00:00:00ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. Uh, my name is Susan Abbott-Jamieson, and I am
interviewing Carole Hill in her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The date today
is March the 13th, uh, 2014. Uh, could you state your name, please?
HILL: Carole Hill.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh, and Carole, uh, could you talk a little bit about where you
were born and where you grew up?
HILL: Just-- Well, I was born in, uh, 1943, during the Second World War--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --in northwest Alabama. And I grew up in a small town of a thousand people
called Leighton, Alabama.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Leighton, or Layton?
HILL: L-E-I-G-H-T-O-N.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, OK.
HILL: And it was founded by a man named Leighton. (laughs)
00:01:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Back in the early 1800s. Uh, in the town was a county elementary and high
school, and so I went to both of those schools, and graduated in, uh--from high
school in 1961.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And--
HILL: --and we were--and it was--the, um, context of, of my growing up was
really Appalachia, uh, the s--the southern part of Appalachia culture.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: It's not the plantation model of Southern culture, but more of an
Appalachian model. And--although it was on the Tennessee River, and, um--so
00:02:00there was some industry that, uh--in the area, because of the Tennessee River,
and the area is called the Muscle Shoals area.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK, the Muscle Shoals area.
HILL: The Muscle Shoals area.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Northwest Alabama.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Northwest Alabama. And what was the largest--uh, a larger town
or city near--
HILL: --Florence, Alabama--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --near Florence, Alabama.
HILL: It was Florence. It was across the Tennessee River, in Oak (??) County.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. OK.
HILL: Uh, but it was very close to Mississippi line and the Tennessee line.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh, did you have any siblings?
HILL: One sibling, a sister, 20 months younger.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. And, uh, did your parents grow up there, too?
HILL: Yes.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: My parents had the same teachers in elementary and high school as I had. (laughs)
00:03:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. OK.
HILL: So that kind of put me behind a little bit, uh, but, uh, they both grew up
in Leighton, Alabama. My mother's father--(clears throat)--was, uh, a
pharmacist. He owned the pharmacy--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --in Leighton, and after--just after I was born, I think in the late '40s,
he moved his pharmacy to the square in Huntsville, Alabama.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And that--and his family, uh, and my grandmother's family on my mother's
side came from Louisiana. They moved--they moved back east from Louisiana to
Alabama, which was not necessarily the migration patterns at the time.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh-huh.
00:04:00
HILL: And my father's family, as far as I know, came from North Carolina, and
settled in Florence. And my grandfather owned the local, uh, general store, I
guess you would say.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: This is your father's father.
HILL: My father's father.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: But he sold that when I was very young.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: To--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And your father's, uh, occupation was--?
HILL: My father's occupation, um--I'm not sure of the technical word. Uh, he
worked for Reynolds Metals Company, and for many years he was in charge of the
electricity, the electrical running of the plant.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Ah, OK.
HILL: He was basically an engineer--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --but he did not have an engineering degree. And, uh, the Reynolds Metals
00:05:00Company there was one mile long, and it was the longest reduction plant that
Reynolds Metals had, so the ships would come in on the Tennessee River from
Jamaica, for example, and dump iron ore at one end of the plant, and it came out
as sheets of aluminum--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --what do you mean, iron?
HILL: --at the other end of the plant.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And then it was set to be made into aluminum foil or whatever they used it for.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. OK.
HILL: But, uh, so--and it was a mile long, and he made us walk it at their
opening day every year. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. So they'd drink--bring the bauxite and drop it in there.
HILL: Exactly.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah. OK.
HILL: That's exactly right.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And was your--did your mother, uh, have a job outside the home,
or was she--
HILL: --no--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --a house--full-time housewife?
HILL: She was, uh--I guess at that time you'd say she was a housewife, but she
00:06:00would substitute teach--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh.
HILL: --in elementary and high school, quite often, actually. And for substitute
teaching at that time, they--uh, when I was younger--they paid all of $6 or $7 a
day. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: That's interesting.
HILL: Yeah.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So did she have a post-high school--
HILL: --no--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --education?
HILL: Unh-uh, no. But she was good.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm/
HILL: And she was--she was--she was--she could-- She was very good at creating
boundaries--(laughs)--so-- She was in charge of those kids, but she was smart,
and, and, uh, she, uh, learned the lessons, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And so they called her quite often--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --to, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK, good--
HILL: --to substitute teach.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So you graduated in 1961.
HILL: One.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And--
HILL: --from high school--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --did you then go straight to college?
00:07:00
HILL: I did. I went--I graduated in May 1961, and in June of 1961 I went to Auburn.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So--for the summer. And, um, then graduated Auburn in three and a half years.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And what did you major in?
HILL: Well, I had a double major in, um, history and sociology. Uh, anthropology
was not an option as a major, but anthropology courses were taught in the
sociology department, so--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So did anthropology attract you at that time?
HILL: Yes.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Did you know about it while you were still in high school?
HILL: No.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Well, I knew about archeology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, so--
HILL: --because--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --tell me about that. What did you--
HILL: --yeah, because there was, um, uh-- The University of Alabama had, uh, a
dig--(clears throat)--in the summers at a site in the county that I lived in.
