about the time when my
father was having his last illness, and it was really very tough. So
Ruth took TeenyTeeny may have told youup to that Glade Valley School,
which was . . . they could board and live in the school. When that
happened, then my brother Wright was in high school, was of high school
age. The first couple of years he rode the horse, Old Sam. My father had
a good saddle horse, so Wright rode Old Sam to Madison to go to high
school. But then somewhere or another, I don't know, I guess it was
because my father was no longer to drive, and he had bought a T-model
Ford when they first went around in the country. He must have had to
have sold the tobacco well some of the time. Anyhow, Wright was just a
very young boy. But he drove the Ford to Madison to school. Teeny, I
think, I'm not sure whether she graduated from Madison High School or
not. It would be easy enough to
Anyhow, we rode into Madison to school when I was in the fifth and sixth grades I guess it was. Then the next year, my father died during that time and we had to sell the farm and get the household goods and so forth. And this big move about going to Chapel Hill took place.
How did you feel about having your mother as a teacher? Was that easy to deal with?
It was very easy to deal with because she had had some experience with
children
The good teacher.
. . . So I never remember any unpleasantness at all with any of the other
. . . I had a desk mateyou know, they wouldn't have individual desks,
they doubled themmy desk mate was Ola Wilson through whose land we had
to walk in going to school. That was at the Gold Hill School. Then I
guess the older children, Helen must have taught the older children. My
mother
What did you think of school? Did you like it from the beginning?
It never occured to me not to like it. This was like we had been brought up in a highly religious family, a family of ministers, you know, to not like going to church.
Right. Did you want to be a teacher like your mother and like Ruth?
No. Never once did I consider that I wanted to be a teacher. Why, I don't know. I never did.
Did you not want to be a teacher?
Just how I came by that I don't know. But anyhow, definitely I never once thought of being a teacher. Teeny, I think, who's the same way. She never taught at all, whereas the older girls, all three of the older girls, had been teachers.
Did you ever feel like you should be a teacher, like that was one of the alternatives that you had?
I don't remember if I went through that, but there must have been some sort of decision that was made in my mind. Why, I don't recall at all.
When you moved into Chapel Hill then, you were almost ready for high school?
I went to the sixth and seventh grades in Chapel Hill. I guess it was. I started high school there.
Was that move hard for you to make?
Yes, it was difficult for me because I was a country bumpkin really. At
that time, the town was divided between Carrboro and Chapel Hill.
Carrboro was a mill town, and Chapel Hill was the university part of the
town. And the two did not mingle at all. There were some of the students
from Carrboro at the school. We all went to the same school. But the
social life was never considered at all. Just for the fact that we
happened to be living in the university part of the town, why, we were
automatically in the social circles of the university.
Well, there was quite an active social life . . . you were quite young.
Yes.
You were still in early high school?
Yes, yes.
But that was what you were supposed to do, you were supposed to know how to go to all these dances.
That's right. I was supposed to know how to dance, which I didn't at all. I was supposed to know how to make small conversation, which I didn't know how to do at all. I got along fine. I don't know whether you remember about the Woolens or not, whether any of them are still around Chapel Hill. Charles Woolen was the treasurer of the university. His daughter was in my class at school and was sort of a special pal of mine. And the Lawsons, Estelle Lawson later got to be a national golf champion. So I was quite friendly with them. My brother Tom had been a good athlete, and Dr. Lawson was the head of the physical education department. Tom had been a special pet of his. When we moved to Chapel Hill, why, the Lawson families were very kind to us. So there was no social awkwardness there. But it was a hard adjustment for me to make.
How did your mother make the adjustment? She was running a boarding house?
She was running a rooming house, not a boarding house. She made the
adjustment fine because she proceeded to go to the First Presbyterian
Churchyou probably know it in Chapel Hill. And she set me off, as far as
religion was concerned, by arranging with the minister that on thus and
such Sunday I should join the church. And I was furious about just being
told that I should do that, although I liked Dr. Moss and it's a very
pleasant church. But anyhow, you asked about my religious
Right. But it just seems that the change would have been incredibly abrupt for her, from having lived on the farm and raised all these children and sort of lived a certain kind of life and then suddenly, like you, being thrust into this very social scene, in a way. I was just curious as to how she . . . do you think that it turned out in a way to be an opportunity for her, that her life really changed in a good way?
She had a wonderful ability to adjust to different situations, and she had to make some, oh, quite a number . . .
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDEB]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
When I was a junior in high school and my sister Branson was working
there, so she got an apartment. My mother, and Teeny, and I lived there
in the apartment in Greensboro. Teeny entered the Women's Collegeoh,
maybe she'd been to Women's College. I don't know; that's her story, not
mine. But I rushed through, got through high school
What was wrong?
I had anemia. I don't know. Anyhow, in the course of time my mother moved
up to Lynchburg to live with my sister Mildred who was working for the
YWCA up there. So the next year, Teeny and I went to the college, and we
were together at the college. There was a different kind of life. Then
in the course of that timeI could get all these straightened out
So even though you weren't at home when you were small with these older brothers and with your older sister Ruth, you were very close to them anyway.
That's right.
And they remained very close to your mother and close to Chapel Hill.
That's right. And to all of us. We were a very close family.
When you were graduating from high school and making plans to go to college, was there any question of where you would go? Was it just assumed that you would go to North Carolina College for Women?
Yes, because of the financial angle of first living home, and then it was the cheapest place to go because although I didn't want to teach, supposedly one got free tuition by agreeing to teach at the college, which I didn't do. But I was willing to take my chances. So with the money that Jimmy was sending home, you see, I managed to go to college and pay what had to be paid.
Did you have any plans, career plans, or any plans about why you wanted to go to college, or what you wanted to do when you finished?
I have thought about it. From my earliest, I was always interested in
journalism of one kind or another. The first instance of
So it was not just chance that got you into journalism. You'd sort of planned to do that.
No. These were just the things I was interested in doing. I don't know
whether it was because Enoch had bought a set of books when he was
studying journalism at Chapel HillRichard Harding Davisand I read them
from cover to cover several times. When we moved to Chapel Hill, in some
way or another, I guess it was somebody we knew worked for the library.
Anyhow, I was permitted to use the university library and go in the
stacks and get books. So I was
Could you major in journalism at NCCW at that time?
No; at Chapel Hill, yes. It was not a really big department. Oscar Coffin was professor and he taught a class in journalism. But there wasn't really a department, so I majored in English. But it was sort of understood . . .
But you spent your first three years at North Carolina College for Women, right? In Greensboro.
Yes.
And when you were there, did you major in English as well?
Yes.
Tell me what that place is like when you were there. You were there from 1926 to 1929.
I was supposed to be in the class of 1930. I can tell you what it was like from where I sat when I finished, was getting to finish my junior year. I was living at home by that time in Greensboro. I was starting to tell you about my brother Jimmy had put up money and built a house for my mother in Greensboro. It was a nice house, and so I was living at home and going to college. Sogoodness, I've lost the thread of what I was saying. What was I talking about?
North Carolina College for Women.
Oh, about what it was like. So I flatly said to my mother, "I am not
going back to the Women's College anymore." The expression now would be
"I've had it up to here, and I'm not going back there." I was fed up
with the Women's College. I was getting old enough, I guess,
For your last year.
For my last year. And in transferring, I lost credits because they had been required courses at the Women's College, and there were required courses at Chapel Hill. They did not coincide, so I had to spend an extra quarter. And that was the reason I was graduated in 1931 instead of 1930. That's the reason I'm not sure how many of these people I'm going to recognize in the dormitory that I'll be staying in.
Let me ask you a few more things about North Carolina College for Women and why it was so boring. Were there any activities among the students that you were involved in?
I worked on the Carolinian, the paper. That was about
the only thing. Since I was living off campus and the last couple of
years I was there, perhaps I didn't give it a fair share. But there were
the two debating societies which I just thought were just . . .
What did they debate?
What did they debate? I don't know. Anyhow, I just found the whole thing was not stimulating. I wasn't a brilliant student, so if I'd applied myself to my books, why, I would have done better.
Do you remember any faculty or teachers who particularly influenced you?
Yes, there was a woman from Wisconsin who was named Magnhilda Gulanda,
who taught history. I had a good course of her's in European history,
and it was really the best course that I had therevery stimulating. Then
I had a good English teacher. I'd had an excellent English teacher in
Greensboro High School. I also was fortunate in having a good English
teacher at Women's College. I've forgotten what her name is and I
shouldn't because my niece, Mary Louise Price, when she was there, this
woman recognized her and, "You are a niece of Mary Price, aren't you?
She used to sit right there in that seat."
Were most of the faculty women?
No. There was a Dr. Arnett, who taught American history and lived across the street from us in Greensboro. His daughter, Dorothy, was wonderful helping in the Progressive Party campaign in '48. His wife was a friend of my mother's. She's really an excellent person. And Dr. Arnett was a good person too, but his class was just dull, dull, dull.
Do you think the place had changed since Mildred and Branson were there?
Yes, it was very much in the process of changing during all of those years, and what it's like now, I of course wouldn't know at all.
So from the days when Edward Linderman was there, people like him had sort of drifted away from Greensboro, do you think?
I don't remember any really stimulating faculty there at the time I was there.
Was the YWCA active?
No, it was not active on campus.
They weren't doing any kind of work with industrial groups like the work that Mildred was doing in Lynchburg?
No, there was no stimulus at all. I remember the Gastonia strike was
during that time I was there. Because we subscribed to the New Republicmy sisters had started doing itI knew about the
Gastonia strike. But I never was able to go down there at that time. To
get from Greensboro to Gastonia would have been quite a trip for a young
girl.
The whole time you were in both Greensboro and Chapel Hill earlier, you mentioned Carrboro was the textile town, was the mill town, and was apart from Chapel Hill. Were you aware of mill workers around Greensboro?
No, it was very much class differences. Out in Proximity and White Oak, the workers out there, it was just complete division. There was no thought of. . . .
But you did go to school in Chapel Hill with the children of mill workers?
I can't specifically remember, but I may be wrong about that because I don't remember knowing any of those children. I said that, I think, because I couldn't think whether there was a school in Carrboro. So I think I was probably wrong about that. The class structure was very firmly established.
So you really never even saw these people, or did you see them and just think of them as being very far apart?
No. When I went to school in Madison, the mill village there is called
Mayodan. It's at the confluence of the Mayo and the Dan Rivers. My
mother's family had lived on the Dan, you know, it went on down in there
with the Mayo, in Danville. You know, it's down there. That was very
definitely a mill town, and there was just no mingling between Madison
and Mayodan. It was really a very bad social situation. I don't remember
being
Back to North Carolina College for Women for a minute. Was it a really protective environment? You were living on campus, but did you feel that, why were those women there? Were there serious students? Were people training to be teachers, or were people being sort of, having their eyes open to the possibilities?
Again, I lose my historical perspective about it. I'm not sure about
Governor Aycock's years in North Carolina. If you happen to remember
about those years, but in the later years I saw, when I became
interested in the race matter, his statement published around about the
right of every child to develop the best of his talents burgeoned the
best of his ability. There was sort of that thinking was carried over.
As I say, I can't remember whether the governor . . . at the University
of North Carolina, you know, Harry
But you obviously felt sort of restricted at the North Carolina College for Women, at the Women's College, and wanted to go somewhere else.
That's right.
Not that it's not enough reason, but other than not having stimulating faculty and not having things going on, what do you think that school thought that women would go on to do? What were you being trained for?
We were not being trained for anything, and that's what got me down. It
was a purposeless exercise, as far as I was concerned. There was nothing
that was stimulating to do. I had a few good friends there. One of them,
incidentally, I introduced to my brother Enoch and they were finally
married, oh, a dozen years ago. She continues to be my very, very close
friend. And a couple of other people that I found. But there was just
nothing for us. All there was to do would be to . . . it was forbidden,
for instance, to smoke. The most we could think of it by way of
Then when you went down to Chapel Hill for your last year, or last, as it turned out, about year and a half . . .
Year and a quarter, yes.
