Vesta travels to New York City with the union
Following her time at the summer school, Vesta and some other women from Marion, North Carolina, went to New York to speak to the unions there about labor conditions in the Piedmont South. She tells some more about the trip a few minutes later.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Vesta and Sam Finley, July 22, 1975. Interview H-0267. 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
And too, I went to New York and stayed . . .
well, all around over there. This one girl that they had; her husband
was shot down. And so I went to New York. We sold buttons and books and
made speeches all over New York and in Philadelphia. First place I went
in Philadelphia, we got off the train and they took us to Union Hall.
There were fifteen hundred people gathered there to hear us talk. What
country ignorant girls know. . . . Though they stood and clapped and
made you feel so good, you know
[laughter]
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
When would this have been? What year was this?
- VESTA FINLEY:
-
That was 1930.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
So that was right after the strike in Marion?
- VESTA FINLEY:
-
Well yes. That was when I was in school, after I finished and
went through the Southern School.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
Oh, I see.
- VESTA FINLEY:
-
Women Working In Industry. So I went to New York; we was up there six
weeks. And I went up to New Jersey. And they wanted us to go on to
Massachusetts, but this lady I went with, her husband got killed and she
was under a real nervous strain. She wanted to come back, so we came
back.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
What was her name?
- VESTA FINLEY:
-
Cora Hall.
