The Great Depression fails to rattle the already-poor
The Great Depression did not bother Whitesell much, she remembers; she was accustomed to poverty.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Emma Whitesell, July 27, 1977. Interview H-0057. 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
- CLIFF KUHN:
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What do you remember about how the depression hit Burlington?
- EMMA WHITESELL:
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Well, the mills were hit pretty bad, the people didn't have nothing. I
was working there when they started paying you twenty five cents an
hour. I think it was—what president was it?
- CLIFF KUHN:
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Roosevelt.
- EMMA WHITESELL:
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Roosevelt. He made 'em pay us twenty five cents an hour. But I worked
there a long time. But the depression didn't hit us—I didn't
feel it too much. Because my husband was an insurance man, looked like,
though, it would have hit it pretty hard then, but a lot of people, I
heard 'em talk about depression but it really didn't bother me that
much. 'Course I never have had nothing no way.