Year and a quarter.
It was a quarter system, so it was for four quarters.
How would you compare the atmosphere at Chapel Hill to the one you'd come from at Greensboro?
Oh, I was as happy as could be. I lived in a boarding house on Columbia
Road. There were some other students living there that I was congenial
with. And then I met them. I met people, of course, at the Tarheel and the other things like that that I was interested
in. I managed to have a date almost every night, and always to go to the
dances and get broken on the proper number of times
You said that in Greensboro your technique hadn't been developed about getting dates and going out.
That's right.
What made it suddenly develop?
Well, I don't know. I suppose it was I was getting older and more observant about the way things were done. My mother, wonderful woman that she was, never gave me, anyhow, so far as I know any of my sister the least bit of guidance about how to go about making one's self attractive in the social scene. She was married at eighteen and apparently it just didn't occur to her that it was necessary to put your mind to it and what to do. She was always wonderful about it, when we were going to the dances or something, of going to the trouble to try to see that we had something to wear. But I just had a good time in Chapel Hill.
What about the things you were studying? You said you took
Yes, I was interested in my classes. I was majoring in English and
minoring in French. Liked both very much, except I acquired a lifelong
boredomas far as
Was there anything else that you read that particularly influenced you at the time?
Yes, I was reading avidly, still reading avidly at that time. I sort of had a policy that if there was something that I heard about or an author that I didn't know anything about, I would get him out of the library and see what about. Mostly fiction; I wasn't a student of science or anything like that. This was pretty much fiction.
Do you remember being influenced by any of the expatriates, say, Hemingway, or . . .
Well, you asked me a leading question. Yes, when I was in school I read
about the Left Bank and the bunch in Paris. And I was just dying to read
The Sun Also Rises because that was very much
talked about then. I couldn't figure out how to do it because it wasn't
in the library in Greensboro. Money was very scarce. I had a good
friend, Elizabeth Stone, in high school. We exchanged Christmas gifts.
So I figured that what I would do would be to give Elizabeth a copy of
The Sun Also Rises for her Christmas gift, and
then I would buy it early enough so that I could read it
Did you continue reading Hemingway after that?
Yes, I liked Hemingway very much until his later years. I didn't care for his later books.
What about Fitzgerald's books? Were you reading those when they came out?
Very much so, very much so, yes.
What did you think about the whole idea of the flapper?
I didn't either think or not think; it just was.
Was it real? I mean, did it compare to what you were doing and the things you were involved in? Did you ever see yourself as a flapper?
No, not really, because my circumstances were too quiet for me to. It wasn't for lack of interest in same, but it wasn't much possible for me.
Harold Coy says in here that you learned to drive an automobile like a man? I was very curious about that.
Well, Harold's such a lousy driver.
Who taught you how to drive?
I guess it was my brother Wright. I can't quite remember.
Was it unusual for a girl to learn how to drive?
No, no. Now Elizabeth Stone, for instance, drove and it was not unusual at all. I took to it. I'm not an athlete kind of person, but there are certain sorts of things that I did rather wellmechanical things. Oh, I danced rather well and swam ok and, you know, that. But I never excelled in sports. I played tennis and hockey and basketball but never really any good at all.
Did you, besides working for the Tarheel and the humor
magazine at Chapel Hill, were there any other groups that you joined?
Were you active in Student Government, or were you in a sorority, or
anything like a sorority?
I was in a sorority, yes. I joined Chi Omega. I was pleased about doing
it because from my background in Chapel Hill being on the outside of the
social circle, and then in Women's College there wasn't anything like
that. So I just figured, now this would be a good move to make as far as
my broadening my social perspective was concerned. And sure enough, it
so happened that at the national convention of the Chi Omegas my senior
year, for some reason or another, I don't know why, I got chosen to go
because somebody else who was supposed to go couldn't or something like
that and I could. So I did my first traveling, and it was Hot Springs,
Arkansas, and it was really a big deal to go there because Mildred and
HaroldHarold was a reporter on the paper in St.
That was too . . . social, or too conservative? What was their objection?
Well, they were very forward-thinking people. Mildred again will tell you about it. But she, for instance, used her own name when they were married, and that was something very, very far within position. Harold was a good reporter. I think he still is a good reporter in the paper there. They just had a different perspective. The week with them was of great interest. And I liked it much better than I liked the big hotel.
In Hot Springs?
In Hot Springs, yes. And the sorority.
So the sorority turned out to be mind-expanding in an indirect way.
Yes, but it was good. For instance, the friend who wrote me about coming to the reunion and urged me to come and some of our friends was a Chi Omega. She was talking about the Chi Omegas who were going to be there. So it broadened my social perspective, which is what I wanted to do.
. . . To speak disparagingly about the Chi Omegas, and I get to Chapel Hill. They'll probably see what's going on down there.
I just wonder what was involved in being in a sorority in the late 20's. Did you live with these people?
No, we did not have a house. It was simply like belonging to any club, of having a circle of people with whom you were socially accepted. I liked them, and I hope that several of them are going to be at the reunion.
How would you compare having been in this Women's College? You said you were tired of its being a women's college, and you wanted to have dates and go out, and then coming to Chapel Hill and joining a sorority, a group that was specifically for women?
Status, status.
It was a group specifically for women, but it was more oriented to the social scene.
They were socially attractive women. That's what I was doing. I was still aware of my country, hard-poverty years, you know. I was trying to break out of my cocoon.
When you were at Chapel Hill, did you have any ties to or hear of anyone who was involved in any of the settlement house movements, maybe, or in the Women's Trade Union League? Or again, was the YWCA active at Chapel Hill?
No, not at the time . . . oh, you were talking about the years I was in college. There wasn't any kind of socially conscious movement on the campus, as far as I know. There would be now, people, the Farm Workers group, that sort of thing.
Was there just sort of this atmosphere that Chase set up
Oh yes. The person I was really influenced by was Frank Graham. When Mildred was at Chapel Hillshe also will tell you about that probablyshe was a student of his, and he was an excellent teacher and had great influence on her. So he was still a teacher when I was there, and he was a decided good element to my way of thinking on the campus. But I didn't have any of his courses. I wasn't associated with him. I got to know him later on, of course, at the Southern Conference.
Right, right. Did you have any contact with the people in the sociology department, like Howard Odum?
I lived next door to Howard Odum.
But were you aware of the work that that group was doing at the Institute?
I was aware that there was work being done, but I was not aware of the content. I lived next to him when I was a child, and when I went back to college he was an established person, and I did not take any of his courses.
One other thing about the Institute and Howard Odum and Frank Graham. Do you remember anything about the way most students regarded those people, Frank Graham, or Howard Odum? Did they have a lot of supporters, or were they sort of considered odd or unusual?
No, I think they were respected and it just wasn't a debated kind of thing, so far as my awareness of it was concerned.
Then you graduated in December of 1930?
'31. When I transferred from Women's College, I lost credit
So when you finished in 1931, you were thrown out of school right in the middle of the Depression. How did you and the people you graduated with sort of view the Depression? Did people think it would be over very quickly?
It's amazing to me, but I don't think we had any social consciousness at
all about it. I knew that times were tough, and it was not going to be
easy to get a job. There wasn't a bank open in Greensboro for several
years. I had no idea of what to do about it. I was quite lucky to get a
job reading proof on the Greensboro Daily News and
learned a lot about reading proof, which has stood me in good stead
forever.
How did you get that job?
I guess I applied, but I knew about it. Branson had worked in the office
there, and Enoch had been a reporter for the Daily
News. One of Mildred's and Branson's classmates, Ann Cantrell
White, was the society editor. Daily News, but she is still
living in Greensboro. I had dinner with her when I was there in 1973,
and I shall be in touch with her.
Ann Cantrell White?
Yes. She now writes feature articles. She's old enough so that, you know, she's been retired for some years. But she does special pieces.
I see. So how long did you work with her?
I didn't really. I was reading copy, and then every so often I would get an assignment to do a story. I was assigned to do some social stories, and, when she was away on vacation, to do the social page. I didn't work there very long because it was a job that required working at night. It was just no good, you know, for a young girl working at night, then to have only the morning. Now I think that would be a fine arrangement. I would love having mornings, but then for a young girl it wasn't good.
Who were you living with in Greensboro at the time?
I was living with my mother there in the nice house, yes.
How did she feel about your coming back from school and going to work? Did she sort of expect you to get married? Was there anyone around to marry?
She never expected of me to get married. If I had dates and went out, she
tried to be agreeable about it. But she would always sit up until I got
home at night, which was much better than her saying, "You will be home
by this and such a time."
The year after you left Chapel Hill and went to Greensboro, did you have an active social life? Working, I guess, nights that limited you.
That's what I got fed up about, is that it just wasn't possible to do
anything about it. So I quit, and got a job, and learned to type at the
expense of the Vick Chemical Company when they were introducing their
Was learning clerical work, gaining clerical skills at that time sort of a more forward-thinking thing to do? Was it if you have the alternative of teaching school or going into business or becoming a secretary, were people interested in doing something different or unusual, taking a secretarial route?
There wasn't as much as now. My sister Branson, for instance, had good secretarial jobs in Greensboro. So it must have been a difference in the people, and me and her, for instance. She turned out to be a successful businesswoman later on in life. I've never been successful in business, you know, never been a business-minded person.
I guess I mean as far as the things that you had open to you to do. Did learning how to type open a wider variety of things? Was that one of the things that you could do?
Just think for yourself in a town like that, with not a bank open. There
just weren't jobs, that's all there was to it. There just weren't jobs.
That's the reason it was very foolish of me to quit the Greensboro Daily News the way I did.
Well then, how long did you stay with the Vick Chemical Company?
Oh, that was just a matter of months. Then Branson and her husband, Bob
Daniel, were trying desperately to make a living as all
He called you or wrote to you in Greensboro?
Yes. So I picked up and went to New York, and as I say, they put me up.
How did your mother react to your going to New York?
She was worried about my not having a job because by that time, the situation with Jimmy in South America was not good; he had been involved in the war between Paraguay and Bolivia. He waa a doctor, but it got very difficult for him to continue sending money. And there weren't members of the family to finance me or her. So, what to do? She came out west to stay with my brother Tom and his family, and I just had to find a job somehow or another. So it wasn't any romantic trip or anything else, but looking for work. It was a simple economic necessity. I had to have a job, and how was I going to get it?
And New York happened to be the place.
And Bob pulled this little business.
Well, once you got to New York, what was your life like?
A friend of Teeny's, I guess, had a friend who was coming up from Alabama
to study at the New York School of Social Work. So they said maybe she
and we could look for a place to live together. I was making twenty
dollars a week at the International Paper Company. Her name was Margaret
Shook,
Then I started getting salary cuts of ten percent. Then when the third ten percent cut came I looked for another job.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
Did you eventually have to give up your apartment?
I gave up the apartment when Tommy married Foster Nix. So I had to look
for another place to live. There's no sense in going into all the
intermediate things, but I eventually answered an ad in the New York Times, I guess it was, of someone who had an
apartment to share in the neighborhood. It was on Commerce Street, which
was the same block I had been living on, at Bedford
What were you doing for the International Paper Company at that time?
Oh, I was installing that file system that Bob Daniel had sold them and
told them that he had a trained installator. So I was trying to work on
that. Then when I got the third ten percent pay cut, I realized it was
impossible for me to live on that. So I sort of took a flyer, and told a
tale that I was sick, and didn't come in for a week, and used the time
to look for another job because what was I to do? It was sort of a tough
situation. I don't know whether it was unethical or not; maybe so. But
anyhow, I got a job working for the French Management Company, the
builders and owners of two city housing developments over by the East
River. I also told them that I knew shorthand, but I only knew it from
lunch time going to the continuation school next door to the Daily News building where the International Paper
Company was located. I went over there for lunch hours and tried to
learn something about it, but not very well
Did you work in Tudor City?
Yes, yes.
What kinds of things did you do there?
Oh, as secretary to an executive. He wasn't the manager, but he was sort
of a representative of the company. He had a top job there
This was in 1932.
