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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Evelyn Gosnell Harvell, May 27, 1980. Interview H-0250. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Fear of unions

Harvell was afraid of "that union," she recalls, it seems because she had heard about violent strikes. She was never interested in joining one.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Evelyn Gosnell Harvell, May 27, 1980. Interview H-0250. 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:
About the time you got married, they had some of these strikes and things here in the mills, the unions and the …
EVELYN GOSNELL HARVELL:
I remember that, but I wasn't in that in any way. I don't …
ALLEN TULLOS:
What do you remember, just pictures and things that you heard from that time?
EVELYN GOSNELL HARVELL:
I thought it was terrible. I was scared. No, I didn't have anything to do with that. I don't know much about the strikes. I don't fool with that union, either. I'm scared of it.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Do you remember any people trying to come around and get people to join the union?
EVELYN GOSNELL HARVELL:
Yes, they'd stand at the gate down there and hand you cards out.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Do you remember the National Guard coming in any time?
EVELYN GOSNELL HARVELL:
I wasn't working during that time, but I remember when it happened and all, yes.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Did your father and mother ever say anything about unions?
EVELYN GOSNELL HARVELL:
No, back in them days there wasn't any union that I know anything about. No, they never said anything about unions. All this happened after they had left.