Residents' behavior, not their wealth, determined their social ranking
Holt explains that social status and acceptability depended on residents' behavior rather than on their economic class.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Nancy Holt, October 27, 1985. Interview K-0010. 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
- FRANCES E. WEBB:
-
Is there sort of a class scheme around here, do you sort of think
there's a …
- NANCY HOLT:
-
No, I think there's a behavior scheme. I don't
think class has anything to do with it. I think it's, your
social acceptability, is based on your behavior. If you go out and get
drunk on Saturday night and raise hell, then you're not as
acceptable as if you went to the ice cream supper
[Laughter] . And there have been
members of my family, other family people in the community that - they
were tolerated. But not socially acceptable. And I did not feel, being
at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, I really did not feel a great
class difference.