Yes, it must have been 1932. Well, I just can't recall. But the thing I
remember about it was the film, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"
which was just playing then. So I walked across town on 42nd Street and
went over to
She came back then.
Came back east from California. Teeny and Branson didn't have a sumptuous
apartment at all, but they did manage to try to find a place for me to
sleep in the living room since
When you worked for the Insurance . . .
Insurance Brokers Association.
The Insurance Brokers Association. You edited their journal for them, didn't you?
I was the only secretary in the office. There was a manager and a man who
did the bookkeeping. I did the secretarial things around. But in the
course of that, I acquired the skill of running a mimeograph machine,
and I took minutes of the meetings, and so forth. Then they published
this monthly magazine called The Broker Age. I was
able to use my journalistic interests so
When you were going from job to job, the job at the International Paper
Company and then the job with the French Company, and then finally the
job eventually editing The Broker Age. . . .
The secretary in that office, and then I got to be the associate editor.
Did you feel like you were sort of building a career?
No, this was strictly a struggle for survival.
Just to get enough money to live.
That's right. That's all I could do. This was in the
What was happening to Teeny and to Branson at this same time?
They were both working at steady jobs, Branson as the secretary to the economist at Macys, R. H. Macys, and Teeny doing some sort of bookkeeping job at Peck Peck, you know, the specialty shops. So they worked steadily, but they didn't make a lot of money because this was Depression years, and there just weren't those kind of things. Bob also was having tough sledding trying to sell office furniture. So we were hard up.
Were Branson and Teeny living together most of that time?
Yes, the three of them continued to share the apartment on Perry Street where they had taken me in when I first came to New York. Then they moved to Hudson Streetyou probably don't know the geography of the Village, but anyhow, that was in the neighborhood. By that time, Branson and Bob were separatedI don't remember about that; that's her story, not mine. But anyhow, the going was tough in the Depression years, as you may have read. I hope you never have that experience.
I was wondering if you could sort of describe what it was like to be in
New York, not from the job perspective or economic
No. If it's romantic, it's the same sort of romanticism that I have. The Village was an interesting place to live at that time, particularly for young people. It was a place that one could get around in easily. I didn't hesitate to go anywhere in New York day or night by myself. I was in entirely different circumstances. I happened to have two friends from the University of North Carolina who were sharing an apartment over in the Washington Square area. It was very nice for me to have that kind of built-in friendship. I was beginning to know other people too.
These were people you had known at Chapel Hill?
That's right. They had been in the university at the same time I was
thereEdna Fussell, who was from Rose Hill, North Carolina and Virginia
Payne, who was from Tennessee, who later became my very good friend when
I moved to Washington. I'll tell you about my long association; I'm
still friends with Virginia Payne and her husband. I knew him before
they were married, and so forth. Anyhow, they were good friends. Then I
had a friend from Greensboro High School.
Here we go again. What were we saying?
You were saying that you had a friend also from Greensboro
Oh, a high school friend who had married the rabbi in Greensboro, and he went to work in Brooklyn. So they lived out in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, and I saw quite a bit of them. She is still a friend of mine also. She's now living in Greensboro.
O.K. So you had this sort of network. . . .
I had some contact. I was not isolated, and knowing a few people, and Mildred and Branson knew people. Margaret Shook, of course, and her husband were living there. I knew people around.
Did you begin to meet new people, sort of building from your southern friends out to meet new people?
Yes, that's right, uh hub.
Did you meet any of the people who were with the YWCA in New York or with the Women's Trade Union League?
No, I did not. This was my own fault. I was not social conscious enough to know about looking for them, so I didn't get acquainted at all with them until at a later age in that very important part of my life, which I will talk about. Through sister Teeny I became acquainted with the Trade Union movement.
What kinds of things did you and your friends do in New York at that time?
I managed somehow or another, even with my very low income, to go to
almost everything on Broadway that I wanted to see. There was a way of
going at the last minute and to Gray's on Time Square and getting
tickets at a very cut-rate price, the ones that were left over, not
sold.
What was the lifestyle that people had? Were people sort of holding to social traditions that they had known in Greensboro or in Chapel Hill, or did any of the people you were around begin to sort of live in a looser, freer sort of way?
No, you're very minded that this was in the height of the Depression. We were all managing to get along and having whatever fun we could. That also was a prohibition era, so that was one reason that there was a lot of drinking going around. There was a bathtub gin era because that was the only way people could finance a social life, by going across to New Jersey and buying some big A, and then make some bathtub gin, and have a party, and invite people in.
But that you would do, the friends you were with?
Yes, yes.
So that was a fairly common thing.
Uh huh, uh huh. I never made bathtub gin.
You never made it yourself.
No. But what I was saying was we managed to be joyful in very limited circumstances.
Were any of the people you were around or were you yourself
Not at all, not at all. We were about the same involved that we had been
in Greensboro of being aware of such magazines as The
Nation and The New Republic, though I never
had money enough to subscribe. The new school for social research was
opening up over there. I took courses there at a later date, but I did
not do it at that time.
Then you worked with the insurance company for six years and left them in . . .
1939.
. . . 1939. Didn't you take a tour of Europe during the summer one summer?
Oh yes, I did indeed.
During that time, Teeny had heard about the, it was an office workers
union in the AF of L, CIO, the Bookkeepers, Stenographers, and
Accountants Union. So she found out where their meetings were held, and
she said, "Let's go." So I said, "Okay, let's
Had you joined the Officeworkers Union?
Oh yes, I had joined the Officeworkers Union of the AF of L Bookkeepers, Stenographers, and Accountants.
And the Insurance Brokers Association thought that was fine?
No, of course they didn't at all. I had to be very quiet about that and
didn't say anything about it at all because the man I worked for,
. . . Politics. Could you tell me a little bit about the trip that you went on, what your impression was of the Soviet Union, where you went, what you saw.
Yes. We went on the Polish linear, the Batory, which is still in existence I understand. We landed in Copenhagen and stayed there for about a week. Harold had been to a workers' school of some kind outside of Copenhagen, so he was familiar with the set-up and he was an excellent guide to getting acquainted in the first foreign city that I lived in.
He had been at this school earlier?
Yes, that's right. He had been at this school while he was still in
school. He had managed to go to this school, and I have just forgotten
exactly what the name of it was and the location. I simply remember that
he was an excellent person to introduce me to the first foreign country
that I ever was in. We went from Denmark across thethe geography escapes
me now; I know quite well. I guess it's the Kattegat.
Stockholm?
Stockholm, yes. My mind, you can see, shows my sixty-seven years. . . .
And stayed there, and that was when Stockholm was getting much talked
about in this country because of its following what it called the
"middle way" of trying to be in between the capitalist and the socialist
economy. Again, Harold was informed about it and was a good person to
give information about that beautiful city and the country. So this was
a very stimulating experience for me. From Stockholm, we went to
Helsinki in Finland and stayed there a few days, which was mostly
memorable, as far as I was concerned, by the Finnish
We went from Moscow over to the Volga, and there again, my memory falters about the river port on the Volga where we got the steamer and went down the Volga River for about four or five days, down to what was called Stalingrad. I believe it had some other name at that time, but I can assure you in the course of later years, I remembered very well that stay in Stalingrad because it was a developing, industrial city there on the Volga River. It was a most interesting experience to be there.
Were you very much in tune with and aware of different forms of industrial development, of cooperatives being set up? Were you able to see?
I was not. I had a boyfriend in New York who, I think he was probably a Communist. No, I didn't inquire; it was none of my business. But anyhow, as a going-away present, he gave me the Webbs' book. I took with me those two thick volumes in my limited baggage that I had to take their story better. So I tried to study as much as I could before-hand to see what they had to say about the Soviet society. I wanted to learn, and believe me, I had much to learn.
When you were in Stalingrad, though, what was involved in being excited about it, being a developing industrial area? What was most memorable about that?
I expressed myself badly. I say I was interested in the industrial city and the development. But because of the later history of Stalingrad, my somewhat short time there and limited experience came back to me vividly when Stalingrad got to be the crucial battle in the war later on.
As you were traveling, were you awarethis was in the summer of 1936.
'36? I'd have to stop to figure. I don't believe it was '36. I think it was '35, but it may have been '36. I would have to count back to be sure about it.
Were you aware of Stalin coming into power, of a change in Russian society, or in Europe at large of a growing fascist threat?
Yes, I was somewhat aware of it. On that same trip, we were routed back
to spend one or two nights
Were you, or were Harold and Mildred very optimistic about what was going on in Russia and the whole possibility of a different kind of social system?
We were very much interested about it. Harold, particularly, was well informed about it. He's a student of these things, and he was well informed. Mildred also knew a good bit more about it. They will tell you about that. In comparison to me, they were quite well informed.
When you came back to New York, you continued working for the Insurance Brokers Association?
Let me just tell you . . . yes, I did continue. I had got that leave, and the man I worked for was a postage stamp collector. He said I could have a leave off if I would collect postage stamps for him. This was unpaid of course. I was able to sublease my share of the apartment with Teeny to a girl from Greensboro, who came up and paid the rent while I was gone. So it took quite a bit of planning, and it worked out very well.
You stayed with the company through 1939.
Yes, but just briefly, since you were asking about the impressions of the
Soviet Union. We went to Rostov-on-Don next. We had
Did they, the people on the train and the people you were with when your friend was sick, were you always received very warmly? Were they curious about Americans, or were they hostile to Americans?
Our conversation was limited, but I found without exception that the
people I came in contact with in the Soviet Union were well-mannered
Then when you came back you continued working until 1939 with this group. Then didn't you work for E. P. Dutton for a short while?
After I'd been at the Insurance Brokers for six years, I wanted to get
another job because the insurance business was not my line of trade,
really. I came to the conclusion that the only way I could get another
job would be just to leave and spend my time looking. It wasn't possible
for me, particularly since this was downtown New York and I didn't care
to work in Wall Street or in
While I was still there, a friend of a friend came to see me and said
that her husbandsomehow in the same Long Island society that Walter
Lippmann and his wife had moved in and she knewthat he was looking for a
secretary and had asked her if she knew anybody to recommend. She came
to see me, and on the basis of a mutual
He was with the New York Herald Tribune, and he was the
Washington correspondent?
No, his newspaper column"Today and Tomorrow" was Herald Tribune. He had an
office in the Herald Tribune building in New York,
butHerald Tribune including their providing him
with a secretary and a research assistant, so that I was on the payroll
of the New York Herald Tribune. But I was really under
the entire supervision of Mr. Lippmann. So he worked in the library in
his home in Georgetown in Washington, and the research assistant and
secretary had an office in a room built over the garage in the back.
Who was the research assistant?
I beg your pardon?
You worked as the research assistant?
No, he had two people working for him, a secretary and a research
assistant. By that time, my shorthand was good enough so that I had no
problems about that. I worked for him there for three and a half years.
During that time, I had some very interesting experiences. The first
summer that I went to work for him, they had rented Admiral Byrd's
summer place up on Mt. Desert in Maine. So I went up there for that
summer. I lived in a farmhouse close by and went over to work with him.
The Lippmanns were always very civil to me. Well, that was it. He knew
about social procedures, they knew how to behave correctly.
Then the other interesting trips that I had with him, I went to both
Well, this was the first time you had lived in Washington or attended political conventions? You were really sort of thrust into the mainstream of what was going on.
That's right. I remember my first vote was for Roosevelt. I registered
and voted in New York, and I voted for him. But that was the extent of
my knowledge of political affairs. I just had not been in any contact
with them at all whereas in Washington Lippmann knew everybody. He
wanted me to come down and work in his office there for a few days
before we went to Maine so that I would be adjusted to it. I went down
on a trip with him to Washington. I was quite thrust in the middle of
things. He said that what he wanted to do on that day or two that he was
going to be there was he wanted to see Roosevelt, and he wanted to see
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
. . . all three of the gentlemen, you see, did see him on that trip. He was an important person in Washington, and there was much talk that he was to be Secretary of State. Then there's been gossipif you're at all interested in that periodthat he got very cross with Roosevelt because he didn't get the appointment. I don't know what truth there was about it at all. Anyhow, he didn't favor the Roosevelt administration as it went along in the later part of it.
