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Oral History Interview with Dock E. Hall, January 7, 1976. Interview H-0271. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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  • Abstract
    Dock Hall's working life spanned a number of southern industries, including lumber, furniture, and mining. Hall focuses on mining in this interview, describing his work underground as a chucker (in which his task was to keep another miner's equipment cool with water), and above ground in a stamping mill, extracting valuable minerals from pieces of rock. While he and others preferred better-paying mine work to textile work, work in the mines could mean long hours and unpleasant conditions. As one of relatively few interviews in this collection that focus on mining, this selection should be of use to researchers interested in issues concerning that industry, ranging from daily routines to deadly accidents.
    Excerpts
  • Sawmill work
  • Description of a mill house
  • Father and mother split parenting duties, including corporal punishment
  • Work as a chucker in a mine, cooling off drills when they became hot
  • Shifts and racial preference at a mine
  • Work in a stamp mill
  • Labor laws in the mining business
  • Deadly accidents at a mine
  • Choosing mine work over textile work
  • Learn More
  • Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
  • Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
  • Subjects
  • Furniture workers--North Carolina
  • Eldorado (N.C.)--Social life and customs
  • 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.