Oral history interview with May, 1980

Biographical Note

May was born on January 11, 1920 in Lynchburg, Virginia. Her parents separated when she was an infant, and her mom passed away when she was five years old. She and her sister went to live with her grandmother. May attended school through fifth grade at Painville School. May's grandmother passed away when she was around ten years old, so she left home and began working as a live-in housekeeper for a family close by. After working there for two years, May and her sister left Virginia and went to Hartford, Connecticut to stay with their aunt. After a few years with their aunt, May's sister moved to New York City, and May joined her shortly after. May got another live-in housekeeper job for a family in Brooklyn. At twenty-six years of age, May began engaging in sex work. Around this time, May used cocaine for the first time, and shortly after, began using heroin. She used heroin somewhat consistently from 1946 to 1968 when she joined a methadone program. May was arrested around six times for prostitution, but was only convicted once, and served sixty days in the Women's House of Detention. May 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, May discusses her life in Virginia, Connecticut, and New York, with a focus on her drug use. She discusses being raised by her grandmother, and her first job after her grandmother passed away as a live-in housekeeper. She describes leaving Virginia at thirteen years of age with her sister, and traveling to their aunt's house in Hartford, Connecticut. She describes her move from Connecticut to New York City, how she became involved in sex work, and how she began using drugs, including cocaine and heroin. She discusses the fluctuations in the price and purity of heroin across the latter decades of the twentieth century. She describes going to a doctor on West End Avenue in the 1980s to obtain a Dolophine prescription, and how this doctor eventually referred her to a methadone program. She discusses being arrested around six times for prostitution, and being incarcerated at the Women's House of Detention. She compares her impression of addicts in the 1950s to addicts in the 1980s. She discusses her three children, and how she feels that her priority of motherhood helped her survive her drug addiction

Subjects

• Drug abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Drug addicts--Rehabilitation--United States.
• Drug addicts--United States.
• Drug traffic--United States--History--20th century.
• Heroin abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Imprisonment--United States.
• Interviews.
• Joseph, Herman, 1931- interviewer.
• May--Interviews.
• Methadone maintenance--United States--History--20th century.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Prostitution--United States--History--20th century.

Access Conditions

Copyright by David Courtwright