Did you tend to see eye to eye with him politically?
No. He had been a socialist at Harvard, as you know. You remember his background, that he was Lincoln Stephen's protege brought from Harvard. He was very sophisticated politically. He was not aligned at that time, so far as I know, in politics in any way. But I learned a lot from him. I typed the two books that he wrote during the time that I worked with him. When the research assistant would be away, I had to double as the research assistant, just as she had to double for me when I was on vacation. I learned a lot with him, and I was occasionally invited to their social gatheringsa couple of dinner parties, you know, the formal dinner parties kind of thing. They were nice. I got an orientation towards the political scene and the social scene that was very helpful to me.
Did you sort of grow in the same direction that Lippmann did
I was not at all active in politics. I don't really remember during those years I worked for Lippmann where I went to vote. I wasn't a member of any political club.
So the opinions you had about the New Deal were just sort of on issues as they came up or on individual
That's right. I was getting along in years. I had my thirtieth birthday
during that time, and it was high time that I became aware of what was
going on. In the course of development from the Depressionaffairs in New
York, my activity in the Trade Union movement, and my working for
LippmannI was automatically a member of the newspaper guild because the
newspaper guild had a closed shop with the Herald
Tribune. But I did not go to, oh, more than a few guild meetings in
Washington. I was not active in the guild. For one thing, the members of
it were in a different scene since I worked at Lippmann's house. We
syndicated the . . . the articles went out through the Washington Post, and I was much in touch with the people
there. They sent somebody every morning to pick up the articles from him
on the days of the week that he wrote. He wrote three days a week.
There's very much close connection there.
I made reference to Virginia Payne, whom I'd known in New York City. When
I was going to go to Washington, I wrote her to ask her what she could
suggest about a place to live. She wrote back to say that she was living
in a walk-up apartment on Columbia Avenue, I think it was, and it wasn't
Where was she working at that time?
I have just plain forgotten what department with the government.
With one of the agencies?
Yes, she worked with one of the agencies of the government, and I've just forgotten about which one it was. I could find out. I didn't send any Christmas cards this year, but if I'd been sending one, I would have sent her her's.
You said that you didn't have any evolving opinion really about the New Deal or about Roosevelt. What about World War II and our entry into World War II? Did you take a position on World War II?
Oh, very, very definitely. I was in favor of that. I worked in the civilian defense, and I did whatever I could as one did at that time. One did whatever one could. I developed a very strong feeling about fascism.
In Harold Coy's book on the Prices he says that during this whole period,
the thirties and up until '43, I guesshe talked about when you left
Lippmann's office or stopped working for Lippmannhe said that you were
thoroughly acclimated to working in a man's world, but you were no less
a woman for having done so.
You would have to ask Harold what he meant about that. Like any young woman, I was interested in young men. So I had various romances or people who would take me dancing. You know, there was no matrimony.
Did you have any feeling of the way your family viewed your career, that they viewed your working, continuing to work, or was it a perfectly natural thing that you had to work to support yourself?
I had to work. There was no question about that. There wasn't much a choice about it. By that time, I was fairly successful, and so my family would have been pleased about that because when I went to work for Lippmann, I made the munificent salary of $50 a week, which was a big step up from the $35 I'd been making at the Insurance Brokers. And it was considered to be a very good salary at that time.
Was that a job, more than the others that you'd had before, that you were really satisfied with, that was stimulating and exciting?
Yes, it was very stimulating and exciting, and I liked it quite a bit. The fact that I left after 3½ years had nothing to do about whether that job was stimulating. In fact, it was so much so that I began to have ideas about doing things while I was still young enough to do it, to try to get myself involved in things that more personally concerned me, not to be a secretary forever, but to involve myself in things I was interested in.
What did you do when you left Lippmann? Where did you work then?
I took a summer off and went to Mexico. Wright and
Why was Wright in Mexico?
He was working for the Henry J. Kaiser Company. He was running the Mexican office. Wright is a civil engineer. He has lived all over the world in various assignments for Kaiser Engineers. That particular assignment was in Mexico at that time.
Then when you came back, did you move back to New York?
When I came back, I decided one of the reasons that I left Lippmann was that I decided that I really liked New York better as a place to live than Washington. I thought it was a more stimulating place. It certainly has a better climate. So, as a matter of fact, when I got back I looked for a job in Washington, and Lippmann was simply wonderful about giving the introduction to all top . . . he knew only the top people, of course, in the various agencies. I was able to get appointments whereverat the State Department, and at the OSS, and so forth and so on. But whether it was because of my having been active in the trade union movement in New York, in other words, whether there was a mark against my record of that, or whether my personality and experience did not approve, anyhow, those jobs did not quite pan out. But that's the way it is.
Would they ask you if you had been involved in the trade
No, but I suppose that me and my still country kind of way that people asked me about what my interests would be.
That, you said, was one of your interests?
I don't know. It's been a long time ago. The very much inquiry into
people's lives was just beginning then in the OSS. You can imagine that
sort of thing. It's been so long ago. But I'm just
Lippmann did understand about why you wanted to leave then?
He seemed so, and he was very good about saying he would do whatever he could. He gave me introductions. And when I went to Mexico, he gave me an introduction to the ambassador in Mexico, whose secretary happened to have been an old friend of Mildred's from Chicago. Through themthe ambassador didn't do anything about entertaining me himselfbut he gave me introductions to people who did. Lippmann gave me an introduction to someone who had handled the Spanish translation of one of his books. I had some good contacts there.
So then you decided to move back to New York?
Things were not developing in Washington, and while the applications were still in, I decided that I should go and look in New York because my meager resources would not carry me very far. I needed to get a job. I couldn't play the negotiating and waiting game.
So I went to New York, and I remember quite vividly I was having lunch at
some place on 42nd Street. I looked down toward the McGraw-Hill
buildingBusiness Week, that's a good magazine. I like that. I
believe I'll just go by their personnel office and make an application
to see what about." So I went by, and it was a fortuitous circumstance.
The personnel office, they had just had a request forI've forgotten what
you would call itbut anyhow, it was not a top reporter but an assistant
reporter on the Business Week editorial staff. They
asked me if I would be interested in going up and talking to the
managing editor there. Yes, I would be very interested indeed. So I went
up to see him, and I won't go into the details. Anyhow, they said did I
want to come to work the following Monday? I did want to come to work
there the following Monday. I liked very much working for Business Week, but there again after three, four years,
however long it was, I was not married and it began to be obvious that I
wasn't going to be able to do the home and family bit. I had to figure
out for myself what I would do. I was not really most interested in the
business world. I was more interested in the social scene than I was in
the business world.
I wondered if, at that time, you were sort of becoming more and more aware of social problems. . . .
That's right.
. . . And if a conflict didn't develop as you were working for Business Week.
It developed in me personally because I just thought that I had better concern myself with the things to develop a life for myself around the things that I was interested in.
The time you were working for Business Week during that
three or four years from '43, I guess, until '45 or so, were you able to
do things along the lines that you were interested in, along social
concerns, more social concerns, after work?
To a certain extent. I maintained my friendship with the people I had
known in the Office Workers Union. Oh, I went to the Democratic Club in
the Village where I was living. But there's not a great bit of it, just
the normal kind of interest that I would have. But I decided that I was
really more concerned about social issues than I was about business
issues. And mind you, I had done some very serious, not just articles
but special studies. For instance, one of the last things that I did on
Business Week was to write one of the long pieces
about the pension system as it was then. In the course of time, I
continued to write. I was listed as a staff member and continued to do .
. . as I say, thus and such is an interesting idea. Would you like to
have a story about it? And I continued for several years to do special
articles.
Even after you left?
Yes, and I was paid on the basis . . . I've forgotten what it was. But anyhow, it was a nice supplement to be able to do.
Was there ever a time when you wanted to write about something in one way and they sort of saw it in a different way?
No, because I had Oscar Coffin and my journalism career had strict
journalistic standards. And I still have them. If we were not talking
about this, I could give you much oration about the San
Francisco
Chronicle and about the editorial standards. I'm very
strict in my idea of not carrying over your personal views into your
reporting material.
So you decided that you would like to pursue your interest in social issues and social concerns on a more permanent, sort of fulltime basis. What was the first opportunity that you had to do thatthrough working with the Southern Conference?
My friends at the Office Workers Union, Louis Merril who was president of
the Union at that time, persuaded me that I should quit Business Week and come and do publications for the Office
Workers Union. So as I look back on it, it is one of the most foolish
things that I ever did, to quit what was in many ways the best job I
ever had to go for a romantic notion that I had about the trade union
movement. But anyhow, that's what I did. That just was a foolish
venture. I didn't get along very well. In the course of the time that I
was working for the Union, I went as the Union representative to a
dinner that was held. Just exactly what that dinner was, I don't know.
It was at the Commador Hotel. One remembers inconsequential things.
Anyhow, seated at the same table with me were Clark Foreman and Palmer
Weber. I don't know whether you ever knew Palmer Weber or not. He was
from Virginia, and Clark, you know very well about his background. One
of the Alexander family from Philadelphia was also at that table. I
thought of him in connection with his being in the Cabinet, you know,
Transportation, one of the members of that family. But anyhow, it was an
interesting bunch of people at that dinner. It happened
againcircuitousthat
Had you heard about the Southern Conference before that?
Yes, I heard about it because my friend, Virginia Payne, again was from
Tennessee. She had known about it, and she was perhaps a little bit more
hip than I was to what was going on in matters in the South. I had not
kept up. She was a friend of Virginia Durr, and I had met Josephine
Black, you know, Mrs. Hugo Black, who's Virginia Durr's sister, in
Washington. As a matter of fact, Justice Black and Mrs. Black came over
to our apartment one day. It was a big event. They came to tea one day.
Anyhow, we were interested in what was going on. Mrs. Claude Pepper, you
know, Senator Pepper . . . Mrs. Black and Virginia Payne were trying to
help whatever her name was Pepper. Did I mention her name before?
Anyhow, to be better suited to her job as a leading senator's wife. So
Mildred Pepper, her name was, she had met her in Florida. She was a
woman who had not had a broad range of experience, shall we say. So my
interests, in
Did you live with Virginia Payne the whole time you were in Washington? Did you two live together?
No, I did not. We continued to be good friends, but our apartment that we lived in was too small for us really. I was making enough money to be living a little bit better. I got an apartment, a house if you mind, we rented a furnished house in Georgetown with the girl who was doing the research job for Lippmann. And so we went out to live there. I won't go into the dull business about it.
When you were in Washington, you had met people like the Blacks, and the Peppers, and Virginia Durr who you sort of kept in contact with. It seems there's always been sort of a close relationship between people active in the South and groups in Washington, especially during this period. Were you sort of in touch with people you'd met
Virginia Durr was very much a close contact. When I went to Washington to live, Mildred and Harold were living there. He was working on the writer's project, and my sister Branson was working there for the Labor Department. So my whole social outlook was considerably expanded.
So you moved back to Greensboro and started working to set up to organize the committee for North Carolina.
Yes, I organized the Southern Conference for North Carolina.
What did you see as your job? How did you envision what you had to do?
I was enthusiastic about the interracial program of the Southern Conference and its general plan for raising the standard of living and the life in the South. I could state that better if I were sitting down with pencil and paper at hand.
The Southern Conference had been set up in 1938. How were you tuned in to how that organization had evolved from '38 to the time when you came in 1945? Did you sort of have any feeling about what has transpired during that time? Was it on the up? Was it beginning to sort of have trouble?
No, it was not. It was a whole-hearted bunch of devoted people for whom I
had great respectJim Dombrowski, and Clark Foreman, and of course
Virginia Durr who continues to be a close friend after all these years,
and many other people I could list, Mary McCloud, for instance. In
Greensboro, there was Charlotte Hawkins Brown at the
When you started setting up the committee in North Carolina, didn't you ask Reverend Lee Shepherd and work for the committee?
