Object Details
- General
- Edith's maiden name is Green and her married name is Greene.
- Local Numbers
- AV002943 AV002944
- Names
- Anacostia National Bank
- Birney Elementary School
- Douglass Hall (Washington, D.C.)
- Dunbar High School (Washington, D.C.)
- Frederick Douglass Memorial Home
- Saint Elizabeths Hospital (Washington, D.C.)
- Green, Edith
- Howard, James H., 1925-1982 (James Henri)
- Lowery, Della, 1924-2008
- McKenzie, Raymond, 1898-2001
- Underdue, Sallie E., 1909?-1998
- Collection Creator
- Anacostia Community Museum
- Place
- Anacostia (Washington, D.C.)
- Congress Heights (Washington, D.C.)
- Barry Farms (Washington, D.C.)
- Anacostia Community Museum
- Topic
- African American women
- African Americans
- Community Organizations
- Anacostia Neighborhood Museum
- exhibit
- See more items in
- Evolution of a Community: 1972 Exhibition Records
- Evolution of a Community: 1972 Exhibition Records / Series 2: Interviews
- Sponsor
- Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
- Extent
- 1 Sound recording ((1 sound disk CD-R (01:17:32). digital, 16-bit 44.1 KhZ))
- 1 Sound recording ((1 data disk DVD-R digital, 24-bit 96kHz WAV. )))
- 1 Sound recording ((2 sound cassettes))
- Date
- 1970- 1971 March 19
- 2007 September 14
- Container
- Box 2, Folder 2
- Box 4, Cassette 43A
- Box 4, Cassette 43B
- Box 5, Disk 43
- Archival Repository
- Anacostia Community Museum Archives
- Type
- Archival materials
- Audio
- Sound recordings
- Oral histories (document genres)
- Collection Citation
- Evolution of a Community: 1972 Exhibition Records, Anacostia Community Museum Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
- Collection Rights
- Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
- Genre/Form
- Oral histories (document genres)
- Scope and Contents note
- Edith P. (née Green) Greene, an African American woman born on June 4, 1900, describes her experience growing up in Anacostia, where she attended Birney Elementary School and crossing the bridge to reach Dunbar High School. She discusses her father working as a fireman (working with the furnaces) at St. Elizabeth's before working for the government. She recalls the segregation of communities (Congress Heights, Barry Farm-Hillsdale, and Uniontown) and visiting different markets around Washington, D.C. She talks about what women's lives were like at that time, including gardening for food, keeping chickens for eggs, sewing in sewing circles, and helping raise each other's children. She recalls attending church social events at Macedonia Baptist Church and Douglass Hall, teaching Sunday School, and going to the theater at Republic, Lincoln, or Howard Theaters as well as Green Willow and Eureka parks. Greene describes the changes in the neighborhood, particularly in the Barry Farm-Hillsdale area and how the community was no longer as close as it once was and how the crime rates are increasing. Greene provides information about her family and their history, remembering the deaths of her older sister, Lillian E. Green, and her older brother, Oliver Green, and how their funerals put the family in debt. Throughout the interview, she talks about residents in the community she grew up with, including Raymond McKenzie, Mary E. Young, Della Lowery, the Dale family, the Patterson family, James Howard, and Sallie Underdue. She ends the interview speaking about the police presence in the neighborhood, the Frederick Douglass Home, Mason's Funeral Home, and the Anacostia Bank (now the Anacostia National Bank). Edith P. (née Green) Greene was interviewed by John Bradshaw in the spring of 1971. Digital audio files include white noise and static; interviewee can be heard clearly for most parts.
- Restrictions
- Use of the materials requires an appointment. Please contact the archivist to make an appointment: ACMarchives@si.edu.
- Record ID
- ebl-1698438900629-1698438901173-0
