Oral history interview with Lillie, 1980

Biographical Note

Lillie was born in 1905 in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish, Russian immigrants. She was the third born of eight siblings. She attended school through the fifth grade, then got a job at a candy store. In 1922 Lillie joined a chorus line. It was around this time that she began using opium. She married her first husband in 1924. Around 1930, Lillie could no longer acquire opium and switched to heroin. In 1933, Lillie left show business. She detoxed from heroin at Riverside Hospital three times in the 1930s. In 1944, Lillie separated from her first husband, and she got remarried in 1947. Lillie often shoplifted and resold the merchandise in order to fund her drug habit. She was arrested three times for shoplifting and was incarcerated at the Women's House of Detention on Greenwich Ave. She visited Lexington, Kentucky Hospital twice for detox in the early 1950s. Lillie began seeing a doctor who prescribed Dilaudid in 1958. When the doctor passed away in 1971, Lillie joined a methadone program. Lillie 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, Lillie discusses her life in New York City with special attention towards her drug use. Lillie describes her upbringing and family life, her choice to leave school in fifth grade and begin working, and how she became a dancer in a chorus line at the age of seventeen. She discusses how she began smoking opium in 1922, and switched to heroin in 1930 when opium became scarce. She describes the opium milieu, and the type of people she regularly smoked opium with. She discusses the price of heroin, and how much money per week she spent on heroin. Lillie discusses her hustle of shoplifting and reselling merchandise, and her resulting three stints in the Women's House of Detention. She describes her experience at Lexington, Kentucky Hospital which she visited twice for detox in the early 1950s. She compares opium and heroin. She discusses the prices of opiates in different American cities she traveled to while in show business, and compares the prices to those of New York City. She describes how she would approach physicians for morphine prescriptions. Lillie compares drug addicts in the 1930s to the 1980s in terms of average race and age. She describes how the control of the drug market in New York City changed hands from largely Jewish crime syndicates to the Italian Mafia in the late 1930s

Subjects

• Courtwright, David T., 1952- interviewer.
• Crime--New York (State)--New York.
• Dancers--Interviews.
• Drug addicts--United States.
• Drugs--Prescribing.
• Drug traffic--United States--History--20th century.
• Heroin abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Interviews.
• Joseph, Herman, 1931- interviewer.
• Lillie--Interviews.
• Narcotic Farm.
• Opium abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

Copyright by David Courtwright