Daisy Mae Livingstone Mosley interview recording, 1993 December 18
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| James Anderson | December eighteenth, 1993. Interview regarding domestic and employer relations during the Jim Crow period circa 1865 to 1940. Subject's name, Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley, female. Skin tone, dark skin, African American. Date of birth, November eighth, 1915. Current age, seventy-eight. Age when working as a domestic, approximately at twenty to twenty-one, twenty-two years of age until reaching the age of sixty-nine. Period being the mid-thirties up through the forties, the latter half of the Jim Crow period. | 0:20 |
| James Anderson | Mrs. Mosley was reared in Albany, Georgia, raised in Jacksonville, Florida, an urban area. The family in which this interview is pertaining to is the Howell family, of which has six members of that household. Domestic has eight children, four sons and four daughters. Her husband is, and was working at that time as a minister, a truck driver, a railroad worker, a tradesman, whereas she maintained jobs of a domestic and part-time beautician. | 1:34 |
| James Anderson | We will begin the interview. Interviewer's name, James Anderson on behalf of Michelle Harris of Duke University. | 2:23 |
| James Anderson | When you was working as a maid, how many households did you work with? How many different people? | 2:36 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, I worked just, I can't name all the folks I worked for, but I'd just say six different people, I guess. I'd just say that's six different people. | 2:40 |
| James Anderson | Okay. And what did you do working for them? Just cleaning up or— | 2:54 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, I'd just do the cleaning and the washing and ironing and all. I did everything the kids needed done. Yellow house cleaner, sometimes cook, too. | 3:01 |
| James Anderson | Oh, okay. And did you like the job? How'd you feel about doing what you were doing? | 3:13 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, I done pretty good. I liked it pretty good. | 3:22 |
| James Anderson | So you thought it was a good job? | 3:28 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Huh? | 3:29 |
| James Anderson | You thought it was a good job? | 3:30 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Yeah. Well, yeah. It was nice. I thought it was nice. Real nice. | 3:31 |
| James Anderson | Oh, I see. So you got along well with the people? | 3:36 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Yeah. Yeah. Pretty good, though. [indistinct 00:03:47] | 3:40 |
| James Anderson | And the people that you worked for, were they pretty well-off? Were they kind of rich or something? Or what kind of families were they, as far as— | 3:49 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, they was kind of—Well, they was usually fine. They did pretty good. | 3:56 |
| James Anderson | Okay. And what did they do for a living? | 3:56 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well now some of them was Navy, Army, Navy folks, and some, one of them was a sales, a traveling salesman. | 4:02 |
| James Anderson | Okay. And when you worked there, who was the person that would oversee what you were doing? The wife? | 4:26 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | The wife. | 4:33 |
| James Anderson | And you got along okay with her? | 4:37 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Yeah. | 4:41 |
| James Anderson | And the families that had children or other people living in the house, how'd you get along with the other people in the house that you— | 4:43 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, fair. Fair. | 4:48 |
| James Anderson | Did you make any close friends with any of the children, the younger children, anything like that? | 4:51 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Oh, yeah, some of them I would say they're nice, yeah. Some of them was trouble. Fair. | 4:55 |
| James Anderson | And you didn't run into any problems with the family members at any point? | 5:05 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | No, no, no. No, they was very nice. | 5:08 |
| James Anderson | Okay. | 5:09 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Very nice. | 5:09 |
| James Anderson | And how did you feel about how much money you made working there? As far as in comparison to what other people were making or just for the time period? | 5:14 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, I made enough. I felt I was satisfied. I feel like I made the same amount that other people make, and I was satisfied. | 5:24 |
| James Anderson | Okay. And when you worked for different families, did the amount of money you make go up and down just depending upon the family? | 5:36 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Is that a question? Was that I made? | 5:42 |
| James Anderson | What I'm saying is, when you worked for one family, did you make this amount of money, and we worked for the next family, you made more or less? Did it just go up and down dependent upon the family? | 5:45 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, some would give me different extra money. Some would give me extra money sometimes. Sometimes if I sit with the children or something like that, they'd give extra money for sitting with the children, for babysitting. If they going to go to a party or something like that, I would sit with the children while they go. They'd give me extra money for that. | 5:56 |
