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Excerpt from Oral History Interview with Letha Ann Sloan Osteen, June 8, 1979. Interview H-0254. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) See Entire Interview >>

Families started settling in one community once jobs grew scarce during the Depression

Families tended to move often seeking new job opportunities, but that changed during the Great Depression when job security became essential.

Citing this Excerpt

Oral History Interview with Letha Ann Sloan Osteen, June 8, 1979. Interview H-0254. 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

ALLEN TULLOS:
So it'd be real common, to have people just moving.
GEORGIA:
Yeah, everybody done that. I mean, back when I was a kid . . .
LETHA ANN SLOAN OSTEEN:
While they was kids they . . .
GEORGIA:
There was just a few people that stayed here. The Leagues, Lora, and-I could almost call 'em over, the people that stayed here say, maybe twenty years. Why you'd look out the door any which a way and there's trucks that are backed up to the houses and people are moving and then in two or three hours or the next day, there's another family in there. It just went on constantly.
ALLEN TULLOS:
And that was pretty much the way it would be in most every village.
GEORGIA:
Yeah, it was that way everywhere I found.
LETHA ANN SLOAN OSTEEN:
It was at all the mills.
GEORGIA:
People didn't stay in one place. If they could make more money at another mill, they'd go for a year to Monegan or Judson or anywhere.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Did that change after awhile, and people begin to . . .
GEORGIA:
Oh yeah, when they begin to settle down, I guess, well when the Depression come on. People had to hold what they had because-let's see, that started when?
ALLEN TULLOS:
Twenty-nine, '30.
GEORGIA:
Yeah, yeah. People quit rambling after that. If they had a job, they held to it.
ALLEN TULLOS:
Did jobs get scarcer?
GEORGIA:
Oh yeah.