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Excerpt from

Oral History Interview with Nell Putnam Sigmon, December 13, 1979. Interview H-0143. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)

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Changing standards of behavior for young women

Sigmon describes what single life had been like for her before she married and contrasts that to the way she sees young women acting at the time of the interview.

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About this Excerpt

Interviewer	Jacquelyn Hall
Interviewee	Nell Putnam Sigmon
Excerpt Length	0:01:34
Start Time	00:14:58
Stop Time	00:16:32
Subjects	General > ASPECTS OF POPULAR CULTURE > Social Gatherings: Private Southern Women > GENDER AND GENDER RELATIONS > Challenges to Gender Norms Southern Women > GENDER AND GENDER RELATIONS > Female Gender Identity Southern Women > FAMILY AND DOMESTIC SPHERE > Adolescence and Teen Experiences
Excerpt People	Sigmon, Clinton

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Nell Putnam Sigmon, December 13, 1979. Interview H-0143. 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

JACQUELYN HALL:: Did you find that you were better satisfied?
NELL PUTNAM SIGMON:: Well, yes, in lots of ways. I think a girl at twenty-seven, she's pretty settled anyway. Or I was. In fact, I had several friends that was married that I worked with, and I don't know; I just was a settled type of girl.
JACQUELYN HALL:: What do you mean by "settled"?
NELL PUTNAM SIGMON:: Well, I don't know. I just didn't go a lot, and I stayed around home. Nothing but the church work, is all, and my girlfriends would come in and spend the weekend with me or something like that. We'd go to church together. I'd go spend the night with them on Saturday night and go to church with them. That was about all there was to do around here during the War.
JACQUELYN HALL:: Would you sit up and talk at night?
NELL PUTNAM SIGMON:: Yes. And one of their brothers played the piano. Oh, he was really good. We'd play the piano and sing. Girls didn't do like they do now, get out and drink and all that. You know, the girls are so different.
JACQUELYN HALL:: You think the girls are a lot different now?
NELL PUTNAM SIGMON:: Oh, yes, indeed. Why, we didn't drink or smoke or anything like that. Of course, there might have been some that did back then, but I just didn't go with that type of girls.