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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview B-0012, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Born in 1887, Ernest Seeman grew up in Durham, North Carolina, as the American
Tobacco Company grew to dominate the tobacco industry. Seeman begins with an
overview of his family history. Although his father had migrated to North
Carolina from Canada shortly before settling in Durham, his mother's ancestors
had lived and farmed in the area since the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries. Seeman describes briefly what it was like to grow up in Durham during
the late nineteenth century. Around the turn of the twentieth century, Seeman
left school to go to work for his father. In 1885, Seeman's father established
Seeman Printery, and the younger Seeman spent his adolescence learning the
family trade with his brothers. During the early twentieth century, the Seeman
Printery worked closely with the Duke family, particularly one of Buck Duke's
associates, C. W. Toms. Through several anecdotes about his father's business
transactions, Seeman offers some interesting insights into the rise of the
American Tobacco Company and its relationship to the community. Seeman describes
the transition of the printery as it evolved from a small establishment to a
larger, mechanized business. Eventually, the Seemans employed more than fifty
printers. Ernest Seeman assumed control of Seeman Printery in 1917 and ran it
until 1923. Two years later he was hired as the head of Duke Press, where he
worked until 1934. During his time at Duke Press, Seeman helped to found the
Explorer's Club and worked closely with students. By the end of his tenure at
Duke Press, Seeman had cultivated a reputation as a radical on campus and was
forced to resign following his support of Duke students who lampooned the
University dean and president and participated in an uprising in support of
labor activism. Shortly thereafter, Seeman moved to New York before settling in
Tumbling Creek, Tennessee. Seeman devoted much of the rest of his days to
writing, and published his novel American Gold (referred to as
Tobacco Town in this interview) just before his death in
1979.
Ernest Seeman offers a critical assessment of life in Durham, North Carolina, during the late nineteenth century. Seeman spent his early career as a printer, first as his father's apprentice and later as sole proprietor of the Seeman Printery, and he discusses interactions between his family and the Duke family. In addition, Seeman explains his increasing radicalization as head of the Duke Press from 1925 to 1934, and briefly discusses his decision to become a writer in later years.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
When were you born, and where were you born?
I was born on Jackson Street over in the eastern part of Durham, North Carolina.
When were you born?
November 13, 1887.
Can you tell me a little bit about your mother and father, and a little bit about your grandparents?
My mother was a poor country girl from Greensboro, North Carolina, and she had just a reading and writing education. But she was not literary. She was a farmer; she was very able. And she was very devoted to her family and my father and hard work. He looked up to her to look after the home. He had bought several acres (about four, I think) from Fred Gerr; Fred Gerr had inherited a lot of land from the Civil War. And land was very cheap then: it was thirteen cents an acre after the Civil War in Durham. And he had a Negro mistress; he'd pass our house every morning in his buggy going to see his woman down in east Durham. This fretful old horse, he plowed and rode around with it, and he finally shot his brains out when he got unprofitable. He was a heartless old man.
Now, when did your father come to this country?
My father was born in Canada.1 And he
was a fine vehicle manufacturer: made Victorias and surreys and all that
for the rich people. He had been trained in Germany;2 he had to go around like a Methodist preacher,
and
This is your grandfather?
Yes.
OK. And what was his name?
Heinrich Frederick Ernst Seeman. So he came over to this country and stopped at a boarding house in New York, and fell in love with the boarding house keeper's daughter (French). And they went away to Canada and got married, and raised quite a family and prospered. He did good work. And his son was John.
Who was your father?
Yes. His son was John Seeman;3 he was the one that was going to beat Brodie Duke up—took off his coat . . . He did the wagons and heavy work, and they had an old Negro (a yellow Negro) named Nathan who was the blacksmith. That's all there was in the carriage factory. But I can still smell the smell of paint and blacksmith's smells. And they were beating iron to put into these fine vehicles.
How did your father come from Canada to North Carolina?
Well, let me collect my wits. He had asthma, and the cold weather didn't
agree with him (he liked it warm and sunny). And he had been rooked; he
traded with a rascal who came up there after the Civil War and offered
to swap his farm for his farm. Why, he had a carriage factory on it, and
he had a good farm and was doing well. And this scoundrel took over.
Was that in Durham? Or was he still in Greensboro?
This begins his printing career. So he got a job for a year with not a cent of pay, not even a circus ticket (they gave away circus tickets, but somebody else got them all). But he stuck to it, and he was a good printer's stock: he was careful and he liked printing, and he became a master printer. His employees gave him a leather watch fob one time (had a jeweler make it). H. E. Seeman: Master Printer.5
Then did he start his own company?