| James Anderson | Okay. Did they ever give you anything else? Like any stuff that they didn't need in the house, extra clothes? | 6:26 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Yeah, they'd give me, at Christmas time, some of them would give me clothes for the children, and they give me food, and sometimes extra money to help the children. | 6:31 |
| James Anderson | Oh, that's good. And when you had time, after you got off of work and stuff, did you ever spend time with the family at different family gatherings? Or were you just went home and you didn't really spend any time with them outside of the working? | 6:47 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, no. Unless I had to stay back to help work, or I helped them with serving parties or something like that. That was kind of if they're giving a party, they have extra company I suppose, I would stay there and help them out with that. | 7:01 |
| James Anderson | Okay. And did you ever feel like you were a real close part of the family, like they couldn't get along without you or— | 7:23 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, some of them were very close. Some of them [indistinct 00:07:37] in the Army. Them officers, if they left, they wanted to take you with them. They go on a vacations close to the border where the husbands was transferred. | 7:29 |
| James Anderson | Oh really? | 7:41 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Yeah, I just have a family of seven, I couldn't go, but some of them were very nice. They wanted to take me, want me to go over there, and sometimes they take me with them close to the border, when their husbands was transferred. I couldn't go, because I have a family. | 7:54 |
| James Anderson | Well, I understand that. And did you think anything about you made your job, made it easier for you to get a job? The fact that you were a Black woman in the time and all that kind stuff, or it just was— | 8:06 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | There was Black folk getting a job than some other people? | 8:22 |
| James Anderson | Yeah, what I'm saying is do you think it was hard or easy for you to get a job working as a domestic? | 8:26 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Oh no, there is some, but they tell their friends about few things. I would go sometime extra time if I had any, and wait for different friends. Some would tell their friends about their maid, and of course the friends would want the made to come and wait for them. | 8:29 |
| James Anderson | Oh, I see. And at that time, how would you describe how your family, how was Grandad and everybody was? How were y'all living? Were y'all well-off, okay, lower, just making it, or how was it? | 8:49 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | [indistinct 00:09:06] two classes [indistinct 00:09:18]. | 9:06 |
| James Anderson | Okay. And when did you stop working for people like that? You just— | 9:18 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, some of them went out of town, and some folks went out of town, I'd wait for them. [indistinct 00:09:42] | 9:21 |
| James Anderson | I see. And did you say you pretty much stopped being working for people around the age? You said about sixty something? | 9:42 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, something like, I know some folks [indistinct 00:09:54] around 69. | 9:49 |
| James Anderson | Okay. And just in general for the whole thing, did you think you got along well with most of the families, or you got along just in-between, or got along bad with them, or you know, you just did it cause you had to? | 9:59 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | No, I got along fine with everyone I've worked for. Some of them were very, very nice. [indistinct 00:10:21] | 10:13 |
| James Anderson | Okay. And there was one family that you mentioned, the Howell family. Did you worked for them a long period of time? | 10:29 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, this [indistinct 00:10:45] I worked for about four or five, I guess five, four or five years, I waited for them. | 10:42 |
| James Anderson | Oh, I see. | 10:42 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | [indistinct 00:10:56]. | 10:42 |
| James Anderson | Okay. And do you remember what they did for a living? | 11:07 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, he was a traveling salesman. | 11:08 |
| James Anderson | Oh, okay. Okay. And you said they had some kids and one of the kids names was— | 11:13 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Well, [indistinct 00:11:23] | 11:16 |
| James Anderson | Say that again? | 11:23 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | [indistinct 00:11:27]. | 11:23 |
| James Anderson | Richard? | 11:34 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Yeah. | 11:34 |
| James Anderson | Okay. That's the only one you can really recall right now? | 11:37 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Huh? | 11:40 |
| James Anderson | That's the only one you can recall right now? | 11:41 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Mm-hmm. Yes. Well. [indistinct 00:11:52]. | 11:42 |
| James Anderson | Okay. That's fine. That's fine. Okay then. And that's all the questions I really wanted to ask. I just wanted to know. I just wanted to get those questions, okay? | 11:55 |
| Daisy Mae Livingston-Mosley | Uh-huh. | 12:08 |
| James Anderson | All right. And I'll talk to you again. | 12:09 |
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