00:08:00Uh, it's--and it was called Stanfield-Worley site, after the two guys that owned
the property.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And they had found a projectile point.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: It was called the Dalton Point.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, I remember Dalton Points.
HILL: And it was until, I don't know, two decades ago, probably, it was still
the oldest date, carbon date--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --in the Southeast.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And, uh, so that as in my county where I grew up.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, OK.
HILL: So the diggers, uh, would come to, uh--they dug for about a month, in,
uh--near Leighton, my town, and they stayed in the high school. (clears throat)
And I was very attracted to them, and, and my mother told me never to talk to
00:09:00'em, and never to have anything to do with 'em.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Really?
HILL: Well, with me--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --why?
HILL: --all--that's all she had to say for me to become friends with 'em.
(laughs) And, uh, I found out about the Stanfield-Worley site, and so I would go
out and visit--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --uh, when I was in high school. And then when I was a freshman in
college, I took sociology. And I knew that was somewhat close to what I was
interested in. And then I took anthropology, and I learned about the entire
field of anthropology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and wanted to become an archaeologist, because I had met these--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --people from the University of Alabama. And so I volunteered, uh, to work
at Stanfield-Worley for two summers, actually, while I was at Auburn.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Mm, OK.
HILL: And I got to know the people at the University of Alabama--
00:10:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --at that time. Uh, and then I took all the, uh, the anthropology courses
at Auburn, um, from, uh, the anthropologists there, a woman named Fran French.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And she was my mentor there.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh-huh.
HILL: And she had graduated from, uh, Louisiana State University, and got her master's.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: She did not have a PhD. And she had gotten a master's. And she was a
dynamic, very good teacher. And took an interest in me, and I used to go and
talk to her about anthropology, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --and told her that's what I wanted to be, and-- And she had, uh, worked
with archeology as well as, um, cultural anthropologists--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --at SU--uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: LSU.
HILL: LSU. (laughs) Um, so she was well versed in both of them. And, uh,
00:11:00that--and once--I was still a freshman when I took my anthropology course, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --that was it.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: That was it.
HILL: I was going to be an anthropologist.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And how did your family respond to that, your parents?
Were--your mother--you commented your mother told you--
HILL: --my mother--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --to avoid these--
HILL: --my mother--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --archaeologists.
HILL: --did not like it. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: What was it about it that--?
HILL: Well, she didn't think I could make any money--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, OK.
HILL: --and she, um--(clears throat)--and, and, and then later on my students'
parents thought the same thing, actually.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes.
HILL: Uh, but I was so hooked that how much money I made was not an issue. In
fact, what I was going to do to make money was not an issue. (laughs) Um, and
she wanted me to--at that time, uh, women were still expected to go into nursing
00:12:00or home ec--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --or teaching.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: So she really pushed me, so I agreed to get--to go another quarter or so
and, um, get a degree, uh, get a s--teaching--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: A t--oh, a teaching certificate.
HILL: --to s--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, enough credits for a teaching certificate.
HILL: --yeah, so I took some of those courses to do that.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Um, so she would be happy. And so she would be secure that I would get a
job. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes. OK. OK.
HILL: As a teacher. But once I practice taught, I knew that was not going to be
what I did. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right. OK.
HILL: Ever.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Ever. OK. (laughs)
HILL: Not in public schools.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. So, uh, so you, you graduated from Auburn.
HILL: Um-hm.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And then you decided to go to graduate school--
00:13:00
HILL: I did.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --so--
HILL: --at the University of Alabama, to be an archeologist.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. So how did that go?
HILL: Well, that didn't go well. Uh, I graduated in December of 1964, from
Auburn, and I started graduate school at the University of Alabama in, uh,
January of 1965.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So I had no breaks--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh--
HILL: --from going--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --to school.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Um, and I, I took, um-- Well, I took an archeology course, and, uh, the
social anthropology cour--two social anthropology courses. And, uh, the
DeJarnette, Mr. [David L.] DeJarnette was the archeologist that--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --controlled all archeology in the state of Alabama at that time.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh-huh.
HILL: He was one of the WPA. He--
00:14:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, really?
HILL: Who, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --so from the '30s, OK.
HILL: --like the person in North Carolina, uh, Joffrey Coe.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: --or the person--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: I knew Joffrey Coe, yes.
HILL: Yeah.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And, and the person in Florida, the person in, uh, Mississippi and, and Louisiana--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: --and Kentucky--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And Kentucky, yes.
HILL: And they--the archeologists that were the archeologists in the state at
universities all began by working WPA days --
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and, and getting their, uh, uh-- And then they were accepted in the
university. And that's why at that time there were, uh--any PhD program in
Southern universities was basically in archeology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --although not, uh--there weren't many universities that had a PhD
program. I guess, uh, Florida did, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. And the PhD
00:15:00program at North Carolina in social, cultural anthropology began, I believe, in 1962--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and that was the first non-archeology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --non-archeology PhD in the Southeast.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Did you know that?
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: No, I hadn't--
HILL: --(laughs)--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --I hadn't known that, but I know Kentucky's--does--starts
along in there somewhere, but it's, it's not before that.
HILL: No.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: No, no.
HILL: It was after that.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Yeah.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah. So, so you were at Alabama, and you--
HILL: --um-hm--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --finished a master's degree there.