Well, he went over to Henderson, North Carolina and got some more practice. And then he came back to Durham and rented a room up over Proctor's Grocery Store, and called it "Seeman's Printing Room."
What street was that on?
It was on Roxboro Street. The Proctors were prominent grocers there and landowners; they were the leading foodhandlers there for the young city.
Had he met your mother by this time?
My mother had come down from Greensboro as a raw country girl
Was he your Sunday school teacher?
No, we were Presbyterians.
Oh, that's right; OK.
He was a big Methodist, and he was using that for . . . a weapon. He was a big spender, a big strutter, always thinking of Jule Carr, but he was generous too. You could always go to General Carr and get a contribution for most anything. He came from over in Chatham County, over that a way.
How was he using the church as a weapon?
Well, he was going to build a church with the highest steeple in town. So he had an architect design a very tall steeple that you could see for miles out in the country to say, "That's Jule Carr's church." And I used to have to walk around from Aunt Ada's house on Cleveland Street around to that churchyard, and there were the old graves of the former church before the steeple was built. On the day of a funeral in the afternoon, you could hear the donging of the morning bells way out in the country too.
Could you hear the Bull Durham whistle?
Oh, the Bull factory, when they first started up (Blackwell's factory it was then). But Blackwell went broke and Carr let him down and took over. Oh, I believe that was Buck Duke's outfit, when they put on the Indian war whoop. They had a whistle constructed to wake the hands up; it was supposed to whoop like an Indian. It was a ferocious thing; it'd wake everybody up, you know, in the morning.
How'd they ever think that up, to make the whistle sound like a whooping Indian?
I don't know. "who-o-o-o-o, who-o-o-o-o" it was shrieking off and on. That would wake up the cotton mills. Brodie Duke had a Pearl mill near my house: a stinking mill village, terrible wages—named for one of his daughters, Pearl.6
Your mother worked with your Aunt Ada as a milliner?
Yes. She was quick with her fingers; she caught right on.
And had their family been in North Carolina for long?
Oh, he was the ruling elder in the Presbyterian church on Battleground Road—that's where Cornwallis and some other general fought in the Revolution. And that became a main artery to Greensboro from the west. And old Buffalo Church had been started there long ago, And he had had slaves.
Who is he?
My grandfather. [Albright]
Your mother's father?
Yes. He got me to disdaining him, because when he was visiting us down in
Durham (which he did now and then), there was nothing he liked to tell
about better than whipping women slaves. He just reveled in it. And
How did you feel when he told you that he whipped his slaves, his women slaves, when you were a boy and heard him tell stories?
Oh, I just fumed inside; I didn't argue with him. I didn't like it; I didn't like him—it made me hate him.
When did your mother's family first come to North Carolina?
Oh, we've got a little book at home. A woman at North Carolina had to do a dissertation,8 and she chose the Albright family for his dissertation. Elizabeth's [Ernest's wife] got the book at home in the library. All the old castles on the Rhine that the Albrights used to have . . . Albrecht-Durer, that's where he got his name.
Is that your mother's family or your father's family?
My mother's family, the Albrights.
And when did they come to this country?
Oh, way back.
In the seventeen hundreds?
Yes.
Earlier?
Sixteen hundreds or early seventeen hundreds, I should say.
Did they come down from New York to North Carolina, or what?
Yes, I think they generally did. Philadelphia, that was the landing place, and then they would journey south on horseback, most generally.
Now, about your own education: where did you go to school as a boy, and how many years of schooling?
Well, I was always interested in reading, and I began to read very early and look at picture books.9 And they'd have a time putting me to bed at night; I'd be sitting up at a little card table writing a story and illustrating it, about how he lost his tail and so forth. And my mother'd have to come and rouse me off to bed; I was staying up too late (I had a regular bedtime). Then I began to read Uncle Remus and Joel Chandler Harris.
Where did you go to school?
Well, Miss Ida Thompson, a Baptist old maid, very strict and a very fine old lady, she had had a college education, I think (or something equal to one). She became a schoolteacher, and was accepted by the county board of education and sent out to Geer's school (old man Fred Geer owned this place). He owned a lot of land: owned the Negro cemetery.
Did you tell me that C. W. Toms,10 who became the president of the American Tobacco Company was the superintendent of schools and your fourth grade teacher?
