Oral history interview with Frieda, 1980

Biographical Note

Frieda was born the youngest of six siblings to Jewish Russian immigrants in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City in 1899. Her formal education ended when she left high school after two years and began to work as a cashier in a restaurant. She married her first husband as a teenager, and they had one son and divorced after two years. Frieda began smoking opium at nightly parties with friends when she was about twenty years old. Around the mid-1930s, she could no longer get opium, and turned to heroin. Frieda made a few attempts to detox from heroin at different treatment programs, including at Lexington hospital. In 1940, she moved from the Lower East Side to the Bronx and married her second husband. At this time, she switched to taking Dilaudid which she acquired from doctors. Around 1959, she went to work as a telephone operator, which she did for seventeen years, until she retired. Frieda stopped taking Dilaudid in 1976, and began to visit frequent a methadone clinic twice weekly. Frieda was interviewed for the project that led to the book Addicts Who Survived. The name is likely a pseudonym for the project

Scope and Contents

In this interview, Frieda discusses her life in New York City from adolescence to adulthood, with a focus on her drug use. She compares the different perceptions of opium and heroin, the different cultures surrounding the two drugs, and her experience of taking each drug. She mentions the "wet towel trick" which was used by her and many opium users to prevent smoke from escaping the room when smoking in hotels. She describes the frequency of her heroin use, her method of intake, and her vigilance in using her own, sterilized needles. Frieda also discusses the abundance of heroin in New York in the 1930s, and the ease of obtaining it. She comments on her experience taking Dilaudid and visiting a methadone clinic twice weekly. Additionally, she discusses her personal life, including her two marriages and her son, as well as how she was able to hide her addiction from nearly everyone in her life. Her doctor and psychologist are present in the interview

Subjects

• Courtwright, David T., 1952- interviewer.
• Drug abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Drug addicts--Rehabilitation--United States.
• Drug traffic--United States--History--20th century.
• Frieda,--Interviews.
• Heroin abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Interviews.
• Joseph, Herman, 1931- interviewer.
• Methadone maintenance--United States--History--20th century.
• Opium abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

Copyright by David Courtwright