HILL: Yes, I did. But the second semester in the summer, I did an
archeological--I went with DeJarnette. He was head of this archeology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --dig on Sand Mountain--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --in Alabama. And, uh, we built a road in to Bluff Shelter. It was
supposed to be an archaic site. Um, and we set up in a motel, and he brought a
00:16:00trailer up, and he ran the dig like a military operation.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And he wasn't there all the time, and he had, uh, his--I guess his
capting--captain or lieutenant or whatever, uh, was Margaret Clayton, who ran
the daily, daily--the daily activities of-- And then I was the graduate student.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So I was third in the chain.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And we were not to go out to eat or to fraternize with the undergraduates.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So he had--he had the-- He set boundaries like the military, and, uh-- He
had been in the military.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And h--he was a military man before he became an archeologist. So, uh--and
00:17:00he wasn't there a lot, and he would not tell us when he was coming.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, OK.
HILL: And he would just show up, like, in the middle of the day, and watch, see
if we were doing what he had told us to do. And he would get really mad. He
would run the dig--like, if each of you had a job, and, and you would shift, I
don't know, every week or something, and sometimes you would, uh, you would run
the machine that separated the pottery from, uh, from the, uh, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, the sifter--
HILL: The sifter.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: The sifters, yeah, yeah.
HILL: That's right. But it was run by a motor.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And, um, and then you would pick the potter out and put it on--in one
place, and you'd pick the projectile points out and put it in another, and any
other things. So--and then you would go wash it and put it-- And each little
00:18:00task was assigned to people, and you had to stay in that area at all times to do
your task.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Again, military-like.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And if you didn't do that, he would just scream over the whole place at
you. And, uh, of course, we didn't know he was coming, and so he was--he would
c--sneak up on us is what he would do.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, yeah.
HILL: And so, uh, it wasn't the most pleasant experience. And he was pretty hard
on me, actually. Uh, he was friendly at first, and then he got pretty hard on
me. And I, um, uh, worked very hard, and--because I still wanted to do this. And
there was another issue in this one particular site. It was sterile.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh.
HILL: And he wouldn't move the site, and we were--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh--
00:19:00
HILL: --finding nothing.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, oh, OK.
HILL: And the people who gave money that--there was a big amateur archaeology
society in Birmingham--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and they gave a lot of money, and so they would visit, and he would--he
would basically tell us to make up stories to tell them about--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: (laughs) OK.
HILL: So, uh, we, we finished that, and I finished all my work, and turned in
all of my papers, and so on, and he gave everybody a grade but me, and he gave
me an incomplete.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh.
HILL: And I asked him why. I caught him in the hallway, and I said, "Why did you
give me an incomplete? 'Cause I gave you all my work." And he said, "I just want
to keep some control over you for a while."
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: I see.
HILL: Well, he was honest.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes.
HILL: Um, and so I basically continued to bitch about it until he did give me
00:20:00the A, but, uh, that was not a good experience. And at that time I had become
very interested in social anthropology, because there was a teacher there who
actually became, uh, my second mentor--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --uh, James G.E. Smith--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: -- was teaching, and, uh, he had just gotten his PhD from the University
of Chicago. And his major professor was Sol Tax and, uh, Fred Eggan.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So we learned British social anthropology. I could quote page, uh, from Radcliffe-Brown's--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --books, and Fred Eggan's books, and all the--Raymond Firth--all the
British social anthropologists. And, uh, and he gave--the syl--the, the syllabi
00:21:00he gave out, he d--were--was the same as the University of Chicago. He didn't
even take the, the name off of it.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: (laughs) I see, OK.
HILL: He didn't put University of Alabama on it. We got University of Chicago. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Sort of training.
HILL: Course outlines. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Did he introduce you to the Park School and any of the domestic
research that was being done by the sociologists at the time?
HILL: No.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: He did not do that. He was, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: It--he--his dissertation had been on the Ojibwa--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --the kinship systems.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: So we learned how--kinship systems forwards and backwards, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --and, uh, uh, I was, I was quite taken--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: --by the British social anthropology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And so I left archeology behind.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And that--I, I just--it, it didn't seem like there was a place for me.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Do you think that was--
HILL: --now, later on I found out that there were a lot of women in my position
00:22:00of my age group, in the middle--well, through this '50s and most of the '60s--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --where they were pushed out of archeology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, yeah.
HILL: In fact, there had been two or three books written about that.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, I wonder if that was part of his--
HILL: --and he was pushing me out--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --because the believe system, especially his, probably, that a woman
couldn't control a dig, couldn't run digs, and couldn't--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And we had role models, like, you know, the, the archaeologists in South
America, and then there were several in Southwest that had been major archaeologists--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --since the 1930s. But there were very few.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And, uh, in the Southeast, with the conservative nature--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --uh, of, um, of the archeologists, the, um--they pushed us out.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah. So where did you decide to go for your PhD, then?
00:23:00
HILL: Uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --you had a master's degree in, what? This was 19--
HILL: --I got a master's degree in, uh, August of 1966.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: I went through Alabama in a year and a half.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Uh, but in the second year, um, I visited--because I had some friends at
the University of Georgia, and I visited them, and Georgia openly recruited me
for their PhD program. And not knowing what that would mean for the rest of my career--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --(laughs)--I, I, you know, went in September to work on my PhD at the
University of Georgia. Yet again, no break. So I started Auburn at--when I was
seventeen, and I went straight through--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --with not even a month break to working on my PhD.
