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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with L. Worth Harris, June 11, 1980. Interview H-0164. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Weathering the Depression

When the Depression hit, Harris told his employees that hard times were ahead. The employees, with no choice but to work for little or no pay, stayed on, and the company weathered the crisis.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with L. Worth Harris, June 11, 1980. Interview H-0164. 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

ALLEN TULLOS:
That was early in the Depression, which was a pretty hard time to start things, wasn't it?
L. WORTH HARRIS:
Yes, sir, there wasn't but one way to go at that time, and that was go up. It was just about as bad as it could get, I guess. In fact, when the banks closed, I called our people together, the employees we had, and told them the situation we were in. We didn't have much money up there, but what little bit we had was tied up, and that we had two alternatives: either to quit, or they was going to have to work a while till we could get it straightened out. And each one of them-we didn't have that many-said they didn't have any place to go, and as long as they could eat they'd be right there working. So we did not lose any of our people.