Fond memories of mill work and mill town life
Contradicting some of the horror stories about mill work in the South, Durham remembers a good life as a child laborer in a cotton mill. Her boss maintained a quiet work environment.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Flossie Moore Durham, September 2, 1976. Interview H-0066. 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
- BRENT GLASS:
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Do you remember your first day at work and what your job was?
- FLOSSIE MOORE DURHAM:
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At the mill?
- BRENT GLASS:
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Yes.
- FLOSSIE MOORE DURHAM:
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Yes, it was spinning.
- BRENT GLASS:
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At ten years old?
- FLOSSIE MOORE DURHAM:
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Yes. That's all I could have done. I weren't but ten years old. All the
little ones, they'd put them to spinning, you see, or something like
that. But now that weren't a bad life. We had a real good life over
there on the hill. Every house was filled, and the people was all
friendly and they was all nice. And Mr. Luther Bynum was looking
after it, and he wouldn't have anybody over there
that drank. Anybody got drinking, they left there right now. Didn't have
no drinking and cutting up over there. Things was kept quiet and nice.
And it was a good place over there to live.