00:24:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Wow.
HILL: And, um--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --so you didn't consider a university outside of the Southeast
when you decided--
HILL: --I didn't--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --to go for a PhD.
HILL: --and, you know, I wish I had, and that's--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --one of those "I wish I had." (laughs) Uh, but I knew the people, and
they gave me money--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and so I just--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --went. They were trying to build their PhD program.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes.
HILL: The PhD program at that time was within sociology. It was sociology and anthropology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes, it was a combined program, yes.
HILL: And, uh, they had, um--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --and again, that year was 19--
HILL: --sixty-six--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --'66, OK.
HILL: Um, so-- And they had some--they had some good professors there. They had,
uh, uh-- Well, the guy who became my mentor, uh, on my PhD level was, um,
00:25:00Charles Hudson.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes.
HILL: And he had gotten his degree from Chapel Hill.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: And, um, Michael Olien--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yes--
HILL: --who was the Latin Americanist, and he had gotten his master's from
Chapel Hill, and then got his PhD from University of Oregon--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --and did his research in Costa Rica.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And, uh, then there was, um-- Bailey, Wilford Bailey.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Wilford Bailey, yes.
HILL: Who had gotten his PhD from the University of Chicago. And back in the
'40s, I believe--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and, uh, so he had had a University of Chicago education, as well. And,
00:26:00and his was more in the--in a, um, cultural anthropology sense--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --not so much the social.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So his training, whoever he took courses from, had not been the strictly
Radcliffe-Brownian school.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right, it had been--
HILL: --it was more of a Malinowski--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --more of a Malinowski or Boasian.
HILL: Exactly. It was more--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --Boasian--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and Kroeber, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK, yeah--
HILL: --and so that was his emphasis, which was a nice balance from what I'd
learned at the University of Alabama.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes.
HILL: Um, and his research had been in the Southwest, and he was Mormon, and he
wrote his--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, yeah, OK--
HILL: --dissertation on, uh, Mormons in Utah.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --had he been part of that Four Corners study that was done by, uh--
00:27:00
HILL: --I think--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --[Florence] Kluckhohn and--
HILL: --yes, I think he was--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: -- [Fred L.] Strodtbeck, and there was that--
HILL: --right, I think he was--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Yeah, that, that sounds familiar.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, and they did Mormons and Texans and--
HILL: --right--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --Navajo and--
HILL: --um-hm--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --so on.
HILL: So he was well versed in Native American--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --and Southwest.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Um-- And a professor that I'd had at the University of Alabama also was,
um, going back there for a minute, the, um, um-- He had gotten his degree from
the University of Chicago, and at the time he was teaching part-time from the
University of Alabama, but he was head of the Arctic Desert Tropic Information Center--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --for the Air Force--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --in Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK, yes.
HILL: And that was where they kept--it was like mini---M-I-N-I--ethnographies
00:28:00for soldiers who were going to different parts of the world--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --to read about the cultures.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: And he was the, um--he was head of that for many, many years. But his
dissertation was the definitive study of the Mogollon culture--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh--
HILL: --in the Southwest.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK, OK.
HILL: And his major professor was Kroeber.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And, um, and he took courses from Radcliffe-Brown.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So I had a very strong influence at University of Chicago--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --actually.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah. I can see that.
HILL: And--but he was more interested in material culture. His courses would go
over the details of, of how houses were built, and how-- He was not a
theoretician. He was--
00:29:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --descriptive--
HILL: --a concrete thinker kind of--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, yeah--
HILL: --which bored us to death. However, I have to say that later when I was
teaching those courses came in handy in my brain. They somehow stayed there--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --as examples of all the conceptual ideas I was teaching--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --at the time--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and then I could pull on his courses--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --later on.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Uh, and he later became chair of the department at Alabama.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm. Um-hm.
HILL: So, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --so--
HILL: --and he was quite like--actually, he was quite like Wilford Bailey, uh,
because Wilford Bailey liked the concrete details.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, yeah.
HILL: And, uh, Hudson and some other people were more theoreticians.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Which is what I took to more--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --than the details, but--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Uh, so I finished my coursework, University of um, Georgia, in 1968, I believe.
00:30:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: Sixty-eight or '69, somewhere--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So did you take your quals then to--?
HILL: Uh, no, I did not. Uh, and one reason why is because I had taken all the
courses for PhD in sociology, as well as anthropology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, OK.
HILL: And pe--people that were my cohorts had to do the same thing, like John
Peterson, and, uh, Joe Acetes, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --and we, uh, we took theory in--so--and I did some research in sociology department--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --community research, and my first research project, uh, going out and
actually interviewing people, was in a sociology course.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And, um, um-- And it was about healthcare, and it got me interested in healthcare.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
00:31:00
HILL: It was, uh-- And it was funded through the rural sociology, um, programs--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --at these--that was actually at many universities--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --through the-- And, um, rural sociology was a major, uh, component.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --they had U--USDA money--
HILL: --the U--exactly--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --at rural--for rural--
HILL: --and so it was on healthcare--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --programs, yeah.
