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Oral History Interview with Evelyn Gosnell Harvell, May 27, 1980. Interview H-0250. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007).
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  • Abstract
    Evelyn Gosnell Harvell grew up on a farm owned by her father in Tygerville, South Carolina. In this interview, she recalls her family's life in Tygerville and more than three decades of mill work as a weaver. Harvell shares a number of characteristics with other mill workers interviewed in this collection: she enjoyed a rewarding childhood, she liked the work she did at the mill, and she was suspicious of unions. Harvell's brief answers to the interviewer's questions—and the interviewer's frequent use of yes-or-no questions—makes this interview more useful for gathering information than gaining a sense of life in the early twentieth-century rural South.
    Excerpts
  • A white family hires an African American woman to keep house
  • Starting mill work after completing eighth grade
  • Moving in with her father during the Great Depression made for a lot of fun
  • Fear of unions
  • Learn More
  • Finding aid to the Southern Oral History Program Collection
  • Database of all Southern Oral History Program Collection interviews
  • Subjects
  • Greenville (S.C.)--Social life and customs
  • Women in the textile industry
  • The Southern Oral History Program transcripts presented here on Documenting the American South undergo an editorial process to remove transcription errors. Texts may differ from the original transcripts held by the Southern Historical Collection.

    Funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this title.