Oral history interview with Mimi, 1981

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Name: Mimi (Interviewee); Joseph, Herman, 1931- (Interviewer)
Title: Oral history interview with Mimi, 1981
Other Titles: Reminiscences of Mimi, 1981; Oral history of Mimi, 1981
Abstract: 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
Collection Name: Addicts Who Survived oral history collection
Subjects: Drug addicts--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; Methadone maintenance--History--20th century.--United States; Prostitution--History--20th century.--United States; Mimi
Format: oral histories
Genre: Interviews
Date: 1981

Physical Description: 91 pages
Note (Biographical): 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 a ge, 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
Note: Interviewed by Herman Joseph on March 3, 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: 11869649
Also In: Oral History Archives at Columbia; Time-Based Media; Time-Based Media
Persistent URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d8-n2gn-5r08
Related URLs: Available digital content for this interview.