Collections >> Oral Histories of the American South >> Document Menu
Oral History Interview with Guion Griffis Johnson, August 19, 1974. Interview G-0029-1. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
Audio Options
Transcript Only (26 p.)
Abstract
Guion Griffis Johnson was among the first generation of female professional historians and a pioneer of social history. Her book Ante-Bellum North Carolina provides a comprehensive study of how people maintained and sometimes traversed social divisions in this state. For this interview, she discusses the work she did for Dr. Howard Odum of the University of North Carolina Department of Sociology from 1923 until 1934. She lists the community activities she participated in during and after this period. While her husband, Guy Johnson, taught for the Institute for Research in Social Science, she copy edited issues of the Social Forces journal, researched projects on St. Helena's Island and antebellum North Carolina, and worked toward a Ph.D. in sociology. When the workload became too cumbersome and tedious, she transferred to the history department to finish her Ph.D. She lost her job with the Institute in 1930 when the University cut costs by laying off married female academics. The interview ends with her description of how she continued to work without receiving wages before going back to Baylor College as a professor.
Learn More
This interview is part of the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007), a collection of over
4,000 interviews housed at the Southern Historical Collection.
Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this title.
Return to Oral Histories of the American South Home Page
Return to Documenting the American South Home Page
© Copyright 2004 by the University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, all rights reserved
Copyright / Usage Statement
URL: http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/G-0029/menu.html
Last updated May 13, 2008