At first you had to pay to go to school inside the corporation; my father had to pay to send me to a public school in Durham.
How much did he have to pay?
So that's when C.W. Toms came along. Had to pay extra, but he wanted us to have a good education so he tried to give us a good chance. My father took me to see Ms. Jordan, the first grade teacher.
Excuse me. Can you tell me about what you remember about C.W. Toms?
OK. Toms was then superintendent. He took me down to see Ms. Jordan. He said, "I've got a new pupil here for you." So she sat me down at a desk and began to test me on "cat and rat and Ned and Ted." And I cried; I was insulted, because I was reading heavy stuff by that time.
Was this in the 1890s?
Yes.
OK.
Then Mr. Toms came down and took me by the hand. He was an astute man; he knew about where I belonged from my reading and all. So he took me to the fourth grade and set me down there; he said, "This is where your desk is going to be." And then I began to meet some real teachers: Miss Bessie Battle.
What kind of things had you been reading on your own as a boy? I think earlier you mentioned to me that you had been reading Gorky's autobiography.
I was reading everything from Shakespeare down: all the books I could find around the house. At those times E.P. Roe was a prominent novelist, and
Did you also read Gorky and Rousseau, or was that at another time?
Yes, I some took to poetry, and poetry took to me. And Ernest Thompson
Seaton came into my life; about that time I discovered The
Raggety Lobe and The Lone Boy and the Wolf .
. .
Can you tell me what you remember about Toms when you were young, and what kind of a man he was?
So Mr. Toms one of us became the other's protégé. I admired him greatly;
and my father admired him greatly because about that time Duke heard
that Toms was preaching against cigarettes on the blackboards. "Well,
this will never do, Buck. We've got to stop this." And they were on the
school board, of course. So Duke went to Toms. He had five or
Did you ever ask your old teacher Toms who told you that smoking was very bad, why he changed his mind?
In your novel Tobacco Town, or somewhere else?
Yes, I've been hitting them a knock all the time, because I was against tobacco myself. Toms had convinced me. I tried cigarettes for about a week, and it made a bad taste in my mouth. I never tried them any more, and I never chewed tobacco; never drank liquor. That's why I'm cursed with such long life. You have to take it like it falls.
When did you leave school to begin your working career? How old were you when you left school to begin working?
When I went to the printing office?
Right.
About ten or twelve, I guess.
Yes. I think you told me you were twelve.
Well, my father thought we all were going to have to work, and he was aiming to make a printing factory with three heads to it. That was a bad move: we didn't get along together.
You and your two brothers?
I had two brothers: Wallace and Henry. Wallace was more practical than I was, and he took to the business better. My father sent him to Raleigh to Kings College to learn shorthand and bookkeeping, and he just let me roam in the woods. I wasn't harnessed very well.
But one day when you were a boy, didn't he come to you and tell you it was time to work?
At the breakfast table: that's where he always broke unpleasant news.
What did he say?
Well, I thought it would be all right. That was his orders; I had nothing to do with it.
What did he say to you that morning at the breakfast table?
"Well, it's time you boys were getting to work now. You're going to have
to run this printing office." And they had a big dynamo he had bought.
He had bought a big paper cutter. He went into debt for all these
things. He was personable and people liked him, and he was honest, and
he
Did you tell me that in the 1890s—no, the 1880s—he printed the Bull Durham labels?
Yes. That's what killed him. He had a little tray in his printing office of bronze. He'd take a piece of carton and dip it into bronze and rub it over the printing where it had been printed. The ink would pick up the bronze. He probably designed that (at least part of it), how to make it shine like gold. And it got all in his throat; the doctor said that had a lot to do with it, his lungs.
Was the making of the labels for Bull Durham the major portion of your father's printing business?
Yes. When he landed those big contracts (there were hundreds of thousands, you see, even millions), Duke's mixture was red and black.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
. . . as a printer for the Dukes, afterwards when they bought up Bull Durham. Could you tell me some more about it?
Well, after our connection with C.W. Toms he was a very astute man, a diplomat, and was using us and everybody else for all he was worth. He considered Durham the tobacco company's town. So here comes Mr. Toms one morning to the printing office; comes in the front door, barges into my father's private office (he had a private office, to talk over tricks) and says, "Henry, I want to have a little talk with you." He says, "Come right in, Mr. Toms." And they go in and close the door; everybody wonders what this great man with the gold walking cane that Mr. Duke had given him (his favorite stooges, he always gave them a golden-headed walking cane—that was a badge of authority) . . .
