Oral history interview with Edith D., 1980

Biographical Note

Edith D. was born on September 28, 1912. She was the third of eight children raised in a Lower East Side tenement with her parents. She finished the eighth grade, then went to continuation school to study homemaking. Afterwards she sold dresses on Clinton Street, through which she became involved with a union. She formed unions in various nightclubs including The Howdy Club, the Nineteenth Hole, Ernie's and the Village Inn. She married at sixteen, conceived a son, and divorced two years later because of domestic abuse. She was introduced to opium by a friend who was trying to distract her from her gambling addiction. At age twenty-one, she met Abe D. They married several years later. Their marriage was marked by a shared opium addiction. During the opium shortage after the Second World War, Edith tried heroin. She attempted multiple detoxes and cures for her addiction throughout her years, but none proved useful except methadone. By 1980, she was taking methadone prescribed through a recovery clinic she was in with her husband. Edith D. was interviewed for the project that led to the book Addicts Who Survived. The name is likely a pseudonym for the project. In the book, Edith D. was referred to by the pseudonym "Emily"

Scope and Contents

Edith D. discusses the arc of her life, jobs, relationships, and addictions. She discusses her time working in dress shops and checkrooms, and her involvement in organizing unions in nightclubs, which included communicating with crime boss Louis Lepke Buchalter. She describes the class-based scenes of opium smokers. She is dying of throat cancer at the time of the interview, and approximately half-way through the interview, she gets too tired to speak, so her husband Abe D. begins speaking too. She and Abe discuss the social perceptions of an opium user versus a heroin junkie. They also discuss the changing prices of opium, various "cures," the mechanics of an opium pipe, and the transition to using heroin. The interview mentions a number of famous people the couple encountered through drug circles: Rudy Vallee, Irving Berlin, Billy Rose, and Billie Holiday

Subjects

• Courtwright, David T., 1952-, interviewer.
• D., Abe--Interviews.
• D., Edith--Interviews.
• Drug addicts--United States.
• Heroin abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Interviews.
• Joseph, Herman, interviewer.
• Methadone maintenance--United States--History--20th century.
• Nightclubs--New York (State)--New York.
• Opium abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

Copyright by David Courtwright