No, no. I soon found out, and I knew enough about organizing, that if we
expected to have an organization and get members, the first thing to do
was to get someone who would agree to be chairman of the organizing
committee and to get some other names of prominent people who would be
in favor of this so that one could talk to people in terms of, these are
the people who are interested in it. Dr. Frank Graham was
Lee Shepherd.
Yes, just exactly how I got referred to him, I don't know except the Pullen Memorial Church was more liberal than most churches, and I was very keen on getting this kind of view we needed to have if we were going to get this organized church support, some black support, some trade union support, some young people's support. Anyhow, I went to see Mr. Shepherd, and he did agree to be chairman, I guess we called it, of an organizing committee. Then to get a broader view, I heard about a man who had a tobacco warehouse in Smithfield, Laurence Wallace, and he was a great admirer of Dr. Graham. Dr. Graham had said to me, "Now, here's someone who is a businessman who might be willing to do." So I went down to Smithfield and got him to agree to be the vice-chairman. Charlotte Hawkins Brown was, as you know, at
Could you tell me a little bit more about her? I know that she had been a founding member of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation in the '20's. How old was she when you knew her, and what was she like to work with?
She was . . .I'm just guessing entirely, I would say about fifty at the time I knew her. In other words, she was older than I was. She had the great respect of the business community in Greensboro. She had managed to get her work done and to get her PR job done.
Had you heard about her when you lived there before, or was she there at that time?
No, and I'm terribly embarrassed to say that I just knew nothing at all about the black community other than in the most awful kind of contacts.
So, this was a totally different experience for you, to go back to North Carolina and have completely different kinds of contacts?
That's right.
Was she helpful to you in setting up the committee? Was she responsive to the whole idea?
Yes, she was responsive to the whole idea but what she did was from her own office. She did not go out to try to see people and that sort of thing.
But she continued giving you support and to try to get other people interested.
That's right. And to give me guidance. That's what I needed, was
guidance. I could remember the names of other people who were very
helpful, such as the trade union people. I was given a place to work in
the office of the trade union secretary and again, I could think of his
name if I took your time to do it, but I can't. Anyhow, I was able to
get this diversified experience and my brother, Paul, who lived there
was very helpful
Were you trying to get a basic group of people, a chairman, vice-chairman, who would be able to expand the membership in North Carolina? Were you actually trying to sign individuals up or were you trying to set up this framework for an organization?
I was trying to get a framework and then to call a state meeting of whoever would come that wanted to come and was interested in it. I did publicity through the papers and was able to get some public notice about it and through the contacts and so that when we had our organizing meeting in Raleigh, I think it was . . .oh, there was a wonderful young woman named Carolyn Goldberg who was the newspaper woman and she was interested in the organization and she spent full-time doing publicity for that first meeting. She knew the publicity sources and so forth and she was a grand person. She later worked on the staff when we got to the point of having anybody in the staff. I've often thought, I don't know where Carolyn is now, but she was such a skilled newspaper woman that I hope she had a good career.
When you had your first meeting in Raleigh, how many people came?
I would have to guess, and among the things I have of what I always
thought would be a scrapbook, I would tear out stories and put them in
and these days, I've still got a fat book of clippings which I have
never
Was that an optimistic meeting, about being able to set this up and get support within the state?
Yes.
Did you have trouble interesting southern liberals in North Carolina in doing this . . .from what you are saying, it sounds not like it was easy, but that you had basically a good response.
I had basically a good response and I had very good help. Frank Graham's
name was magic and the Reverend Lee Shepherd, a Baptist minister with
one of the largest churches in Raleigh, and Mr. Findlatter, do you know
him? Well, he was very helpful. And Lawrence Wallace was . . . he was a
state senator and they were just people who were wonderful. Louie Austin
in Durham. Did you ever know him? He was the editor of a paper called
The Carolinian, which was a very good paper aimed
primarily at the black community.
Was Louis Austin black?
Yes. And there was a marvelous family called the Logans in Durham. He was a black businessman. Conrad Pearson, who was a black lawyer . . .they were just simply wonderful people.
Did you get more support or more enthusiastic response from the black communities than you did from white groups within North Carolina?
No. On a numerical basis, no, but on a sociological basis, in
Did any of the southern liberal groups in the state ever disappoint you by not supporting your work?
Well, naturally, the more support we had the better it would have been, but there was never any serious clash with people. On the whole, . . .you are acquainted with the writer, James Street, he wrote a great many books and lived in Chapel Hill at the time and he was a better known writer in the country. He was simply wonderful about it. I would go to see him and ask him and he would say that he couldn't do anything and that all he could do was to give contributions, which he would do. I would be apologetic about it because by that time I was trying to raise money that I was spending. I got paid from the Southern Conference but the expenses were more than that. He gave me a very severe lecture about being apologetic asking him for money. He said, "Look, I'm not doing the things that are you are doing and I'm the one that should be grateful to you." It was a gracious speech and that was somewhat typical, I would say. The Green family, for instance, the wonderful Green brother-in-law who was . . .whatever, there again, it is hard for me to remember, but it was just invaluable. We wanted to run someone for Congress in that Congressional district and . . . .
In Chapel Hill?
Yes. And he gave wonderful leads about recommending someoneObserver. He was on our
executive committee. Just terrific people who were helpful in this
thing.
You mentioned a couple of times the support that Frank Graham gave you and how important that was for you. How would you compare him to other southern liberals, in North Carolina and the South?
One says "liberal," and one has the question about whether a liberal is one who is just the least little bit optimistic but wishy-washy when the pinch comes. Frank Graham never was wishy-washy. He had a body of principles which he lived by. He was really a wonderful fellow.
Did you always know where he stood and what he meant by what he said and that he would back up what he said?
Yes, that's right. He was an honest man. When you asked him something, he would give you an answer.
I wondered when you got the committee set up, what relation you had to the CIO in particular? You mentioned trying to get labor support.
The textile union was the biggest union in the state and I worked very hard trying to get contacts with the textile unions. I got a few individuals but there never was any success in getting the real support of the textile workers union.
Why do you think that was?
I think it was because the . . .well, it was just a matter of the conservatism within the CIO organization itself, the conflict of interests. The textile workers have been, and so far as I know, still are on the side of the conservatives, the IGLWU kind of forces, the old . . .well, I won't get into that. I've got theories about it, but that's all they are, just theories. There was a woman who was working with women in the textile union, Pat Knight, who was from Greensboro and her father was a doctor in the Cone Mills and she worked for the YWCA . . .not in Greensboro but other places, and she was back in there and trying . . . .
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
. . .and there were good volunteers.
You were talking about Pat Knight. She had been with the YWCA and at this time, was she working with a group called the Southern School for Workers? Did you know anything about that?
I knew about that. Mildred will tell you about that. Mildred was closely
related to the Southern School for Workers. I rather imagine that Pat
had been to the Southern School for Workers. I don't remember about
that. I remember more her sophistication as far as other kinds of
affairs. For instance, Susan B. Anthony III was a friend of hers and was
in a terrible
Was she one of your main contacts with the labor movement, with the textile workers?
Yes, she was a contact with them because she worked for the textile workers union. She was limited in what she could do by way of using her name in this organization, but she was not limited, of course, in her freedom of association.
Were some of the other labor supporters that you had, wasn't Christopher Crittendon involved in . . . .
Who?
Christopher Crittendon.
I don't remember him at all.
Or Grady Morton?
I don't remember him at all.
I wonder, in Tom Krueger's book on the Southern Conference, he says that at one time you took Jim Dombrowski to task for a speech he had made, in which he . . . .
I did?
Yes. In which he conveyed the impression that the Southern Conference for Human Welfare was a tool of the southern labor movement. You don't remember anything about that?
I can't imagine taking Jim Dombrowski to task for anything, a person for whom I had the greatest respect.
But you don't remember anything about the overall group, the Southern Conference having one opinion about labor support and your North Carolina committee having a different experience with labor?
No, I didn't have that problem at all. There was always a problem of trying to work with the textile workers, because they were the largest union in the South and one of my early memories is about the Gastonia Strike and it had a lot of influence on me. I think that I may have told you that there wasn't . . .I tried as hard as I knew how to get labor support and I think of Hardy Scott in Asheville, the Fur and Leather Worker's Union. Then there was an excellent person in the Shoemaker's Union. Then of course, there were the Tobacco Workers in Durham and in Winston-Salem and we had excellent members among the Tobacco Workers in Durham, but the organization itself was never cooperative with us.
So individuals within the union would lend you their support but they could never use the name of their union?
That's right. It was the same way with the Textile Workers and the Tobacco Workers in Winston-Salem. It was not possible for them to speak for the unions.
Were there individuals within the Textile Workers Union, like Pat Knight, who gave you support? What about rank and file members?
Yes, there were rank and file members who did. I have forgotten now about what the size of our dues paying membership was, but it was a hundred or so and so it had a rather broad scope.
If you had about a hundred or so dues paying members, do you remember at all how they were divided, say between men and women or blacks and whites or workers and middle class people?
I think that I could make a generalization that it was a fairly well divided and as far as the population was concerned. Now, that doesn't mean that there were as many black people in proportion to the . . .I don't remember what the black population of the state was, but of the active people in the state, I would think that it was fairly well divided. For instance, in Greensboro, students at what was then A&T College and is now, I think, part of the University of North Carolina, we had a very active group there and at Bennett College. Dr. David Jones, who was president of Bennett College, was just a tower of strength and he and his wife were really bulwarks of strength as far as their knowledge and their know-how was concerned. Their friendship meant a great deal to me.
What about men and women. Did couples seem to join together?
Yes.
Or were there women who joined, perhaps without spouses or . . . .
No, I don't remember women joining without their husbands, but
Maybe more single women than single men, or do you have any feeling about that? What I'm thinking of is trying to relate to women's groups within the state. Did you have the support of some of the North Carolina women's groups?
No. The women's movement was just nonexistent, practically, at that time.
But nothing like the Federation of Women's Clubs or . . . .
Well, the YWCA was a tower of strength. Everywhere and in every town where there was a YW we could get interracial meeting places, which believe me, was no easy task and the YWCA secretaries were just tremendous help.
What about other women's groups like the League of Women Voters or the Association of University Women?
There must have been an Association of University Women, but it did not present itself so that I knew anything about it. Or the League of Women Voters. I really didn't know about the League of Women Voters until I met it in the North.
Could you compare your program in North Carolina to some of the other state programs? Were you aware of the committees that were set up in other states, for example, Margaret Fisher's program in Georgia?
Yes, I went to the board meetings of the Southern Conference and there I met Tex Dobbs and Margaret Fisher and whoever else there was working. We may have been the only three states that had definite committees, I don't remember.
But do you remember any comparison between what you were able to
Oh, Tex Dobbs in Alabama had really done a terrific job because he managed to be on good terms with the governor there who . . .oh, whatever was his name? One of his relatives, a daughter or something, has been married to the present Governor Wallace and she is the only liberal influence in that in sofar as I know, although she never seems to . . . .
Oh, Jim Folsom.
Jim Folsom, yes. So, Tex Dobbs was able to be on good terms with him. I
remember once that Folsom came to some meeting to speak in North
Carolina and not our meeting, but just some meeting, and on the basis of
it, I was introduced to him and I said that I really appreciated the big
help that he had been to Tex Dobbs and he laughed and made a typically
political statement, "Oh yes, my Communist friend."
Did you know Margaret Fisher very well? Were you ever very close to her?
Not at all, except for going to board meetings.
What was her background, do you know anything about her?
She was in some way related to a church . . .she had a church background, but I can't think. It seems to me that she had a voice and sang in a church choir or something or other. I can't . . .I really don't remember well enough.
Did you ever have the feeling that she might have had an easier time setting up a committee in Georgia because of the influence of groups in Atlanta than you had in North Carolina?
No question about it. And in Tennesse, also, because the Southern
Conference had been founded in Tennessee, as I recall. Or
It was in Birmingham at first.
Yes. Maybe that's the reason that Tex had such a good structure in Birmingham.
