Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Spring/Section24/James Terrill

James Terrill
Nationality	American
Occupation	Barber

This photo is an example of what Terrill's barber shop could've looked like.

Overview

James Terrill was a barber in Carrboro, NC.

Biography

James Terrill, hailing from Danville, VA, spent his days as a barber, working in his shop on a side street in Carrboro, NC. He was interviewed by W.O. Forster, sometime around 1938, and told Forster his life story. He stood five feet and nine inches tall, and weighed two hundred and twenty pounds, and had blue eyes. He had 11 siblings and his father was a day laborer, and his mother was a seamstress. James was the only one of his siblings who learned a trade, while the rest of them became farmers or laborers. Yet, James only had two years of formal schooling. At the age of ten, Terrill and his family moved from Danville to a farm just outside Hillsboro, NC. After realizing that farming was not his calling, Terrill became interested in becoming a barber, and began practicing on his brothers. He then went on to open his own shop in Hillsboro. A few months later, Terrill traveled to Wilmington to visit a high-class barber named Mr. Jackson who was looking to hire a barber for his own shop. He proved himself to be an excellent barber and caught the eye of Mr. Humfield, a regular at Mr. Jackson’s barber shop. Humfield then took Terrill in and helped him get on his feet as a businessman. Terrill then went up to Richmond, VA to get his license in chiropody, and then moved to Jackson, Mississippi to practice. After a few years in the business, he had saved up about $100,000. Earlier in life, Terrill married an unnamed woman at the age of 20, and had 4 kids. He then divorced his wife, re-married her after his children begged him to, and then divorced her again after 2 years. He finally married a different woman who soon after suffered a stroke. Terrill went on to have many other careers during his lifetime, including a make-up man for the Ringlin’s Brothers Circus, a masseur, and an advance agent for Fox’s Studios, before eventually settling back into his roots as a barber in Carrboro, NC.

Historical Context

The Great Depression

The Great Depression not only had a negative effect on Americans’ financial state, but also their mental state. “A new study reported in Psychological Science finds those who grew up between the turn of the century and the Great Depression have had a more negative outlook throughout their lives than those born in the relatively prosperous post war years.” Terrill and his siblings lived through the Great Depression, and his parents experienced it as adults. This definitely had an impact on their family’s and many others’ psychological state. This could also explain Terrill’s lack of impulse control and recklessness when it comes to his career.

Lack of Job Quality in the United States

Day laborers in the southern United States struggled to keep their families afloat. Nonstandard jobs that day laborers take tend to be menial and low-paying. “To the extent that nonstandard jobs pay poorly, lack health insurance and pension benefits, are of uncertain duration, and lack the protections that unions and labor laws afford, they are problematic for workers (Ferber and Waldfogel 1996; Kalleberg et al. 1997; Mishel, Bernstein, and Schmitt 1999).”“Until the end of the Great Depression, most jobs were insecure and most wages were unstable (Jacoby 1985). Among the working classes, pensions and health insurance were almost unheard of before the 1930s, and benefits were contingent on workers' docility rather than entitlements (Edwards 1979).” Also, most impoverished families stay in destitution over the future generations due to the difficulty of breaking the poverty cycle. This explains why Terrill’s siblings never got any higher education, didn’t learn a trade, and never made anything of themselves.