Oral history interview with Louise Rigsbee Jones, October 13, 1976

This is the second interview in a two-part series with Louise Riggsbee Jones about her life in Bynum, North Carolina. Born in 1897, Jones lived her entire life in Bynum, North Carolina. Here she focuses on life and work in that working community. Jones describes again the importance of church, discussing in detail the role of religious revivals in her community during the early twentieth century. In addition, she describes her own courtship and marriage at the age of 25. Like many of her peers, Jones was pregnant and had a baby within her first year of marriage, which she attributes in part to the absence of birth control and sexual education. Before the birth of her first child, Jones had worked as a winder in the Bynum cotton mill and she returned to that post during the Great Depression in order to help the family make ends meet. Jones describes working as a winder in the mill, focusing on such issues as work conditions, gender, balancing work and family, relationships between workers, and workers' benefits (specifically Social Security).