Was this Washington Duke? Or which Duke gave them the walking canes?
That was Buck Duke. Buck Duke gave it to them; Washington Duke was out of it by this time. Washington Duke was an old man living with his sister-in-law, Miss Annie Roney, up in front of the college.
And so Mr. Toms was in the office with your father?
Yes.
What did he come to say?
He says, "Look here on this New York paper, it's telling all about the smallpox in Durham." We had smallpox regularly there, from the Negroes' filth. He says, "This won't do at all; it's hurting our tobacco business. I want you to help me curb it. You write a piece for the paper and say that's all a mistake, and it ain't near as bad as it's pictured, and it's been played up." So Ed Rollins and Joe King owned the newspapers, the morning and evening newspapers.
What were the papers' names?
The Durham Morning Herald and the Evening
Sun. And the Durham Morning Herald belonged
to Ed Rollins and Joe King, and they had a printing office in their
office in the Main Street Pharmacy. And their presses were rolling down
there printing the newspapers. And the Durham Daily
Sun had been started long before any of them, and it had a picture
of the sun. And they were up over one of the hardware stores, upstairs.
And the man that owned that was an alcoholic, so his wife (a school
teacher) had to do most of the newspaper work.
So did your father write the article that Mr. Toms wanted him to write?
Yes. He went around to see these two entrepreneurs, and told them what Toms wanted. And they saw to it right away: it's hurting our town, and this won't do. And he pled for the tobacco people. Rollins hadn't thought about it: he was just thinking of money. He was doing fine, and he didn't give a hoot about Toms or nobody else; he was an independent old Scotchman. And he had a fine house right near our house in north Durham; he was my neighbor.
Had the Durham papers also been printing the news about smallpox, or was it just the New York papers?
These were town papers.
Town papers had been printing this.
Yes.
So did the editors stop printing that after your father went and talked to them?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, he convinced them: you better shut up or Toms will get you.
Now was this in the period before the cigarette rolling machines were bought, when the cigarettes were still rolled by black labor? Were they worried about smallpox among blacks in Durham because the blacks were rolling the cigarettes at that time? Is that what the connection was?
Well, ever since before the Civil War the prominent citizens had made
their living on Negro rentals. My father-in-law,12 for instance, and his father before him, had
been heartless. They thought that was all right. You buy a little old
piece of ground somewhere on a creek or a ditch, or a
But were blacks working in the Durham cigarette factories at the time of the smallpox?
Yes, that's where they were working. They'd come home and go to the factories with the smallpox, and scatter it all over the country.
How old were you when you began to head the press, the printery? Do you remember?
Oh, we had quite a struggle there after my father died; we had a lawsuit and all that stuff. We didn't get along at all. I finally got a lawyer and bought out my two brothers.
Do you remember how old you were, about?
Yes. I was about twenty-two,13 I think.
OK. And then when you began to head the printery, that was the time when you became in contact with the Dukes? Didn't you tell me that you went and had to try to collect some bills?
Yes. Tomlinson Snuff Factory was right next to our printing office, and all day you could hear this grinding and tobacco dust where they were grinding up tobacco stems to make it.
Didn't you have to go and collect the bills from Brodie Duke at one point?
Yes. My Uncle John went there and threatened to beat him up, and he paid
two thousand dollars for his Victoria. Then I took my tip and went to
see him to collect the printing office bill. I figured Uncle John got
his, and I'd go there. He said, "Well, what do you want? Don't you know
I never pay a bill?" "I know one man you paid, my Uncle John." "Oh, are
you a kin to
Who was Bill Bramham?
Bill Bramham was a prominent lawyer, head of the baseball club, and a neighbor of mine. And he liked me.
And was he the secretary to Brodie Duke?
Yes. Sat up on a high stool.
Did your uncle bring or make the first car that was ever in Durham, an old Maxwell?
Yes.
Did he make it?
My uncle and Bob Murray, a music man who sold pianos (had an agency for pianos), they went in and got an agency for the Maxwell car. And it was a big high car (sat up about this high) . . .
About three feet?
. . . and looked like a sewing machine. And he took his sister Rose and her daughter Eunice out for a ride one afternoon, and the thing turned over.
Who bought the first car in Durham? Do you remember?
Yes, I can tell you that. Well, a big crowd of people lined up out on the Roxboro Road, on the road to New York, to see George Lyon and Buck Lyon pass by. They were going to go through the country to New York by car.