HILL: --in a, um, in a community about an hour drive from Athens, Georgia.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And, um, and I enjoyed it. I liked it. I had a--and there was a,
a--actually, the first black guy that--working on his PhD was in my class, and
he and I went to interview one time in this county, drove out of Athens, and
were stopped by the police and taken to the police station, and I was told,
"Young lady, you have a black sitting in your front seat"--(laughs)--"and you're
riding down the street with a black."
00:32:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes.
HILL: "And you're driving." And we had to call my professor for them to let us go.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes.
HILL: So that was in 1967, I believe.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah. Yes.
HILL: Um, so that was my first--not my first encounter with racism, but personal
encounter with racism in terms of being taken to a police station.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right. Right.
HILL: In '67. Oh, and that reminds me, too--and, and, uh, while I was working on
my PhD, I got interested in Latin America, and--because I had visited Mexico,
and I was interested in Latin America, and so I took courses from Michael Olien,
and that's why I, um, became interested in Costa Rica. I went to Costa Rica to
do research in 1969. Um, but I also, in 1967, during the summer, got a
00:33:00fellowship from the National Endowment for Humanities to study the art and
culture of Mexico and Guatemala.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And we spent two months traveling.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: When you say "we," who was with you?
HILL: It--well, people from all over the country who--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh--
HILL: --they gave twenty of them.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, I see.
HILL: And there were people from all over the country. And so we, uh, we flew
out of Athens. There were two or three, but--actually, there were three
anthropology students.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: I was PhD. The others--one was an undergraduate, and one was a master's level.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And we, uh, flew to, uh, Merida, and from Merida went south to, um,
Palenque and to Tikal. We went--and, uh, the three of us--and we were the only
00:34:00three that did this--we rented a plane and flew into, uh, um-- Oh, the site
where the murals are, the very famous murals. I can't remember their name now,
but you can't go there anymore--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and, uh, it's--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --is it in Guatemala?
HILL: Yes.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And it--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --Tikal?
HILL: Huh?
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Is it Tikal?
HILL: No, we went to Tikal. Uh, Tikal is a huge site.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: This was a little site--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --that just had murals, but when we landed it, it was in the Peten. I
mean, it was--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, uh-huh--
HILL: --it was, uh, like, in the jungle.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And I said, "Where are we going to land?" And he said, "You see those few
trees down there that are not, that are not standing?" (laughs) So we went over
the trees. And then these Lacandon Indians came out, and the chief of the, of
the village came and showed us around the village, and showed us his three
wives, introduced us to his three wives that lived in three separate houses--
00:35:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, yeah--
HILL: --and, uh, then they took us in to see the, um, the murals. I want to say
Uxmal, but it wasn't Ush--that's not the name of it, I don't think. Uh-- Uh--
So--and, and that was--uh, that was out of Palenque. And Palenque is a site that
has a lot of--looks quite similar to some Chinese--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --uh, buildings. Uh, and, of course, the, the fusionist theory of the time
was, uh, that, uh, the Chinese had settled Palenque. Well, none of us believed
it. That's not what a--archaeologists are-- Um-- Anyway, that was very, uh--that
was a very good trip--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and research for me--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, yeah--
HILL: --'cause we went--I mean, we went to Guadalajara, Mexico, Oaxaca--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --uh, Guatemala City--
00:36:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --um, L-Lake Atitlan--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and we went up to, um, the site-- Gee, I should've been interviewed
four, five decades ago; I would remember these people.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: But the site where there was a lot of incense burning, uh, that a famous
woman anthropologist--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --had studied, in, uh, in Guatemala.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: It was--it was pretty close to Lake Atitlan.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And I had read her book, and so I was pretty excited to go in there.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So, um-- And then I wrote proposals to do research in Costa Rica under the
guidance of, uh, of, uh, Michael Lane.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Was he your major professor at that point?
HILL: He was my major professor. My mentor at Georgia was Chuck Hudson in terms
of theory. He--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --uh, he's the one that really opened my--
00:37:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --my brain to thinking, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --theoretically. And, uh, what I learned--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Could--now, back up just a minute, then. So you--declared
Central America as your cultural area?
HILL: Correct. Correct.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: That's my culture area.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. And, and what was going to be your area of other expertise--
HILL: --it was, uh, uh--studying, uh, health--uh, medicine, healthcare, and I
wanted to study, uh, traditional medicines.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: (clears throat) I was in--very interested in traditional medicines.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So you're doing medical anthropology--
HILL: --exactly--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --and Latin America was going to be--
HILL: --correct--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --Central America was your--
HILL: --those were my folk--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --Mesoamerica was your--
HILL: --that's right--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK, OK.
HILL: And, um-- And Hudson, uh--I mean, in his courses we read, uh, Victor
Turner, Levi-Strauss. Uh, we read the, uh, French--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and British--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --again. (laughs)
HILL: Again, but another generation. (laughs)
00:38:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: The theory--the theories that came out of the '60s, and more of what was
known at that point, the idealistic theories--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --rather than the materialistic theories--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --that were coming out of, uh, University of Michigan.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And so, um, uh, I was more--I was interested in belief and belief systems.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And, uh, so I was interested in the belief systems of people who went to
folk healers, as they were called then--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and peop--and a bit of the folk healers themselves.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, yeah.