I wanted to talk a little bit about the programs that you were able to set up. Weren't you working with . . .you had a suffrage committee that was headed by William Poteat, is that right? And then you also held minimum wage hearings. Were those the primary things that you were working with or what were some of the other programs which you were trying to get set up?
Here is where you should have given me written questions in advance because with my slow thinking, I probably could recall about specific programs, but it's just not possible for me after however many years it has been.
Do you remember Mr. Poteat and the suffrage committee at all?
Oh, I do indeed. The Reverend William Poteat. He was a Baptist minister and worked in the student ministry in Chapel Hill and he was a very knowledgeable, very wonderful person.
Were you trying to do any work with voter registration in the state, trying to register black voters to vote?
And Indians. We were trying to register Indians, wherever we could. That was a main objective, to help people get registered and urge them to vote, to participate in the democratic system.
Did you ever work with the anti-poll tax campaign in the South?
I didn't. I knew that Joe Gelders . . .I had met him when I lived in
Washington with, I guess, maybe Virginia Durr. She was a great
Do you remember working with a man named G.W. Forster?
No, I don't.
In 1947, or there abouts, again according to Tom Krueger's analysis of the Southern Conference, he says that there was a decline in membership beginning in '47. I wondered . . . .
Of the Southern Conference as a whole or of the committee for North Carolina?
Of the Southern Conference as a whole, and also a decline in revenues. He said that salaries couldn't be paid and that you didn't receive your salary for a quite a number of months during that period.
It could not have been very crucial, because I do not remember about it and it may have been that during that time I was talking about, that I was trying to raise some money to live on myself, if possible.
Do you remember anything about the Clark Foreman-Jim Dombrowski split within the Southern Conference?
I remember quite well that there was the split and I have never been one for factionalism and I've always tried to stay out of factional fights. So, I would have been quite acquainted with what was going on, but I did not play a leading role in it.
Do you remember your reaction to the fact that there were factions within the organization? Do you remember feeling, not for one side or the other, but just having a reaction to the fact that there were splits?
Yes, I remember just as I remember in the trade union movement that there was factionalism and everywhere that one goes there is factionalism, even in women's work here in the East Bay area. There are two organizations which are doing the same sort of thing and there is just no sense to me about this factionalism.
I wanted to ask you a little bit about the controversies that went on within the Southern Conference, about whether Communist party members should be involved in the whole thing or not?
There is always in my lifetime and action, there is ever this question about Communism. And there again, I tried to avoid getting into conflicts about it. I am not in favor of discrimination as far as race, sex, national origin or politics are concerned.
Did you ever get involved in any of the discussions about whether Communist party members should be allowed to come into the Conference? Wasn't that an issue at one time, whether they should be barred? Did you actively oppose that or speak out against it?
I did not actively oppose it and we never had any serious action on anything of that kind in North Carolina. I may have heard something about it at board meetings, but that's something that sort of fades off into the distance. But as far as North Carolina is concerned, it was not a leading issue. There were Communists in the organization, I'm sure, and such that were known as such, but it was not an issue in the committee for North Carolina.
As you tried to get support among all different kinds of groups in North
Carolina, were you ever actively involved in trying to get the support
of the democratic groups or . . .was there an active Socialist party in
North Carolina at that time? Did the CP ever have an organizational
No, and this is just from viewing back, but I know that Junior Scales from Greensboro, whom I had known as a child in the First Presbyterian Church there, was an active Communist at that time, but that is about the extent of what I know about it.
So, there was not a group that you could go to that you could try to solicit support like the way that you did with other groups within the state?
No.
What about the Socialist party? Was there a base of support?
Again, I don't know if there was or not, and there was no affiliation of my work with political organizations, that's what it amounts to. What individual members might have done, that's something else again.
Did the same hold true with the Democratic party? Did you have any kind of concrete endorsement from the party groups?
No. No, we tried to be friendly with all kinds of groups who wanted to be friendly with us.
You said a few things about this, but I was trying to understand how autonomous your relationship was to the Southern Conference group, the larger group. Was this always a very straightforward relationship? Was there ever any confusion about it?
Not that I recall?
So, . . .but were you autonomous? Were you free within North Carolina to . . .was your committee able to make it's own decisions about what it would support and work for?
I don't remember that we had any conflict on that matter at all.
In 1947, in the fall, Ralph McGill came out with a statement in the paper in Atlanta against the Southern Conference. Do you remember anything about that?
I sort of remember about it, but it was far away as far as we were concerned.
He was attacking the leadership of the Southern Conference.
Whom was he attacking? Was he attacking Clarke?
He made general statements about "the leaders."
That's what I meant, was it a general thing . . . .
Clark Foreman did, I think, threaten to sue him and got a retraction of the statement.
Yes, I would think that was right. So, this was not anything that we had to take a stand on, you know.
Do you remember being upset by that kind of thing? Would that have surprised you, that Ralph McGill would have done that? He had a reputation as a southern liberal.
That's right. I was very disturbed that people who were supposed to be southern liberals were not supporting what I thought was a correct approach. I'm a southern patriot and I was disappointed when that sort of thing took place. I don't remember entering into any factional arguments about it.
I wondered if you had any feeling about the interaction within the larger Conference, of people who were alligned with specific political groups, especially the Socialist party and the Communist party. Were you aware of those factions being at odds?
I was aware that people existed who did not always think exactly the same, but again, I make the point that I have a very definite feeling and intention to stay away from factionalism. Personally, and as far as maintaining the life of the organization, I think it is suicidal to get into that sort of thing, and I was dedicated to trying to build the committee for North Carolina.
Did you have any feeling that people within the Socialist party or the Communist party were trying to destroy the organization by creating factions or by refusing to cooperate?
I don't think that was true in North Carolina. Here again, I would have to do more study to see about it, but I don't have any memory of that being true. The only kind of factionalism that I remember anything about, and this is something I remember because I don't much admire my view about it, the rights of the black people were beginning to take a more definite stand at that time and there was some thought among the black members, a few members, that the organization should be run by a black executive director.
This was the organization within North Carolina?
Yes. My feeling was that we had to have an interracial organization and we should have black employees, which we did have in the office, but to have the head of the organization be black, I did not think that would promote the growth of the organization. That is the only kind of argument that I remember. At this point, when I look back on it, there has been so much change in the social scene that I am somewhat ashamed to be confessing that.
So, you won the argument, as it were, it stayed in the control or was headed by a white person?
Yes. Well, they wanted somebody to have my job. Maybe that
Do you remember any group that came together in Durham in 1948, a black group that wrote up a set of demands of the type . . .I have heard it referred to as "The Durham Manifesto."
In '48?
Yes, in '48. Do you remember anything about that?
No, I don't. That's amazing that I wouldn't remember that.
I'm not sure how large it was, or how significant it was. I was just curious to know if you . . .I thought you would have been aware of it if it was . . . .
I would think that I would and I would think that it would have been something that I would have remembered. I don't remember anything about it. That doesn't mean that it necessarily wasn't there, I'm just saying that I think it is astounding that I would not remember it and I don't remember it.
I wanted to ask you about the Wallace campaign and had a little bit of trouble with chronology involved in the campaign. I wondered when the decision was made that you would head the party in North Carolina and run for governor? Did you decide to step down from your job with the Southern Conference and work full time on the campaign and run the campaign for Wallace in North Carolina?
I'll try to be brief about it. Calrk Foreman and Palmer Weber, you will
remember that I said it was through Palmer that I got my job working for
the Southern Conference . . .I remember quite well that they call me up
from New Orleans and said that Wallace was going to make a speaking tour
of the South and to see about what kind of support and reaction he
So, you were not at all restricted to North Carolina, you were involved in setting it up for the entire southern campaign.
Right, what a mouthfull and how in the world I had the temerity to do it, but Palmer and Clark were not ones to say no to. They had decided before hand that it would be a good idea. So, I went ahead and did it the best that I knew how.
Who would you contact in each of these cities?
They, being Southern Conference officials, they had knowledge of people who might be the progressive forces in communities and so they gave these introductions to people in those places who were asked to bring together in the communities the people that they knew who might be in this, that I would be in town on such and such a day and could we have a meeting?
Do you remember some of the variation in support that you got in different places?
When the meetings actually took place?
No, did the support that you were able to garner in these cities vary considerably?
Yes, it varied. The Atlanta one was practically running itself with such a strong base, and the New Orleans one, because by that time, the Southern Conference had its office there. That pretty well ran itself, but then in Louisville, there was a real problem and in Norfolk there were problems about it.
You said that when you were first contacted, Wallace was trying to decide whether to make the decision to come South or not?
No, he was trying to make the decision about whether he would run or not.
Yes, whether he would run or not. Did you have an opinion about that, did you advise him one way or another?
My advice was not sought, but . . .I mean, I wasn't in the position to be advising, but I had my own opinion and I was enthusiastic about it because I was very disturbed about the Truman, the Cold War fight and I was alarmed about it, it seemed like facism to me and I had made up my mind against facism, that I would do what I could.
So, you were enthusiastic and hopeful. Did you see it as a long shot or did you see it as something that could happen?
I hoped that something could come of it, but if I were a betting person,
I would not have put a great deal of money on it, shall we say.
When did you first have contact with him and meet him?
You know, I've sort of forgotten about it, the time that I remember most
about it was when we were flying, it must have been from
So, you went on the entire southern tour, to every city when he actually made the tour?
No, I did not. But these speaking engagements, I went on them. He made a southern tour which is something else again. He made a southern tour which opened in Durham, North Carolina at a meeting that we arranged in Durham. That was when the situation really became very difficult for me personally and organizationally.
How was that?
Well, there was a faction in Durham in opposition and they were organized
in opposition and I well remember the night where he was supposed to
speak. We had a program and so forth and we naturally wouldn't have him
on the stage at the first time, but it began to be apparent that . . .I
was presiding at the meeting and it began to be apparent that
Were people outside the place where you were meeting?
They must have been. As I say, I did not go out. And I'm jumping in time, because this was not . . .this was after Wallace had decided to run, that he made the southern tour and that's where I'm talking about the meeting in Durham where things were so difficult. On the earlier speaking tours, there were no real problems about that.
When he came to Durham at one point, wasn't there an incident when you were involved in cancelling his reservation at the Washington Duke Hotel because they would not let the black members of his party stay?
That was the same meeting that I'm talking about, the Durham meeting
where hell really broke loose, I would say. Wallace had been to Raleigh
They refused to let him stay there because they were worried about his safety?
That's right, because they were worried about his safety. And maybe there
were black people who were not sympathetic to this. I don't know, but
anyhow, they did not want him to stay there. So, we had to find a place
for him to stay in a private home. The situation was such that Mr. and
Mrs. Logan, who I was talking about, they were black people and he was a
very prosperous business man and they invited him to stay there and so
he did do that. Then the next place, I know that it was true in
Winston-Salem, he also stayed in a black home. It was not safe and it
was courageous for these black people to do it. But the young people on
the campuses constituted themselves as bodyguards and patrolled to
maintain the safety. That southern tour of Wallace's was the only time
in my life that I've been afraid and it was in Hickory, North Carolina
when we were just going to stop there on the way to Asheville and there
was a mob gathered when we got there. People again, were trying to . .
.well, in Charlotte, my clothes had been torn and a pin that I had on
was taken from me. My sister, Mildred, had given me a pin that had wings
on it and when Wallace was speaking in Charlotte, he
Had someone grabbed you?
Obviously.
Were you sort of jostled by the crowd?
That's right. So, by the time that we got to Hickory, there was a mob gathered to witness us. That was the only time in my life that I was really frightened and the people who were with me said, "You don't get out of this car. You stay in the car." They thought that with nominal protection they could get from police and from our young men, you see, to act as bodyguards, that it would be safe. Wallace got out, I've forgotten how long it was, and greeted the audience. I remember sitting in that car with these people crowding up, making faces and yelling at me on the inside. It was difficult. So, then when we got to Asheville for the next real meeting that we had scheduled, I was really afriad to mix in the crowd there. I sat at the edge and did not try. Then when that meeting was over, I drove back by myself down the mountains to Winston-Salem and stopped there and got a room in a hotel and stayed the night, because I was really hesitant about going home. It was a very bad situation.
