Poor conditions of mill-owned worker houses
Zelma and Charles Murray talk about living in mill-owned housing without attached kitchens or running water.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Zelma Montgomery Murray, March 4, 1976. Interview H-0034. 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
- ZELMA MONTGOMERY MURRAY:
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Charlie, I've heard your mother say that when these houses were built
they was just fields. There was no kitchen out here, and she said that
the kitchen was built off.
- CHARLES MURRAY:
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It was just a four room house: two down and two up.
- ZELMA MONTGOMERY MURRAY:
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I've heard her tell about going down the steps and going out to the
kitchen in the snow early one morning and all.
- BRENT GLASS:
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To get a fire started?
- ZELMA MONTGOMERY MURRAY:
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When the children were little.
- CHARLES MURRAY:
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Oh, the kitchen was off about as far as to the end of the kitchen here to
the kitchen where the door was.
- BRENT GLASS:
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And where was your bathroom?
- CHARLES MURRAY:
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No, didn't have one.
- BRENT GLASS:
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Out of doors?
- CHARLES MURRAY:
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Ain't one in here now.
- BRENT GLASS:
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Still?
- CHARLES MURRAY:
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There's just one or two houses that've got it.
- BRENT GLASS:
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Indoor plumbing?
- CHARLES MURRAY:
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That's right. I don't see how they got by with it; look like the State
Board of Health would have come in and made them do something about
it.