Oral history interview with Mimi, 1981

Biographical Note

Mimi was born on January 15, 1922 in North Carolina. She was raised by her grandmother and step-grandfather. She attended school through the tenth grade, then dropped out and began doing domestic work, babysitting, and farming. At seventeen years of age, she moved to Norfolk, Virginia where she met and married a Navy sailor, and moved to his hometown of Chicago. In Chicago she worked as an inspector at a defense plant during the week, and a dancer at Club DeLisa on the weekends. After a few years they divorced, and Mimi remained in Chicago for four years, working as a live-in housekeeper. She then moved to New Jersey to stay with her aunts and began working as an attendant in a local hospital. In 1950, she got married again, and began using heroin with her husband. In 1959, she began to engage in sex work. Between 1950 and 1970, Mimi was arrested six times for prostitution and drug related charges, and spent around two and a half months incarcerated at the Women's House of Detention during that period. She detoxed from heroin at Manhattan General Hospital four times throughout the same two decades. She joined the Beth Israel Hospital's methadone clinic in 1970. Mimi 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, Mimi discusses her life with special attention towards her drug use. She describes her various jobs including housekeeper, babysitter, farmer, cook, professional dancer, bartender, waitress, hospital attendant, sex worker, and inspector in a defense plant. She describes how she began using heroin in 1950 after marrying her second husband who was a heroin addict. She discusses the fluctuations in the price of heroin over the 1950s and 1960s, and the transition from caps to bags of heroin in the late 1950s. She describes in detail her experience engaging in sex work including her typical day, her clientele, and her earnings. She explains her various attempts to detox, both independently, using Dolophines, and in Manhattan General Hospital. Mimi discusses her arrest history and the time she spent incarcerated at the Women's House of Detention. She discusses joining the methadone program, and how the program has changed over time

Subjects

• Drug abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• 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.
• Methadone maintenance--United States--History--20th century.
• Mimi--Interviews.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Prostitution--United States--History--20th century.

Access Conditions

Copyright by David Courtwright