HILL: So--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So what--
HILL: --I got a, uh--I got first grant that was given to an anthropology student
at the University of Georgia in nineteen sixty--I guess I got it in 1968, maybe.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: From which, uh, source?
HILL: From National Institute of Mental Health.
00:39:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: NIMH.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: NI--NIMH, OK.
HILL: Pre-doc--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes.
HILL: --when they were in--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --they had a big program--
HILL: --yes, and it was--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --pre-doc program, yes.
HILL: --it was a pre-doc program, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --I got a lot of money--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --to go to Costa Rica and study folk medicine.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh-huh.
HILL: And I was in correspondence with Maria Eugenia Bozzoli de Wille--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yes--
HILL: --and--who was the anthropologist, uh, at, uh, University of Costa Rica
for her to help me choose a place to go to do the research. And I wanted to go a
northern part with the Guaymi Indians, and she discouraged that because there
was no way to get in. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: You have to almost parachute in.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So she suggested I go to study the Boruca. And the Boruca live in the
mountains, um, in south, somewhat s--southwest--
00:40:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --Costa Rica. And you go down the Inter-American Highway, and you go to a
little town called Buenos Aires, and then you ride a horse for four to six hours
to get into Boruca of the map.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: That was-- So that's what I settled on. And, um, uh, a, uh, anthropologist
had written a major ethnography--it was a short ethnography--uh, Doris
[Stone]--I can't remember her last name--uh, of Boruca Indians, and she had
lived there. And, um, so I read all about the Boruca, and, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --um, said, "This is what I'm going to do." So in June 1969, I took off.
00:41:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: With all my cameras, and all--I stay a year, uh, living with the Boruca.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Now, they were quite isolated so they, they--
HILL: Yeah, there was no road then.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: They didn't speak Spanish? I know--
HILL: There was--yes, they did.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --I know you had a background in Spanish yourself, so you were--
HILL: --yes--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --fluent in Spanish--
HILL: --they did speak Spanish.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: I was told that they did not speak Spanish.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: But when I got--arrived there, they did.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: In fact, very few spoke their original language--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, OK, so--
HILL: --at that time. Uh-- They, um, were, uh-- There were-- The community was
in transition at that--and I--(clears throat)--uh, rented horses, and got this
guy, and he led me in, and, and they set me up to live in the house that the
schoolteachers lived in. They had rooms.
00:42:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And, um, at that point they didn't have a schoolteacher. Well, it was in
the summer, as well.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: So I had a room in the schoolteachers' house. And then they, you know,
showed me where I would take baths, which was, you know, pumping the water and
pour it over me from the local creek that went, uh, and it was rather cold. And,
and, uh, uh, kind of a humorous note is there was a Peace Corps worker that had
lived there--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and I--well, I spent a month in San Jose and lived quite close to, uh,
uh, Maria Eugenia--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and her family, and, uh, and--which was quite close to the University of
Costa Rica. And I read all the, all the Spanish, uh--the history--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --of the Spanish going into Costa Rica, and their relationship with the
00:43:00Indians, uh, and concentrated on the Borucian--and so the Indians that lived in
the area I was going to. And, uh, I found out that there was a Peace Corps
worker that had lived in--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --with the Boruca for almost a year. So I went to the Peace Corps office
and I talked to them, and I got his report, and about--and in his report the,
the main thing he did is get some of them to build the latrines, because they
actually just used the creek.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right, OK.
HILL: And so when I was there, within the first week or so I would be talking to
different people, and they spoke Spanish.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And, uh, they would take me to show me their latrines, and they were
really proud of 'em. And they said, "You can use it any time."
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: Now, they didn't use it.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: I see. (laughs) OK.
HILL: (laughs) But they--the--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: But they were lovely latrines.
00:44:00
HILL: Right. (laughs) And I found that kind of humorous.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So, um-- And then I hired--uh, doing the research, I hired, uh, a woman to
cook meals for me, and her grandfather was, quote, "head" of the community--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --the leader, elder.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And she was kind of ostracized 'cause she was not married and had two
kids. And what her--the ostracism came from the fact that she had two kids from
two different men.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Ah, OK.
HILL: And so I--you know, three times a day I went down and, uh, uh, ate--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and would talk to 'em, and I, I would tell them all about--you know,
they wanted to know about the United States, and I talked to them about that.
And, and I told 'em about, uh, my dog, and I realized that they had no concept
00:45:00of pet--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --in the same way I did. So I was trying to explain to them what a pet is.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And, uh, and so there was a little chicken on the floor--I mean, chicken
and pigs came in all the time and stuff, and--and they didn't eat any meat. Some
of them had pigs, but that was prestigious, so they wouldn't kill this, this
meat. They'd eat chickens sometimes, but not often. And so I picked up this
little chicken and started petting it and holding it, and I said, "This is what
we do with the dog," and so on. That was at lunch, and when I went in that night
there was a chicken on top of rice--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --(laughs) OK--
HILL: --with blood coming out of it.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: I see.
HILL: So, um, I sat there and I thought, "OK, you--" You know, we had been
taught in the traditional way, and, of course--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --all my professors had talked about all the experiences they had doing
00:46:00fieldwork, and the things that they had to eat, and so on. So, you know--and at
that point I was thinking, "Am I going to be a good anthropologist and eat it
and die?"
