Interviews

The interviews will be used to teach the following concepts and topics: why people migrated out of, within, and into the South; farming (especially sharecropping) in the South during the period 1920s-1940s; the role of race and class in migration; and the impact of economic development efforts on the local economy.

An Interview with Preston Mosley of Townsville

Preston Mosley was born in Townsville, a small rural community north of Henderson (Vance Co.), NC.  He left Vance County in 1953 and moved to New Jersey where he lived for 39 years.  When he retired, he returned to Vance County.

Interviewer:  Thomasina Jefferson, 8 December 1998

An Interview With Ronel Cook 

Ronel Cook was born in West Virginia where his father was a coal miner.  Both his father and mother had migrated to West Virginia from Alabama by way of North Carolina.   The Cooks, like many African Americans living in the South, moved to New York in the 1950s.  Ronel Cook moved back to the South in the 1990s to Henderson, NC (Vance Co.).

Interviewer: John Beck, 1 February 1999

An Interview with Donna Dodson

Three of Donna Dodson's grandparents moved from North Carolina to New Jersey in the late 1920s, a part of the "Great Migration" of African Americans out of the South.  She was born and raised in New Jersey.  In the early 1980s she felt called by her church (Jehovah Witnesses) to move to Warren County, NC to assist a struggling church there.  She lives on land in Warren County that she acquired from her great uncle.

Interviewer: John Beck, 19 March 1999

An Interview with Ed Currin

Ed Currin was a retired Granville County farmer when he was interviewed in 1939. He was something of an eccentric, but the interview does provide us with details about farming, tenancy, and racial attitudes.  It also gives us insights into the mentality of  a member of the larger farmer class.  In the interview Currin is called Josh Dover and Granville County is referred to as Duncan County.

Source:  American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940, (Library of Congress).  Go to http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaquery.html  To access the Ed Currin interview click on "Ed Currin Interview" at the end of this paragraph. The American Life Histories page will appear; type Ed Currin in the "Search Full Text" box; click on the Ed Currin entry when it appears.

An Interview with Congresswoman Eva Clayton

Ms. Clayton lives in Warren County, NC and represents the first district in Congress.  She was participated with Floyd McKissick in the Soul City project (in Warren County)   in the 1970s.  The project was a federally funded effort to build a "model town" that would attract business and industry to the area.  Warren was particularly hard hit by out-migration and poverty, and the "Model Towns" program was designed to assist areas suffering from these problems. 

Source:  This interview is an excerpt of a longer  interview conducted with Congresswoman Clayton on July 18 1989 by Kathryn Nasstrom for the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  It focuses on Clayton and McKissick's efforts to get the Soul City project up and running and the ultimate failure of that project.  The complete interview is on deposit at the Southern  Historical Collection in the Louis Round Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  This excerpt is used with the permission of the Southern Historical Collection.

An Interview with the Renns

Wesley Renn and other members of the Renn family were interviewed in 1938.   Wesley Renn was a cotton mill worker, a career he began with other members of his family in Henderson, NC (Vance County).  His father was a farmer (a sharecropper) and Renn still saw himself as a farmer even though he had worked in mills most of his life. This interview provides insights into the movement of Southern whites from the countryside and farming to towns and mill work.

Source: American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940, (Library of Congress).  Go to http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaquery.html.  The American Life Histories Web page will appear; type "The Renns" in the "Search Full Text" box; click on the "The Renns" entry when it appears.

An Interview with John Pierce

John Pierce was interviewed in 1938.  His father had owned a farm in Warren County which he lost. The family then went fromfarm to farm working as sharecroppers.  In Pierce's words "I got tired of that and when I got to be my own man I come to the mill."   Like the interview with the Renns, this interview captures the movement of poor, rural whites to the towns and mills of the South.

Source: American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940, (Library of Congress).  Go to http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaquery.html.  The American Life Histories Web page will appear; type "John Pierce" in the "Search Full Text" box; click on the "John Pierce" entry when it appears. 

Census Records

Census data were used to teach the following concepts and topics: economic change in the twentieth century South; migration patterns; the role of race in migration; changes in the system of agriculture; technological changes in agriculture; economic development and the incidence of poverty; and using census data to develop historical generalizations.