Were you worried at that time about being followed?
I was worried about being attacked. As I say, it was the
How did Wallace react?
He acted with calm, just as Clark Foreman did, for instance. They had due consideration of the situation, were trying to take all precautions and not wanting to aggrevate any situation, but not willing to just give up.
Had he expected this, or do you think the virulence of the reaction really surprised him?
It must have. I hadn't expected it. As I tell you, the virulence of it surprised me and shocked me and I would never have been willing for him to come if I had had any idea that there could be such ugliness in my beloved state of North Carolina. It was a shocking experience.
When was the decision made that you would run for governor on the Progressive Party ticket?
After the nominating convention, the Philadelphia convention, I was by that time state chairman of the Progressive party, which included many of the stalwarts who had been in Committee for North Carolina.
Did you go to the nominating convention in Philadelphia?
Yes, I did. I headed the delegation, our delegation, to Philadelphia.
Was the main network that you were in Southern Conference people in the South who had been involved in . . . .
If I had to make a generalization, I would say yes to that. I'm
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
There were many people who remembered that Henry Wallace had been Vice-President of the United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Did you get acquainted with a lot of the people who were nationally involved in the Progressive party?
Yes.
Were you close to some of those people?
I was close to them in that I went to all of the national board meetings wherever they were held. Some of the people that I had known, like Palmer Weber and Clark Foreman and Virginia Durr and I've forgotten others, but they were people that I had known and worked with. I had and still have a friend, Edith Pratt, who worked under . . .she was really the person who did the leg work on organizing that Philadelphia convention, the person who brought it all together.
So in a way, these were people you had known somehow in the past, or did you meet a lot of new people through the Progressive party?
Both. I saw people I had known and I met new people. And my sister, Branson, was very active in the campaign. She had been very active in the Southern Conference. She ran the New York office of the Southern Conference and was an expert fund raiser. She did a good job on that. She worked in Georgia and organized the petition campaign in Georgia just as I had organized it in North Carolina.
Did Mildred and Harold support Wallace?
Yes. They had, however, full-time jobs, so they . . . .
They weren't active in the campaign.
No.
How did your family in North Carolina react to what was happening?
We have a strong family loyalty and neither my brother nor neither of my sisters ever said to me, "What are you up to? What are you doing this for? Don't you know that you are hurting our situation?" And so forth and so on. No. And there was never a time when I was not welcomed to their homes even though I was getting quite a bit of very glaring publicity. My family was loyal. I never asked them about whether they intended to vote for me or not. My brother, Paul, who was a friend of Scott who was running on the regular Democratic ticket, Paul laughingly told me that he went to a bar-b-que out at Scott's farm and Scott said to him, "What are you doing here? You know that you're not going to be voting for me." He and Paul had a good laugh on the subject. Paul told me about that as a joke.
Did they offer you any kind of support, by staying behind you and being loyal in a family sort of connection they offered you a kind of support, but did they offer you any kind of financial support?
No, they never offered me and I never asked them. I respected them for what they wanted to do and they respected me for what I wanted to do. That's our family.
Did it ever take the form of any kind of concern after that tour, when
you were really in a very dangerous position? Were they worried
If so, they never said anything about it. Mildred and Harold were a tower of strength to me and in a time when I had no job and no way to get paid, they always stood by me. For instance, in that very busiest summer in North Carolina, they insisted on my coming up to Maine where we had gone every summer for a great many years. They paid my plane fare for me to come to Maine and be able to have a rest in the midst of that very hectic summer of 1948. I went to Maine for a week at their expense.
We were talking about exactly when the decision was made that you would run for governor. You were nominated by a committee within the state?
Yes. And by that time, we had moved our office to Durham because of the many active young people at Duke and at Chapel Hill and at North Carolina College and they all said that they could work so much more effectively from their home base. It was too far for them to come to Greensboro. There were young people in Greensboro, but not nearly the quantity as . . . .
This was the Progressive party offices?
Yes.
You had officially resigned, or did you take a leave of absence from the position as executive secretary of the Committee for North Carolina?
It more or less just had to die because there was no money to pay my
salary. I had no money at all, you see. Wherever I was working, I
Who were some of the people who were most active? Do you remember any of their names?
Yes, I remember very well about Marge Franz, for instance. Her father was
Joe Gelders and she was a full-time volunteer. She and her husband, who
was a GI, a lawyer . . .I've forgotten exactly how it was, but anyhow,
they were full-time volunteers in the office. Preston Lewis, that was
her name at the time, her husband taught in the language . . .he taught
French at Chapel Hill, in other words. She came and worked full-time in
the
Was the idea of having to have a slate of candidates for the Progressive party part of wanting to be able to enhance Wallace's campaign within the South nationally?
The South had become a key issue and it would be a stimulus around the country, so we thought, for the work of many dedicated people to have Wallace committees on the ballot and getting on the ballot was one heck of a job, of course. Because we had to have the signatures of a certain number, a percentage of registered voters. I remember only particularly about North Carolina and Georgia because I ran that registration in North Carolina . . .not registration, the signatures for the petition, and my sister Branson did it in Georgia. If I had a hard job, that was really one for her in Georgia, because North Carolina was my home base and I had background and friends and supporters whereas she went into Georgia cold. So, it was really quite a . . .not cold, I mean that she did not have the long acquaintance. There were many people who she had known before, but . . .
Were you pleased with the outcome of the petition campaign?
I was pleased that we got on the ballot and it was because the young people, just as the did in the Mississippi Summer, enough of them came to help us and work, work, work to go out and gather signatures of registered voters to get on the ballot. It was a terrific job and a transpiring job. How could I not want to do what I could with such a thing as that?
Do you remember any of the students who were your supporters?
Oh, I remember a great many of the students and I could sit
You probably have in the back of your mind this terrible unpleasantness about Elizabeth Bentley that broke during that time.
Right. I wanted to ask you about that, but one more thing about the campaign. I wondered if you have any feeling about the role of the press?
How could I help but have a feeling when the Raleigh News
and Observer called me . . .what was the word they used, "North
Carolina's biggest complainer?" I've forgotten the exact word, but
anyhow, "She's at it again," and all that. That's the kind of clippings
that I have in the press book if I would ever get around to looking at
them and organizing them again. The press was very hostile.
Did you have any supporters from the press?
Well, Austin and the Carolina Times were supporters and
I will say that of the whole bunch, the Greensboro Daily
News, whether it was because I had worked for the Greensboro
Daily News and it was my hometown
I wondered about the Elizabeth Bentley incident, when she was testifying in the summer of 1947 . . . .
No, it was in the campaign summer when all of that . . . .
It was actually the summer of 1948?
That's my memory of it and I fell sure that's right, because I know that my reaction was that this was a putup job to discredit the Progressive party, when the reporters came to see me in the office in Greensboro, my to my surprise, to tell me about this Elizabeth Bentley before the House Un-American Committee in Washington. She had said that she was an agent of the Soviet Union and she had been assisted by me. She got much publicity, you know.
So, you heard about it first from the reporters and they asked you for a statement and you said, I think I read it somewhere, "That's fantastic!" Did you have any idea where she came up with this story?
The only thing that I could think of . . . .
Did you know her?
I knew her on the basis that I had met her casually in New York as one
does, and when she found out that I lived in Washington, and again, as I
do, I had a bed in my apartment and said, "Look, if you haven't got a
place to stay, you can sleep over at my apartment." I just didn't think
about it at all. So, she never asked to sleep there but she would call
up and say she was on an expense account and how would I like to have
dinner? Well, I just didn't see anything in it but a casual
Did she ever talk to you about political matters?
Not really. I came soon to the conclusion that I didn't care for her as a
person, as a matter of fact. I rather thought that she made homosexual
advances and I didn't care for that and so, I tried to just not be
available when she would call. Whether all of this fantasy of hers was a
case of a woman scorned or not, I don't know.
This had been when you were working for Walter Lippman and the acusation that she made was that you had gone through his papers and fed her information. What was his reaction to that? Did you ever talk to him about it?
I never talked to him about it because I didn't quite know what I should say. By that time, I had gotten hold of legal advice and they advised me not to talk about it, that it was better for me not to be open and tell what I . . .to express myself but to be very careful about what I said. So, I never thought it was proper that I should go and involve Lippman, but I remember quite well that when the press came to him, his remark . . .and this shows what an excellent newspaper man was, his statement was, "It's news to me, if it is so," which pretty well covered the situation and that was enough to say.
I wondered how you would calculate the effect of this on the campaign.
Oh, it was terribly distressing to me, I'm sure it had a bad effect on the campaign and I had worked hard.
Did you feel support sort of slipping, or was it that easy to . . .
It was pretty obvious to the people who had been dedicated workers in the campaign about what it was all about. It was the beginning of the McCarthy era. My friends and so forth, they were loyal about it. For instance, in Durham the students said that it wasn't safe for me to sleep alone in the apartment and that on the porch that I was talking about before, they could put a cot out there and they would take turns in coming to stay. I got a rash of telephone calls, ugly telephone calls and so forth. The people who owned the building were wonderful about it. They never tried to get me out and so forth, so there was wonderful loyalty and that meant a great deal to me in general terms about the goodness of people and about specific things when I was in an uncertain situation.
Did you know the opposition in Durham well, the group that came at the Wallace party that night in Durham? Was it an organized effort that was opposed to you or was it individuals? Crank individual calls, or was it a more concerted effort than that?
I can only conclude from the fact it was so well organized that it was organized.
But you didn't know who was . . . .
I didn't know at all who was doing it and so far as I know, none of the loyal supporters within the party knew about it at all, but it was obvious on that Wallace tour in the state that there was bound to be some sort of organization. I will not make guesses about it. I have some guesses but I would not like to make them.
Was the Klan ever involved directly in leaving any kind of message for you?
There were no signed messages. There was nothing like that that I could say, "This is a Klan action," or an action of anyone else.
What were the consequences of Bentley's charges on your personal life and within your own family? Did they show the same kind of basic loyalty and support that they had?
Again, we have respect for each other and there was that kind of loyalty, very much.
Did you ever consider suing Bentley for libel?
No, I didn't at that time, which would have been the time to do it, but I was so much involved with the campaign that I really couldn't do anything about it. Then because my friends in North Carolina didn't have a job to give me . . .I had to have something to live on, and my enemies wouldn't give me a job, I had to leave North Carolina to get a job. So, it happened that I knew more people in Washington than I did in New York at that point, so I went from Greensboro to Washington and some Progressive party angels took me in to stay with them as long as I wanted and helped me to find an apartment when I got a job where I could pay the rent. My friend, Don Henderson of the Tobacco Workers Union in Winston-Salem, as I think I said, had a legislative office. He and the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers man had a legislative office in Washington and so, he said that I could go to work in that office, which I did for some months.
Later, in 1954 or so, didn't you testify at a grand jury hearing of the whole affair?
Oh, look. In the Wallace campaign, I was talking about when
This was during the . . . .
This was during '48.
It wasn't later? It wasn't as late as '54?
No. I went to another grand jury and I could figure the time, but it was when I was living in New York, after I got back from France. I had to go down to Camden to a grand jury and I was before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the course of that time, too.
Well, what was involved in the subpoena and testimony when you went, had to leave during the campaign and go up and testify?
Well, apparently I must have . . .I didn't realize this when we first
talked about it, but I must have known that Elizabeth Bentley was on the
prowl at that time, because I knew that New York grand jury session was
in relation to stories that she had told, but this didn't blast forth in
the press until later on. People that I was working with knew about it,
I mean that I hadn't tried to hide it. Naturally, I didn't go around and
in public meetings discuss my experiences at the grand jury, but I had
not made a secret about it. So, it wasn't entirely a complete surprise
when the press came to me. It was a surprise that Bentley had gotten to
the point of getting people taken in by it. The publicity of the
McCarthy era was
Did you want to refuse to testify or did you feel that by testifying you could straighten it out?
