Role of women in the furniture industry
Flake Meyers discusses the role of women in the furniture-making industry. According to Meyers, many women worked with him at the Southern Desk Company, especially during and after World War II, and he describes the kinds of tasks they were assigned. As Meyers recalls, women worked closely with the machinery used to make furniture.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Flake and Nellie Meyers, August 11, 1979. Interview H-0133. 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
- PATTY DILLEY:
-
Were there any women working in the furniture plants at all back in those
days?
- FLAKE ORAN MEYERS:
-
Way back then when I was working with Mr. Barker [Conover Furniture]. We
worked a lot of women there at the Southern Desk Company.
- PATTY DILLEY:
-
What kinds of jobs would they have?
- FLAKE ORAN MEYERS:
-
Tailingthe big machines, the tenon machines and
panel sizer, running the band saw.And then the
heavy stuff, there'd be two women do it back then, lifting and all.
Or run and get the operator; he'd pull it around.
A lot of times a woman would run the machines. I'd set it up for them.
Lots of women worked in there.
- PATTY DILLEY:
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Maybe women came in during the War and after the War?
- FLAKE ORAN MEYERS:
-
Yes. That's really when women got started working in furniture, during
the War, when there were so many that had to go in service. That's the
reason they put them on the jobs.