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: (laughs) I see.
HILL: And how can I get--how can I not eat this chicken?
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So what I said was, "You don't eat meat, I'm not going to eat meat." And
it took a little while, but they said, "OK." And I'm sure they ate it, but the
mail came in once a month and so, uh, uh, if I got very sick--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --I did not have any recourse.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: I mean-- So, I mean, they'd have to--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: --put me on a horse and take me out--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: --which would've been difficult to folks that were sick. So, um,
that--that's just one story--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --of, of some of the things--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --that happened there.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Uh, but-- (clears throat) Oh, the other thing interesting about that, that
00:47:00field experience was that I was in Miami and they overbooked when I was flying
down to San Jose, and they'd overbooked, so they put me up in Miami Airport, and
that's the night that, uh, that our astronauts walked on the moon.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, yes. Yes.
HILL: So--(laughs)--I'll always remember that.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So you watched that on TV.
HILL: Yeah. I watched on TV in the Miami Airport. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, OK.
HILL: Going to my fieldwork. Now, I had something that turns out not to be as
unusual as I thought, um, it was at the time. I, um--in 1968 my mother died--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yes.
HILL: --in November. I think it--maybe it was the end of October.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And so s--six months before I left. And then I started having problems
with dreams and nightmares about her.
00:48:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And I started withdrawing.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And, um, I couldn't stop the dreams. And then--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --I couldn't-- And then, um, I, I didn't want to sleep.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And then I felt like--and part of this is a b--is, is, you know, in
hindsight, but also I realized I was writing all the time, and it's like I had
to write from the time I got up to the time I went to bed.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And that kind of kept me in some kind of reality.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: And I knew these were not normal behaviors.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And, and I had gone to the fields with them. And I quit doing what
typical-- You know, I had--actually, I, I had interviewed all the houses, and I
got a lot of data, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --(clears throat)--
HILL: But I knew I had to get out of there.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And I was so embarrassed, because, you know, it--the role model was
00:49:00Margaret Mead, and you didn't--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --hear Margaret Mead talk about any bad field experience--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --ever. So I, um, decided, "How am I gonna get out of here?"
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So I--when the mail came in--I waited for the next time the mail came in,
which was probably about a month. And I said, I said that it said my father was
sick or had a heart attack or something.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, yeah.
HILL: And I--and so I said, "I have to go."
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: (clears throat) And I left. And I went back to San Jose and stayed in a
place I had stayed in before, and didn't tell anybody at the university.
(laughs) And then I went straight to Alabama--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, OK--
HILL: --to be with my--and live in the house I grew up in--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and my father was living there. And I did not think I could be an anthropologist--
00:50:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --because of that. I--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --so it was a real cri--personal crisis for you.
HILL: It was personal crisis.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Very much so. And--but we were never told about bad fieldwork experiences
at that time.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm, yes.
HILL: So, uh, I, I gave up the grant--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and didn't t--tell my professors.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh my goodness, OK.
HILL: And a couple of 'em, until I died, never forgave me. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So-- (laughs) And, you know, now, again, in retrospect, I probably
should've gone and talked to 'em, but I was scared, and, and I wasn't, you know,
emotionally stable.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: I mean, I was st--I was trying to deal with my mother's--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yes--
HILL: --death is what I was doing.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: But my professors had to say--of course, I finally told them, and then
they finally had me, within a month, to come over and talk to them. And they
00:51:00decided it was culture shock. And to this day there's one of them that still
tells people I was in culture shock. And, uh, you know, I don't know. I was
still functioning until I had these nightmares--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and stuff--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --so it didn't feel like culture shock to me.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: No.
HILL: But--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --whatever. Um, and then Mike Olein said something to me in that meeting
I'll never forget. He said, "Well, I don't know why you wanted to go to such an
isolated place." He says, "I--where I did my fieldwork was at the end of the, of
the railroad track, and that was so isolated I didn't think I was going to make
it there."
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And you can imagine what I thought.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And I said, "Well, why'd you send me there?" I mean--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, yeah--
HILL: --I was twenty-two years old.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: Twenty-three years old. I mean, you know-- (laughs) So, uh-- And I didn't
00:52:00know. And then Bailey told me, Dr. Bailey told me about a bad field experience
he had.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Well--and I wanted to say, "Why didn't you tell us that in methods class?
Why didn't you tell us that--"
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yes--
HILL: "--when we're talking about fieldwork?" I mean--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --you know-- So, my first published paper in 1971 was on a bad field experience.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: In the Human Organization.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: That was my first published paper. And I was told by several people not to
publish it--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --because it hurt my career--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --if I talked about a bad field experience.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: I see.
HILL: Now--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --so it's interesting how attitudes have changed.
HILL: Yes. But the interesting thing is for years after that, at AAA meeting as
well as Society for Applied,
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --but more at AAA meeting, people will come up to me and say, "I want to
talk to you." And they would take me aside--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and they would tell me about their bad field experiences.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
00:53:00
HILL: And they would--and if somebody else walked up they'd change the subject.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Interesting.