Who bought the first car? Was it a Duke who bought the first car?
Let me think. Yes, George Lyon.14 He was a nephew of Buck Duke's and had a lot of money.
I think you also told me that you had other encounters with Duke,
Washington Duke finally got old, and went to live with Miss Ann Roney, the old woman who had kept his children during the Civil War.
His sister-in-law? His wife's sister?
Yes. And they had a mansion, and he was on the upstairs floor. I've been up there with . . .
Called "Fairview"?
. . . print proofs and things. And Miss Ann Roney was a very valiant old lady. That was the connection to Washington Duke.
Do you remember what he was like, or what he said to you when you went to the house that day?
Who? Washington Duke?
Right.
"Here's the proof of your little club program you ordered." And I helped her with it, and the old man just sat over in the corner. He was pretty feeble by then.
Did you tell me that when you were working in the printery, when you were heading the printery, that on Saturday after the factory workers got out some black workers would come by and ask for special printing work? They wanted their poetry printed?
Yes.
Can you tell me about that?
That's interesting. They wanted to have a ballad printed. They were
religious Negroes who would compose a hymn about Moses, Joshua, or
Did they make many copies, or sell many copies of their ballads?
No, that's a long time ago. In the printing office files in Durham (see,
that's still going), Wallace Seeman (who is now head of it) could
probably find some old ballad if you go down there.
Dr. Boyd is from Duke University, he was interested in history, and he was a pretty good scout to find these old pieces. And he was down there one day and saw one of these ballads the Negroes had had printed, and he wanted copies of them. So we gave him copies for his files at Trinity College.15
And did you say he printed them up at Duke?
He took them away to put them in articles, historical articles, Moses and
the bullrushes, or whatever it was they were writing about.
Can we go back a minute? I think you had told me about knowing Ella Fitzgerald when you were young, and her father?
Yes.
Can you tell me a little bit about it?
Sure. Richard Fitzgerald came down from Boston—from Massachusetts
somewhere. He heard about all this big expansion in Durham, and he
figured it would be a good place to sell bricks. So he bought a little
piece of clay down there and opened a brickyard. He was a very handsome
man, a large man, a very capable man. He had several children, and they
were all well-educated. Of course, that was before any liberality
between the races took
For the Duke factories?
Yes. All those big Duke factories came out of these gullies. He used Negro labor.
Did Fitzgerald go one time to see Duke about selling him bricks?
Yes.
Could you tell me about that?
There was a white man, a proud old Southerner named Norton (I knew all his children).
Who was Norton? Did he work for the tobacco company?
Norton was a builder. And this Fitzgerald goes around to Norton's house one morning and knocks on the door. And here comes Norton to the door, all angered at the very idea of a nigger coming to his front door. He said, "Don't you know better than to come to my front door? You go to the back door." "Sorry, Mr. Norton, I don't go to my own back door." So that cost him the contract, a higher price; he lost out.
Who lost out?
Norton.
Was Norton the builder for the Duke factories?
Yes.
And when he insulted Mr. Fitzgerald, then . . . How did he lose out? Tell me how Norton lost out? How did Fitzgerald win?
Well, Fitzgerald was a handsome man and Norton was a shrimp of a man, hot-tempered, southern-based. And he just turned him away and he didn't give him the chance; he had nothing for him.
But did Fitzgerald have all of the clay? I mean, why did he eventually have to buy from Fitzgerald? Why did he have to go back to Fitzgerald?
OK, that was before Ella Fitzgerald was known to have a voice.
But did you tell me her father had trained her as a musician?
And then my mother, in the spring she had three little boys, and she had to have pants and shirts. And she'd get Maria Fitzgerald.
Was that Ella's sister or mother?
Sister: young, handsome, well-educated, discreet and skillful. She was a skillful seamstress.
And she sewed for your mother?
Yes.
You told me another story that I thought was very interesting, about John Merrick, another prominent black man in Durham. Could you tell me a little bit about him, and what you know personally about him?
You through with the Fitzgeralds?
Yes.
He was the barber.
Yes. Can you tell me a little bit about him, what you know of him personally?
John Merrick was very handsome; he was well-dressed, and he ran a barber
shop. And all the rich people came to John Merrick's chair;
How did he get to be such a prominent barber?
Well, he was very smart. He was well-dressed, had a good voice, was full of flattery.
Did you tell me that he acted like a white man, and talked like a white man?
Yes, he had a good voice and he had a good presence.
Was his father white?