By that time, I had advice of counsel and the wonderful legal profession
gave me counsel about how to handle the situation. By that time, there
were enough other people who were in the same circumstances that they
had worked out already about how to take the Fifth Amendment, just not
to talk about it. So, I refrained from talking about it. As a matter of
fact, I probably should have said to you in all this talking somewhere
or another, "I decline to answer that question on the basis of my rights
under the Fifth Amendment."
Didn't Elizabeth Bentley name or also try to implicate Mildred in her testimony?
Yes. So, Mildred will tell you about that.
So, you went back to Washington and you worked for the union there through contacts that you had made with Don Henderson in North Carolina?
Yes, and in the course of that I heard about another job. There was a sort of little McCarthy act in Maryland called the Ober Law, which involved another petition campaign. So, since I had had experience in running a petition campaign in North Carolina, they asked me if I would come and do the petition campaign in Maryland. So, I did go over and work there and we did get it on the ballot in Maryland. Incidentally, the Marylanders voted for that Ober Law.
What was it called?
Ober Law, named I suppose for the person who introduced it in the legislature. So, in the course of the petition campaign, I got an inquiry from one of my friends in Washington about whether I would like to go to work for the Czech Embassy, the Czech Ambassador needed to have an English speaking secretary. They had Czech workers but particularly when he had any kind of press releases or anything, he wanted someone who was able to speak or write correct English. Since I knew that the Ober Law petition campaign was just about over and that I was going to need another job, I got a friend who had worked on the Progressive party, she had worked in Philadelphia on the convention . . . .
Edith Pratt?
No, Kay Lutz was her name, and I knew that she did not have a job at the time, so I asked her if she would be willing to take over that campaign and I asked the people in Maryland if they were willing to make this switch. It made sense since it was almost over. So, I left there and went to work for the Czech Embassy.
What was that experience like for you?
It was a really wonderful experience for me, because I had no knowledge
at all of the Eastern European people and when I worked . . . the State
Department has what they call a Blue Book that lists all the employees
in the Diplomatic Service below the top echelon. By being listed in the
Blue Book, that meant that anybody who wanted to invite me to a
diplomatic party would know how to reach me and the Eastern European
countries did. So, one is apt to think about the caviar at the November
party of the Soviet Union.
Were you able to settle back into Washington and have a good . . .
Yes.
I mean, you had been working very hard for the years preceding that, about six or so years.
Yes. I had been in and out of Washington with these jobs, so that I still had this . . .it's like in Greensboro, you know, except that most of my contemporaries are now gone in Greensboro, but there is still a basis of feeling at home there and I felt at home in Washington. I had an apartment, you see, the one that I was talking about having found after I came up from North Carolina, and it was a good apartment.
How did you feel about what had preceded? I mean, did you sort of have good feelings about the Progressive party and the Wallace effort and your participation in it? Was that overriding, or were you sort of . . . were you ever down about what had happened? Was it personally strengthening or was it a damaging thing personally?
The whole experience has been strengthening for me and I'll make a
statement about that. But . . .oh, there was something else I was going
to say before I said that and I've forgotten, but beginning with my
activity in the trade union movement in New York in the thirties and my
contact with all of these various things, I didn't do any of it for
financial reasons or self-aggrandizement, but the whole experience has
made a difference
Well, you outlined the rest of the time that you spent in Washington and then you had this accident which just really . . . .
A triple basal skull fracture, I had. I was picked up off the street on the sixth of December and I don't remember anything, I had amnesia, until New Year's Eve in 1949 . . .or 1950. I remember that people came by on their way to a New Year's party to see me at the hospital. That was my first memory for a month. It was a very serious accident. The Czechs were simply wonderful to me and they kept my job for me and when it was deemed that it would be good for me to try to work again, they made work that wouldn't be too much for me to try to do and so forth.
But your recovery from that was sort of long lasting, I mean it took quite a while to recover.
It was very serious. I had so many EEG's. I hope that you know what an
EEG is, it is a way of measuring one's brain functioning and I
Then, for part of that recovery you went to Europe?
Yes, that's right. I went to Europe because I had some good friends in Washington, the Hydes, who had been very active in the Progressive party. They had gone to Georgia to work with my sister Branson on the campaign. Eugenia had shown the good sense to have been born comparitively rich and so, they went to Europe to Switzerland. After they had been there for awhile, they wrote me and said, why didn't I take a really long vacation and come to visit them in Switzerland. This was a serious proposition and they would be glad to have me visit them. In other words, I wouldn't have anything other than my personal expenses. I paid my fare over and so forth. So, that seemed to my sisters and my other friends and me a good idea, because I was still not really capable of working. By that time, I was doing research for the Czechs, getting information that they needed. They would say, "Prague wants to know about this or that," and I knew enough about Washington to know who to call up and go about finding things. So, I went to Switzerland and by the time I got there, they decided that they would go down to the Riviera, to Antibes, where their friend Charlie Adamson had a villa. So, they went down to stay there and visit him and I went along with him and they got a villa not very far away and in the course of time, why Charlie and I got married.
What was he like, what did he do for a living? Was he American?
He was from Georgia, which meant that we had the same southern
How did he end up in Europe?
He ended up in Europe by the fact that his father had died and even
though he had gone bust in the Depression, there was still a certain
amount of the estate that was left to be settled. Charlie had two
sisters and he turned in and settled the estate and after he got that
settled, he decided to take the money and . . .when he was in college at
the University of Pennsylvania, he had spent summer vacations abroad.
They had been rich enough so that he could go to France and spend the
summer and so he had
How long were you married?
We were married from 1951 to 1964.
Did you come back to the States?
Yes, because his money began to run out and I had
[END OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE B]
You received ten thousand dollars?
Yes, from the '49 accident and by the time I had paid the lawyer and
expenses I had about $8,000. Clifford Durr, Virginia Durr's husband,
Then when you came back to the States, you moved back to Washington?
Yes, because Charlie had a house in Georgetown which he had subleased while he had gone to Europe. I had kept my apartment, I had subleased it and so it was a logical place for us to come back to.
And then you started working in 1957 for the National Council
I had a very uneven work effort. That's the McCarthy era, if you know about that era, it was underway and getting jobs in Washington was not easy for one who had had adverse publicity as I had. The same thing was true of Charlie because he had been very active in picketing the White House to try to keep the United States out of the war. You may remember about that. So, it was just very difficult. So, I fortunately had the skills of a stenographer . . .as I say, I never really properly learned shorthand but by that time I had become confident enough in making out about it. I just went to New York and worked for those temporary places because I didn't have a record that I could very well refer to. The years of working for the Czech Embassy in the McCarthy era, that was not a good recommendation. Working for the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, on the Committee for North Carolina, they were not what you would call sound recommendations.
How did you react to that? Were you angry?
I was angry and I was scared, because the FBI wouldn't let me keep a job. One calendar year I had fourteen different jobs. They wouldn't let me keep a job at all.
Do you mean that they would go to the place where you were working and . . . .
That's right.
Were they following you all this time?
They must have been. I wasn't aware of it but they must have
Your employer would suddenly come in and tell you . . . .
My employer would come in and the usual thing, I remember a couple of them would say, "How long did you work for Lippman?" I would know that this was it. They would ask me something that they had no other way of knowing about it at all.
Did many of your friends have the same experience of losing jobs like that?
I'm sure they did, but I was not in any position to be pursuing my interest in social problems at that time, because I had to have a job and it took all that I was capable of doing to manage.
So, it turned into an individual experience for you rather than one that you could share with people who were in the same situation? I mean other than the closeness that you had with your husband, who was . . .
Charlie was very loyal and very helpful, although he was running to the end of his financial resources, too.
It was an experience that was difficult to share with anyone or to get support for?
That's right. There again, my friends didn't have jobs to give me and other people were not able to. I got jobs through personal contacts, but there again, those people, when the FBI would come to see them they were not willing to make an issue.
Were you ever angry enough that you wanted to have the whole thing fought through, to defend yourself?
Yes, I would have liked to, but you fortunately, were not old
There was no network through which you could begin to think about staging any kind of counter offensive?
No, you asked me about it and I had good legal advice and people were very helpful to me, but there just wasn't . . . .
Did Clifford Durr continue to help you? Had he been involved in defending you earlier?
Well, I didn't ask him about trying to bring charges against Bentley. I guess that perhaps it was a defeatist attitude at that time because McCarthyism was so rampant that it just seemed that what one had to do was figure out a survival scheme.
Have you been following the recent evolution of Alger Hiss's case?
No, I haven't really. I'm interested in it. When I was working for
Lippman, I told you about my office, it was over the garage and I found
out later in the course of his case that he lived across the street from
there. I never knew him and Whitaker Chambers had lived in the apartment
that I lived in in New York before I moved into it. I never knew him.
That's how life goes.
Well, after this year of sporadic jobs, temporary employment, you had a long tenure with the National Council of Churches.
I did. I went to employment agencies and at the time, I've forgotten why, it was just the appropriate time, I guess, but I had worked enough to get references of sorts in the offices of people for whom I had done short term jobs, people I had know, a lawyer in Washington and had done some work with Harold and so forth. Enough that I had a skeleton reference business that I could use. One of those resumes was probably made up at that time. So, I decided that I would just barge right into the employment agencies. So, I went around and registered at the agencies and interestingly enough, when I got the job at the National Council, I also had applications in at two other employment agencies and I think that I could have had the job at either of them. One of them was the American Bible Society and the other was the Salvation Army, which would have been interesting jobs, both of them. The other one was the National Council of Churches and the National Council, I thought, was the most interesting one. There were wonderful people there. I would guess, it would seem logical, that the FBI must have been to see them as far as I was concerned, but they must have known about what the legal rights were . . .the whole thing, you were asking me about it. They never once said anything to me about it and it's not logical to me that the FBI did not go there, but they had their attornies or whatever consider about it and that was it. About the other two, the American Bible Society and the Salvation Army, I don't know if the same thing would have been true there or not, but it gave me quite a perspective about the society.
What type of work did you do for them? You were with them for twelve years?
Thirteen years, yes. I worked for nine years as a secretary to a woman who was the . . .I've forgotten exactly what her title was, but anyway, she was the associate director, that's what it amounted to, of the division that at that time was called Foreign Missions. So, I was interested in the contact with the overseas places and so forth and so on. So, I worked with her until she decided to go back to her own denomination, the Baptists in Valley Forge, and by that time I had acquired tenure in the National Council and by that time, "mission" had become a dirty word in religious circles and the name of the division was changed to the Division of Overseas Ministries. I went to work as a research assistant to the director of the division, where I stayed until the time that I had the second accident.
So, this was a way . . .you were in interesting work and you could channel some of your social interests and concern?
That's right, I could channel my interests there and it was not a way to get rich, but the Council made a point of trying to pay the going wages and knew exactly what your rights were, how much vacation and all. It was not a matter of this rat race of trying to beat the system on the New York job market. So, I was very happy and had expected to stay there until I reached retirement until the second accident came along.
And then in the course of recovering from that you moved to California?
In the course of . . .well, I'm still not recovered from it, you will
notice on the door my cane that I walk with. In the course of that, it
was too difficult for me to get around in New York City, going up and
down stairs in the subway, for instance, it was just very difficult. I
So then you came to the Bay Area . . . .
I lived in Santa Rosa, which was a little bit larger town than
Sebastopol, where Wright and Arla lived and I hadn't been able to find
an apartment in Sebastopol and I lived in Santa Rosa for four or five
years. I decided that life would be more interesting living closer to a
metropolitan
Now, is the main organization that you are involved with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom?
Yes, and I'm very active in the farm workers union. I'm not in any way
affiliated with them, I'm just a volunteer. I've been out half a dozen
times getting signatures on the initiative that is coming out on the
ballot. I have a date to go out canvassing with them tomorrow and I went
to church last week and got two petitions signed.
Although, from the number of times the phone has been ringing, you're
still . . .
Well, thank you so much.
END OF INTERVIEW