Sources for Population Tables

U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, Population, Vol. II, Characteristics of the Population, pt. 5; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1950 Census of the Population, Vol. II, Characteristics of the Population, pt. 3; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960, Census of the Population, Vol. 1, Characteristics of the Population, Pt. 35; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1970 Census of the Population, Characteristics of the Population, Vol. 1, Pt. 35; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1980 Census of the Population and Housing, Summary Characteristics; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1940, Pt. II; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1950, Vol. II; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1960, Vol. II; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1970, Vol. I; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1980, Vol. I; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Vital Statistics of the United States, 1990, Vol. II; Office of State [N.C.] Budget and Management, Statistical Abstract of North Carolina Counties, 1991.  U.S. Census Bureau, "State Poverty Rates and Standard Errors," http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/povanim/pvmaptxt.html; U.S. Census Bureau, "Model-Based Income and Poverty Estimates for Vance County, 1995, " http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe/estimate/cty/cty37181.htm U.S. Census Bureau, Model-Based Income and Poverty Estimates for Granville County, 1995, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe/estimate/cty/cty37077.htm; U.S. Census Bureau, "Model-Based

Income and Poverty Estimates for Warren County, 1995," http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe/estimate/cty/cty37185.htm

Sources for Tables on Agriculture

U.S. Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Agriculture, 1935:  Reports for States With Statistics for Counties and a Summary for the United States, 1936; U.S. Bureau of  the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Agriculture, Vol. 1, Part 3, Statistics for Counties, 1942; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1950 United States Census of Agriculture:  North Carolina and South Carolina, 1952 ; North Carolina. Bureau of the Census, 1978 Census of Agriculture, Vol. 1, Pt. 33, State and County Data, 1981; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997 Census of Agriculture: Highlights of Agriculture: 1997 and 1992, North Carolina (online at http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census97/profiles/nc/nc.htm)

Sources for Tables on Business, Industry, and Government

Sources for tables: U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of  the U.S., Population, Vol. II, Characteristics of the Population, , Pt. 5; U.S. Bureau of the Census, County Business Patterns, 1962, 1970, 1981,1990, 1996 (The 1996 data derived from the online version.  See http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/map/96data/37/077.TXT for Granville; http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/map/96data/37/181.TXT for Vance; and http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/map/96data/37/185.TXT for Warren); U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Governments, 1957, 1967, 1977, 1987, 1992.

Photographs

Photographs were used primarily to teach the following concepts and topics: changes in farming methods; the role of race and class in the rural South of the late 1930s; using photographs as a primary source.

The following photographs are used with the permission of the Henderson Daily Dispatch:

"Tobacco Auction"
"Man with Mule"
"Men in Tobacco Field"
"Man Plowing with Mule"
"Sorting Tobacco"
"Hanging Tobacco"
"Posing With Mule"
"Tractors in Field"
"Silage Harvester"
"Tobacco Bulk Barn"
"Townsville, NC"

The following photograph is used with the permission of Ms. Marsha Nelson:
"Leggetts Department Store"

The following photograph is used with the permission of the North Carolina Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel  Hill Library:
"Henderson Train Depot"

The following photographs were taken by the web site developer:
"Farm House"
"Tobacco Field"
"Soul City Sign"
"Soul City Health Facilities"
"Soul City Industrial Building"
"Warren Correctional Facility"
"Federal Correctional Complex"
"John Umstead Hospital"

The following photograph was copied from Congresswoman Eva Clayton's web site and is thus a public domain photograph:
"Rep. Eva Clayton"

Series of Pictures Taken at the Fred Wilkins Farm in Stem (Granville County), NC.  These pictures were taken in 1939 by a Farm Securities Administration photographer.  They depict a variety of farm scenes--feeding the hogs, cooking, and a corn shucking at both the Wilkins farm and several neighboring farms.  One of these farms was the Garrett farm (Garrett was a sharecropper who farmed Wilkins land).

Source: America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945, Farm Security Administration-Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress).

Go to http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/p?ammem/fsaall:LC-USF33-030715-M2:collection=fsa