And he had several children. He had a wife named Violet Merrick.
Did you tell me that his father was white?
Bound to have been, yes.
Because he was a mulatto?
Yes, he was a mulatto.
But do you know who his father was?
No. Some aristocrat down south, I guess—down about Raleigh.
And this is the man who later went on to head the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company?
Yes.
Can you tell me about that, and how that happened, and his connection with Duke?
So one afternoon to the printing office, here came three men: John
Merrick, Dr. Moore16 (he was a
physician who'd been waiting on colored people there for years, who'd
been to medical college), and a young fellow named Charlie Spaulding,
who was going to be their bookkeeper and tie it together. The first move
they made was to come to the Seeman Printery, and they said,
And Dr. Moore's (the physician's) wife was a beauty doctor; she lived right in front of my mother-in-law, and my mother-in-law would go over there (this proud mother-in-law) to have her hair washed—nothing was too menial for a Negro. And there was no mixing of any kind.
They called them "beauty doctors"?
Yes. Her name was Julia, Julia Moore. She'd make an engagement with Julia to have her hair washed a certain afternoon.
But, now how did John Merrick get the idea (this black barber) to start an insurance company?
"Well," he said, "Mr. Seeman, we're going to start a little insurance company, and Mr. Washington Duke has offered to lend me the money." Of course, he'd charge him plenty. He'd been talking to him in the barber's chair, and he said, "John, you're too good a man, you're too smart a man to be following a barber's trade. Why don't you have something to make some money? Insurance." He said, "What can I start?" He said, "Well, insurance is one of the best things now, and I'll lend you the money."
How much did he lend him? Do you know?
I don't know, but all he needed.
Right; OK.
All he needed—and he'd charge him plenty for it. And he was the founder of all the banks there.
Who? John Merrick or Washington Duke?
Washington Duke.
OK. I'm sorry; I interrupted you, because you were saying that John Merrick came into your office to get the right forms.
Yes, to get his forms.
Didn't you give him the lease?
And upstairs we had a little cupboard where a sample of everything printed was filed away in pigeonholes under numbers. And my father would say, "Ernest, go up there and get me number 3,206." And I'd get it and bring it down and lay it on the desk, and that would be just what he wanted—maybe he'd make some changes in it.
So they became good customers, and we saw they were potential customers for more. Well, we began to work through Spaulding then; he became general manager of the insurance company. And I'd go around on Saturday when I needed a big payroll. "Good morning, Mr. Seeman." (He was very polite). "Come right in." And the secretary would drop her work and pay attention to Mr. Seeman. "How much you going to need this morning?" "Well, Mr. Spaulding, I'm going to need about five thousand dollars, or three thousand dollars." "All right, Miss Maple, draw Mr. Seeman a check for three thousand dollars." She was right on the job and tossed it out.
Where was the black insurance company located in Durham?
On Harris Street, right back of the Fidelity Bank. The Fidelity Bank was
the biggest bank in town, and that was prominent real estate. No white
man would have ever thought of selling a nigger land in the business
section, but my father opened up a new section and Spaulding (or one of
them) asked him, "Where can we locate? We need an office somewhere, and
nobody will sell us any land." Well, there was a little cottage around
on Harris Street,
Did your father sell to him for business reasons, or . . . I mean, it seems unusual (as you say) for, at the time, a white man to sell real estate (prime real estate) to a black man.
Well, he was out to make money (everything was to make money).
Was he afraid of repercussions from the white community?
No. He was a fearless man, and he had great sympathy for the black people.
And also Duke: was it unusual that a white man such as Duke would suggest setting a black man up in a business that later became one of the biggest in Durham?
No: anything to make money
Did Duke eventually get his money back from Merrick?
Oh yes, many times over.
Can you tell me more about this period of your life when you were at the Printery and interested in making money?
Yes; I saw that that wasn't my main like.
No, wait a minute.
Yes, I can tell you a lot about it. I just was sitting around the
fringes, but I saw how insincere it was, and how everybody was
scrambling to get something for himself. There was a man named Reuben
Rink17 (that was his nom de plume) that lived at Kernersville. He had been Buck
Duke's
Did you know him?
I knew his daughter, and nearly married her.
Didn't you also know Bill Erwin's daughter Margaret? Bill Erwin, the man who headed the Erwin Cotton Mills?
Yes. They were very snooty, and thought they were lords of the manor and everybody ought to bow down. She finally married a policeman in Charlotte.
