Ned Cobb and Cobb Family Oral History Interviews with Theodore Rosengarten and Other Recordings, 1971-1977

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Summary

Creator:
Cobb, Ned, 1885-1973., Cobb (Family : Tallapoosa County, Ala.), and Rosengarten, Theodore.
Abstract:

The collection consists of interviews of Ned Cobb (1885-1973), an African American farmer and a former member of the Alabama Sharecroppers Union in Tallapoosa County, Ala., and his family, by Theodore Rosengarten (1944- ), a white historian of American civilization. The interviews describe Cobb's life as a sharecropper, then independent farmer, in east-central Alabama, his involvement with the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff's deputies intent on seizing a neighbor's livestock, and his life after leaving prison. Included are 18 tapes of interviews with Ned Cobb, 20 tapes of interviews with his family, and five tapes of interviews with unidentified persons. There is also a small number of tapes containing music and other recordings. Rosengarten edited and re-ordered the interviews for his book All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (1974).

Extent:
47 items
Language:
Materials in English
Library Catalog Link:
View UNC library catalog record for this item

Background

Biographical / historical:

Theodore Rosengarten (1944- ) graduated from Amherst College in 1966 and received his Ph.D. in American civilization from Harvard University in 1975. In 1969, while working on his Ph.D., Rosengarten researched the Alabama Sharecropper's Union in Tallapoosa County, Ala. In the course of his research, he met African American farmer Ned Cobb (1885-1973), a former member of the Union. He went on to record a series of oral histories with Cobb and his family. These interviews were edited and re-ordered by Rosengarten for his book, All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (Knopf, 1974), which won the National Book award in 1975. Rosengarten went on to teach history at various institutions including the University of California, Irvine; the College of Charleston, and the University of South Carolina.

All God's Dangers describes Ned Cobb's life in Tallapoosa, Ala. His father was a former slave and tenant farmer. Ned Cobb began sharecropping on his own at age 19 and was eventually able to purchase his own land and become prosperous. In 1931, he joined the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, which was associated with the American Communist Party and fought for the rights of sharecroppers to sell their own crops and deal directly with banks. In 1932, sheriff's deputies came to seize livestock belonging to Cobb's neighbor, a fellow Union member. In the attempted to stop them, Cobb fired at the deputies, for which he was spent 12 years in prison. All God's Dangers also describes Cobb's life after leaving prison as he adjusted to the changes in agriculture that had occurred and to living with his adult children.

Scope and content:

The collection consists of interviews of Ned Cobb (1885-1973), an African American farmer and a former member of the Alabama Sharecroppers Union in Tallapoosa County, Ala., and his family, by Theodore Rosengarten (1944- ), a white historian of American civilization. The interviews describe Cobb's life as a sharecropper, then independent farmer, in east-central Alabama, his involvement with the Alabama Sharecroppers Union, his 12-year imprisonment for shooting at sheriff's deputies intent on seizing a neighbor's livestock, and his life after leaving prison.

Rosengarten's original recordings consisted of more than 60 hours of interviews with Ned Cobb and an unknown number of hours of interviews with members of his family, including his children and second wife. The 47 tapes represent a portion of the original interviews. There are 18 tapes of interviews with Ned Cobb, 20 tapes of interviews with his family, and five tapes of interviews with unidentified persons. There is also a small number of tapes with music and other recordings. Rosengarten edited and re-ordered the interviews for his book All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw (1974).

Acquisition information:

Transferred from the Southern Folklife Collection to the Southern Historical Collection in December 2008 (Acc. 101036).

Custodial history:

Theodore Rosengarten's audiocassettes were damaged in flooding associated with Hurricane Hugo in 1990. The tapes were brought to Wilson Library and washed and re-recorded by Mike Casey and graduate student Patrick Sky. These copies were donated to the Southern Folklife collection. They were transferred to the Southern Historical Collection in 2008.

Processing information:

Processed by: Jennie Clements, November 2010

Encoded by: Jennie Clements, November 2010

Revisions by: Anne Wells

Remediation by: Nancy Kaiser, July 2020. Updated title (previous title: Theodore Rosengarten Oral History Interviews and Other Recordings), abstract, subject headings, and scope and content note.

In 2017, we began using "white" as an ethnic and racial identity for individual and families, in addition to "Black," "African American," "Jewish," and other familiar identity terms that we have used for decades in collection descriptions. We use this identity term so that whiteness is no longer the presumed default of the people represented in our collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

Sensitive materials statement:

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Access and use

Restrictions to access:

Use of audio materials may require production of listening copies.

Restrictions to use:

No usage restrictions.

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], in the Ned Cobb and Cobb Family Oral History Interviews with Theodore Rosengarten and Other Recordings #5407, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [Note: previous title: Theodore Rosengarten Oral History Interviews and Other Recordings]

Location of this collection:
Louis Round Wilson Library
200 South Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27515
Contact:
(919) 962-3765
wilsonlibrary@unc.edu