Interview with Essie Davis
In this interview, Essie P. Davis describes growing up in rural Georgia in the early 1900s and her eventual move to Birmingham, Alabama. Davis was born in Temple, Georgia and was raised by her grandparents. Her grandfather was a sharecropper; Davis and her grandmother also worked in the fields. She...
| Format: | Electronic |
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| Published: |
University of Alabama Libraries
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| Online Access: | http://purl.lib.ua.edu/54301 |
| Summary: | In this interview, Essie P. Davis describes growing up in rural Georgia in the early 1900s and her eventual move to Birmingham, Alabama. Davis was born in Temple, Georgia and was raised by her grandparents. Her grandfather was a sharecropper; Davis and her grandmother also worked in the fields. She describes her early education in Georgia, explaining that the school met in a local church and would have class around the pulpit. The children cleaned the school and would also go into the woods to gather kindling for heat. Davis was only able to attend school a few months out of the year because she had to work in the fields. Davis also explains that her family did not have access to a doctor in the country. Herbal medicines were used if anyone got sick; she describes several remedies in the interview. She provides a detailed description of life during The Depression and explains that her family received aid from The Red Cross. She explains that the Red Cross had several different distribution centers where they supplied food such as flour, peas and rice. She adds that they would sometimes have beef but the beef was almost impossible to cook because the cows were also malnourished.; Note: Transcripts do not cover the entire recording. There is no transcript available for the fourth audio file.The digitization of this collection was funded by a gift from EBSCO Industries. |
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