- Collection:
- Working Lives Oral History Project
- Title:
- Interview with Lizzie Lopp
- Contributor to Resource:
- Lopp, Lizzie
McCallum, Brenda - Date of Original:
- 1984-06-26
- Subject:
- Lopp, Lizzie--Interviews
- Location:
- United States, Alabama, Jefferson County, Birmingham, 33.52066, -86.80249
- Medium:
- interviews
transcripts - Type:
- Sound
Text - Format:
- audio/mpeg
image/jpeg - Description:
- In this interview, Lizzie May Lopp talks about her life first in the country and then in Birmingham, especially during the Depression. Lopp talks about growing up on a farm. She worked from the age of five because her family needed the help. She mentions hoeing and picking cotton. Her brothers left the farm to work in the steel plant in Birmingham, and she also moved to town with her sisters. Her husband worked in the steel plant, and he eventually went blind because of the work he was doing. She says the company didn't provide any benefits for him after he could no longer work. Lopp recalls how she survived during the Depression. She remembers "soup wagons," as well as how people got aid from the Red Cross and worked for the WPA. She explains that the steel plant was no help to them during this time; they couldn't even get food on credit at the company commissary. She talks about how people went into the woods to get firewood to heat their homes or gathered coal off the railroad tracks. They had no electricity and no running water, also no indoor bathroom. She also remembers taking care of herself after her husband died. She worked as a maid and cook for white families. She says she prefers living in Birmingham to living in the country because there are more work opportunities.
The digitization of this collection was funded by a gift from EBSCO Industries. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.libraries.ua.edu/cdm/ref/collection/u0008_0000003/id/328
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Images are in the public domain or protected under U.S. copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code), and both types may be used for research and private study. For publication, commercial use, or reproduction, in print or digital format, of all images and/or the accompanying data, users are required to secure prior written permission from the copyright holder and from archives@ua.edu. When permission is granted, please credit the images as Courtesy of The University of Alabama Libraries Special Collections.
- Original Collection:
- Working Lives Oral History Project
- Contributing Institution:
- William Stanley Hoole Special Collections Library
- Rights:
-
