A relaxed environment at a textile mill
Edmonds describes a relatively relaxed work environment in which mill workers could talk with one another on the job and take a break, seated, to eat lunch.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Mattie Shoemaker and Mildred Shoemaker Edmonds, March 23, 1979. Interview H-0046. 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
- MARY MURPHY:
-
I've read a lot about how the machines work and what they made, but what
was it like working with the other people? Did you get to talk a
lot?
- MILDRED SHOEMAKER EDMONDS:
-
Yeah, we could talk. When we'd sit down to eat our lunch. We could talk
now. Some people can't work and talk but I was always one that could. It
would be another girl on the other side of my machine and I'd be over
here on this side of the machine. We could talk through to one another.
But some of them did and some of them didn't. Because they said they
just couldn't get their work done and talk.