Did you go to their house? Did you ever go to the Erwin mansion calling on the daughter?
Yes, I've been in the mansion.
And did you meet Mr. Erwin?
I don't know; it was unimportant to me. I never had any love for him or any adoration. He was clean out of my world; he was part of the Dukes. And the other cotton mills and the Duke Power Company and all that stuff was simply to grind money out of people any way you could.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Linotype had been invented, and their representative (I forget his name
right now) came down from Brooklyn and sold my father one for ten
thousand dollars—went in the hole for quite a while with payments. But
meantime he turned out the type. And I hung around and watched the
thing, and he put me to work on the machine; he thought that would be a
good spot
On linotype?
On linotype. It had a little dummy keyboard, and I practiced at night in my room and soon became proficient at it; it was interesting. And then he had a man from the factory that came down, and he was quite unscrupulous—I forget his name right now.
Was it old man Whittaker? You were telling me about old man Whittaker, who was the chief typesetter, who wanted a union. Can you tell me about him?
Yes. Old man Whittaker was disgruntled and tired, and he'd worked hard all his life in a printing office. He needed a rest and he wasn't getting it; and he thought he ought to have more money and he wasn't getting it. And Henry Whittaker, his son, raised rabbits, and I bought rabbits from him and started me a rabbit hutch.
Is old man Whittaker the one who wanted a union?
Yes. He was one of the bosses of the union. So he had a quarrel with me; and this fat boy from an orphanage, he wanted him to take my place and run the linotype machine and get the advantage of it. And my father didn't want that to happen; he wanted me to have it. He bought the machine and paid ten thousand dollars; he ought to have a say-so—you can see how the clash . . . And then the strike came on very suddenly and violently. They withdrew and put these ribald signs on the door.
What kind of signs did they put on the door?
Oh, they drew them in the night, you know: "Old man Seeman and his boys are trying to run the town," and I don't know just what all. But pulling fun at him, you know. And he was a hard-working man.
What kind of wages was he paying them? What kind of wages was your father paying these people?
Oh, he was paying good wages; he was paying full union scale.
And how many people were working in the printery about then?
I reckon about fifty.
Did they all go out on strike?
Not quite all, but a good deal of them.
And what did your father do?
He put an ad in the Statesville paper, I think it was, saying he wanted all the hands that he could get (you know, good printers), and we would pay them good wages. And they began to come in; that's when that Robert Patterson came in. He was a good printer and he hung on for several years.
Did your father lock the other workers out? Did your father have a lock-out?
Yes.
Ok. And how did you feel about this strike in the Seeman printery?
Well, I was mixed up. I was trying to straighten out my ideas of right and wrong. From our side that was right; everything we did was right, and everything they did was wrong. But from their side it was different.
But did you feel angry at them? What were your own feelings?
Yes, we'd been very friendly, and they'd come out to our house for Sunday dinner.
The workers?
And then suddenly to turn against us, we didn't see the sense
Did you have strong angry feelings about it? I mean, did you feel they had wronged your father, or how did you feel?
Well, that's the difference: that's the clash between union and
non-union, between right and wrong.
How did you personally feel about unions at the time of the strike?
Well, I dealt so largely in fantasy and romance and travel and books that I was kind of aloof from the rest. I wanted the whole thing; I figured I'd build a business and be socially inclined, and freeze them all out—one of those big mistakes.
Because this is the period when you were interested in making money?
And it didn't work.
So I started a suit against my brothers, and got the same Bob Gant.
The lawyer, your family lawyer.
And I figured that Bob Gant could buy them out. So after weeks and weeks
he finally did, and got me twenty-two thousand dollars for my share.
Then I invested it right away badly
Was this at the point when the Dukes were beginning to expand the American Tobacco Company, and more and more business was leaving Durham, whereas before you had done a lot of their printing? Is this the time when Toms set up his own printery for the Dukes?
He threatened to move out when they wouldn't do like he wanted; he threatened to move out of Durham and carry it somewhere else. Then where would Durham be, if he was going to take all our Duke interest away? There was a lot of friction going on all the time, to make money. If we just had it all, I could do business.
Can you tell me a little about when you were still a printer, and still in business but very dreamy? The strike at Erwin was going on; and did you tell me that you used to walk late at night after work and go over there and see the strikers, and see bonfires?
Yes.
Can you tell me a little about that?
It was cold, and fires all around, and these strong men hob-knobbing and talking. They were valiant.
Did you go out of curiosity? Why did you go? Or did you feel sympathetic towards them? Why were you there?
