Oral history interview with Kathryn Killian and Blanche Bolick, December 12, 1979

Kathryn Killian and her sister Blanche Bolick recall their upbringing near Conover, NC, and their careers making gloves. They fondly remember the distant world of their childhood, rich in family bonds and community connection. They are less nostalgic for their working lives, however. Killian is the more talkative of the pair, eager to share her dislike for factory work. Her work arrangement was an unusual one: after the death of her husband, who was crushed by a tree, her employer, also her brother-in-law, set up a glove-making machine in her home, making her both a stay-at-home mom and a working mother. This interview offers a useful look at the working lives of women in the early 20th-century South.