Oral history interview with Carrie Lee Gerringer, August 11, 1979

Carrie Lee Gerringer was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, around 1909. She focuses primarily on what it was like to raise a family and work in the textile industry in Bynum, North Carolina. Gerringer recalls spending more time at household chores than at play during her childhood. She left school at the age of 14 to begin working in the textile mills--an occupation she kept for more than 50 years--and married at the age of 16. She and her husband had six children, one of whom died from leukemia as a child. She discusses at length how it was often difficult for her family to make ends meet: she and her husband juggled shifts in the textile industry so that they would not have to hire extra help with the children, and her husband often took on extra work painting houses. Gerringer offers vivid portraits of working in textile plants.