Listen Online with Text Transcript (Requires QuickTime and JavaScript)

HTML file

XML/TEI source file

MP3

Underdown family furniture companies succeed under Parks Underdown

Underdown admires Richard Nixon as a visionary

Parks Underdown had little money left after a streak of financial mishaps

Admiration of grandmother's fortitude in the face of harsh circumstances and age

Regret that the street named after the Underdown family has a reputation for crime

Working for family paper company as a young teenager

Underdown's father died from an electric shock in a factory elevator

Ministerial background helps Underdown succeed in the furniture industry

Underdown family members helped each other in their businesses

Many men look outside Lenoir when courting

An employee loses her health working in Parks Underdown's cigar factory

A supervisor at Hickory Springs Furniture company struggles with a drinking habit

Learning machinery technique to avoid reliance on only one skilled employee

Hickory Springs company faces financial difficulties in the 1940s

No employees were hurt in a fire at one of the Hickory Springs furniture plants

Segregation persists in the Hickory Springs plant until after the 1951 fire

Unions did not try to organize Hickory Springs because of its integrated staff

Hickory Springs prospers thanks to Parks Underdown and several managers

Interview I-0091, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection

Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews

Furniture industry and trade--Southern States--History--20th century

Hickory Springs Manufacturing Company

Underdown, Sidney Leneer (Pete)