Oral history interview with Doretta, 1981

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Name: Doretta (Interviewee); Joseph, Herman, 1931- (Interviewer)
Title: Oral history interview with Doretta, 1981
Other Titles: Reminiscences of Doretta, 1981; Oral history of Doretta, 1981
Abstract: Doretta begin the interview by discussing her youth in Harlem in New York City, her education, her family history, and her parents' lives and employment. Doretta describes her first encounter with the criminal justice system and her experience in Women’s House of Detention in 1943. Doretta discusses her employment in the umbrella manufacturing, including nature of work, union, and coworkers. She de scribes her first experience with heroin, obtained from a hustling acquaintance who lived in her building. She describes moving to Norfolk, Virginia, her jobs there as a cleaner and a drug dealer, and her incarceration for two years for dealing. She describes work as a housekeeper in Great Neck, and returning to umbrella manufacturing after that. She describes the variance in drug use she had during different eras in her life and various aspects of her drug use. She discusses different attempts to get off heroin including multiple visits to the Bernstein Institute and her methadone maintenance at the time of the interview
Collection Name: Addicts Who Survived oral history collection
Subjects: Drug addicts--United States; Drug dealers--United States; Imprisonment--United States; Drug traffic--History--20th century.--United States; Drug abuse--History--20th century.--United States; Heroin abuse--History--20th century.--United States; Drug addicts--Rehabilitation--United States; Methadone maintenance--History--20th century.--United States; Umbrella industry--United States
Format: oral histories
Genre: Interviews
Date: 1981

Physical Description: 112 pages
Note (Biographical): Doretta was born in Harlem, New York City on September 27, 1919. She graduated junior high in 1935 and dropped out of high school after one year. She got married to a teenage sweetheart in 1937. The marriage lasted a year, but they remained friendly u ntil he died in 1949. Doretta spent many years manufacturing umbrellas, a stable union job. In 1943, she was incarcerated for six months in the Women's House of Detention for a dispute that others had at her apartment. Charges were dismissed. Her introduction to heroin happened at the age of twenty-nine, after she was laid off from the umbrella work. A neighbor introduced her; she started due to curiosity. She moved to Norfolk, Virginia in 1953. After being arrested for selling drugs, Doretta served two years before returning to New York City in 1957. She worked a variety of jobs after returning to New York, including as a live-in domestic worker, umbrella manufacturing again, and as a receptionist at Gold Star. By 1970, Doretta joined a methadone program. She married again later in life. Doretta was interviewed for the project that led to the book Addicts Who Survived. The name is likely a pseudonym for the project
Note: Interviewed by Herman Joseph on May 4, 1981
Note (Provenance): David Courtwright, Herman Joseph, and Don Des Jarlais, Gift, 1988
Language: English
Library Location: Columbia Center for Oral History, Columbia University
Browse Location’s Digital Content
Catalog Record: 11663349
Also In: Oral History Archives at Columbia; Time-Based Media; Time-Based Media
Persistent URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d8-9aa0-m047
Related URLs: Available digital content for this interview.