It's very clear in my mind, the fires and the reflections on the mill.
That was something new for Durham; it was in all the papers, and the
state papers. It was kind of like the Bolshevists' movement: it was
something new for unions to be stepping out like Communists. In fact,
they were tangled up a good deal, and still are.
Did you go many nights or many times to see the strikers at Erwin?
Not so many, but several, to see what was happening. And there was action going on, and there was a clash between two ideals: the worker and the big rich.
What were your views to the strikers at this point? You had told me earlier about when there was a strike in your own company.
Yes, that's when I began to admire Paul Robeson.
Can you tell me a little more about Erwin?
Well, I was told that this man was the key to the union in west Durham. And he said, "Yes. Come and have dinner with me at my factory, my little company shack where I live with my children and my wife." So I went there. He thought there would be eavesdroppers at his table. And he said, "Well, there's nothing that these people won't do to beat us down. They've bought this union out. The union has won, but they won't let them win. They're keeping them dangling by shoestrings to be sure they don't have any influence." And then he went out and stayed quite a while, and came back and said, "I wasn't sure but what you were a spy, and I went out to try out several letters to be sure you were Ernest Seeman, that you were who you say you were (because so much deceit goes on, and they'll do anything to beat us out)."
Were you there to interview him for a story, or were you getting information as part of your own development?
Yes.
Why were you there?
Then he explained that they really had no power; it was a powerless union, just in name only.
Which union was it? Do you remember?
No, I don't; I didn't pay much attention. It was the cotton mill workers; it was organized into some union.
Were you there to interview him for an article, or were you there to get information for yourself? Why were you talking with him?
I wanted to see how it was stacked up, see what progress they
Was this a period in your life when you were going through change yourself?
Yes, I think so: one of those periods—I've been through many,
Her father?
. . . and was a skinflint moneylender.
Her father was a moneylender?
Julia's grandfather. And he had two sons. One son, Bob Henry, had kowtowed to a man named Walker, I think, a tobacco buyer, and he had helped him to get him onto the Phillip Morris cigarettes. And he had a big fine house in East Orange, New Jersey (Bob Henry did).
Did you tell me that her father at one time was Buck Duke's lead bookkeeper?
Yes, he was chief bookkeeper. (He had them all graded). And he wanted
more money (he wasn't getting enough); figured he could work more so he
could get more somewhere else. So he told Mr. Duke, and he said, "I
don't raise wages; when I think you're worth more to me I'll tell you."
Meantime he fired him. And he went to somewhere in South Carolina; he
had a little family then, and he had to support them. He said, "I can't
live on
Did he become a tobacco importer after he left Duke? What is Mr. Henry's first name (Julia's father)? Do you remember?18
Well, Julia's father had started a little export business. And he would
buy cheap stuff (sweepings off the floor and all kinds of stuff) and
sell it in Belgium and some other country where the poor people couldn't
afford real cigarettes. And they smoked this trash export tobacco. He
was making a pretty good living. He had a stemmery and used a lot of
Negroes, and they went through the performance of stripping tobacco. And
he had a man named Mr. Baldwin who was his overseer. Every Christmas Mr.
Baldwin would send Mr. Henry (to curry his favor)—he represented some
fish company in Norfolk on the side—a keg of oysters. Mr. Henry didn't
especially care anything about oysters and know anything about them, and
it was too much trouble opening them. So he would just have his man take
them down in the garden and dump them in the ground and cover them up
Did you tell me that at one point Mr. Henry19 was a man who had more ready cash than anyone in Durham?
Yes. In his heyday he inherited some money from his skinflint father, and he could muster more cash than any man on Main Street.
Did the Dukes ever borrow money from him?
Yes, Washington Duke did.
You were one of his sons-in-law; but I think you mentioned that his other son-in-law was a man named Arthur Ligon who headed the Arcadia Mills.
Yes, Ligon cotton mills.
What was he like?
Well, he was an awkward, fat, foxy-looking fellow, awkward in his talk. Everything was artificial. I can tell you a lot about Arthur Ligon He dropped dead at his country club—he went with all the rich, and organized the Saint Cecilia dances in Spartanburg for Easter, I think it was, or Christmas. He and his wife (Julia's sister, Cecilia) led the cotillions, and they were the upper class. And then he had a brother; I forget his name, but he was upper class too. He had big stock in mills. And they were always building new mills; they added them all around Spartanburg (I forget the names right now, but four or five at least).