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Oral History Interview with Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson, November 5, 1974. Interview G-0005. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

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Class and religious background of YWCA workers

Industrial secretaries tended to emerge from the middle class and were college-educated. Anderson mentions the outside perception that the YWCA sacrificed its religiosity for liberal causes.

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About this Excerpt

Interviewer	Mary Frederickson
Interviewee	Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson
Excerpt Length	0:00:00
Start Time	00:00:00
Stop Time	00:00:00
Subjects	Piedmont Industrialization > WORKING PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES > Religion and Working Communities Southern Women > WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS > Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) Southern Women > WOMEN'S MOVEMENTS > Race and Class Divisions

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Eleanor Copenhaver Anderson, November 5, 1974. Interview G-0005. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Full Text of the Excerpt

MARY FREDERICKSON:: What was the background of most of the industrial secretaries? Did they tend to be middle class women who had gone to college?
ELEANOR COPENHAVER ANDERSON:: Yes. Very few up from the ranks, but a few. They were very strict on college education, I think. The Y. For their secretaries, yes.
MARY FREDERICKSON:: How strict were they on religious background?
ELEANOR COPENHAVER ANDERSON:: I don't think they were ever strict, but what do you mean?
MARY FREDERICKSON:: I mean did you have to be very christian. . .?
ELEANOR COPENHAVER ANDERSON:: No, I don't think so. But in some of the famous fights there were questions of whether we were religious enough. We had a great many fights. When the Y was attacked as being too pro-labor and too liberal. Lois isa wonderful source. But doesn't she come up here.