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Oral History Interview with Naomi Sizemore Trammel, March 25, 1980. Interview H-0258. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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  • Abstract
    Naomi Sizemore Trammel grew up in the country but found it necessary to move to a nearby mill town at the age of ten when her parents died and she and her older sister had to support themselves. Trammel began a lifetime of textile mill labor in the spinning room of Victor Mill in Greer, South Carolina. She describes her experiences there and at two other mills before she left the working world at mid-century. Trammel began work as a child, but her job did not prevent her from having fun. In fact, for the duration of her employment in the mill industry, she recalls working at a comfortable pace and finding time for recreation. This interview offers a modicum of insights into mill work in early twentieth-century South Carolina and one mill worker's experience of some of the formative events of the era, including the Great Depression and the 1918 influenza epidemic.
    Excerpts
  • Working in the spinning room of a textile mill
  • A child loses his finger in a textile mill machine
  • A look onto the textile mill floor and recollections of fun moments
  • Description of box suppers
  • Casual work environment at a textile mill
  • The Depression hits hard
  • Memories of a strike
  • Mill owners pushed their employees to ramp up production
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  • Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
  • Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
  • Subjects
  • Greenville (S.C.)--Social life and customs
  • Women in the textile industry
  • Textile workers--North Carolina--Health and hygiene
  • Children--Employment--South Carolina
  • The Southern Oral History Program transcripts presented here on Documenting the American South undergo an editorial process to remove transcription errors. Texts may differ from the original transcripts held by the Southern Historical Collection.

    Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this title.