HILL: So, uh, you know, I thought, it's time s--that we started talking--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, yeah, yeah--
HILL: --about this stuff, so-- Uh, and I had, uh, people talking to me for
several years after I published--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --that article in, uh, Human Organization.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So did you have to get a new topic, then, for your dissertation?
HILL: So, what I did--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --what happened?
HILL: Well, I s--well, before I went to talk to my professors, I got a job. I
mean, I, I saw I could not live in Leighton, Alabama, and I needed money.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. (laughs)
HILL: And my father says, "How you gonna make money?"
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So I called up-- I had a, a colleague who was a teacher at West Georgia College.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And I called him--called up in--I called him up in December and said, "Do
00:54:00you have a job opening?"
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And he said, "Yes, we do. Can you come in January?" And I said yes.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And where is it located? West Georgia?
HILL: It's in Carrolton, Georgia--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --Carrolton, Georgia--
HILL: --about fifty miles west of Atlanta.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, and its name today is--?
HILL: University of West Georgia.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: West Virginia--West Virginia. Or West Georgia--
HILL: --Georgia--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --excuse me.
HILL: University of West Georgia--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --West Georgia, OK.
HILL: --in Carrolton, Georgia. And so they hired me on the phone.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Ten thousand dollars a year.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And I thought that was pretty good. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So in 19--and so I started work January of 1970 as an assistant professor.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Still thinking I could not get a PhD.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK, so you had a master's--in fact, you were an ABD is what you were.
HILL: I was ABD.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: You were ABD.
HILL: And I was gonna stay ABD. And that's when I became interested in education
and anthropology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, OK.
HILL: Because I thought--I knew that I could probably stay at a small college--
00:55:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --with a master's degree--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: --and still teach--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and have a, a, a job in, in, in a college.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh-huh.
HILL: And do some work in education and anthropology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: That was sort of what I had planned.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And I knew I'd angered my professors, too.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Well, I don't know, about March they called me from Athens and said--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --"Come over." They found out I had a job--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --in West Georgia, and they said, "Come over. We want to talk to you."
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So I went over, and, uh, they said, "We want you to get your PhD." Uh,
because I had made straight A's, I mean, or A-pluses--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: That was one-- And so, uh, um-- They said, "You pick the topic--"
00:56:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: "--and write a proposal, send it to us." West Georgia, where I was
teaching, had a, a psycholo--a parapsychology master's degree, one of the two or
three universities or colleges in the country that had a paranormal--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, OK--
HILL: --degree, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: --they had people in psychology department, and they had people from all
over the world come.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And, and it was a pretty sophisticated program for a paranormal, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: --uh, part of what--they, they had a professor who studied healing.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. Oh.
HILL: And healthcare.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And he was interested in folk medicine, and he was interested in
00:57:00alternative medical--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --practices. Now, that--and they would have people, very famous people,
who would health through auras and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --who would do all what became known as new age healing--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --come and give talks, and I would go, you know, to dinner with 'em, and I
got to know some of 'em. And I found out that there were traditional healers in Georgia.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, OK.
HILL: Through him. And he and I became friends. And he was in--he was interested
in it not from the perspective I was, a belief system.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: He was interested in how the healing worked--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --in the, in the, you know, the, the energy--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --transfers from healers--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: --and so on, and how the he--healers could heal.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK, and what was his name? Do you remember his--?
HILL: I don't remember.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: I can see him, but I don't remember his name.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: (clears throat) So--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --and he--
HILL: --he--so he--
00:58:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --but he, but he was a psychologist in training.
HILL: He was psychologist.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: He was in a psychology program.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So--(clears throat)--he, uh-- So I told him that I, I, I said, "You know,
I could just transfer my interest in the folk healers--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and my theoretical interests--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --to healers in rural Georgia.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And so I s--he said, "Yeah." And so, uh, we talked about it, and he was
always very supportive of what I was doing. So I took my same proposal for Costa
Rica, and, of course, took out all the Latin America--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --stuff, and put in more Southern cultural stuff--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and, and history. And, uh, there were several people who had written on
folk medicine and folk healers--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yes--
HILL: --in the South.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Well, uh, the woman at, uh, University of Kentucky, Marion Pearsall.
00:59:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yes, Marion, right--
HILL: --had done a few things.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: That's right.
HILL: Uh, and, um-- A woman in Michigan, um, she was Southern, um-- She had
written a book, and, uh, written many articles on it.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And so I--from her I got the categories and set up the research design,
um, of what I would do. And so, uh, my professor said, "Sure."
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: (laughs) "Do it."
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So West Georgia gave me courses in the morning, and every afternoon I
would go out within a hundred-mile radius--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --and follow leads where healers were, and some of my students knew--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --and, uh--'cause I would bring it up, I'd bring all these categories up,
01:00:00like talking the fire out of burns, and, and curing the thr--the thrash, which is--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --really thrush, and all the different categories of the folk healers out there.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh-huh.
HILL: Now, this was sort of on the last cusp of when those folk healers were
really active in--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right, so these were elderly people.
HILL: They u--generally were--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --although--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah. And were they black or white or both?
HILL: Both.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Both, OK.
HILL: And whites went to blacks.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Black healers.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Um, and they were very poor.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: The average income of the people that I interviewed was $2,100 a year.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And that was in 1970--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --seventy--
HILL: --'71.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: --so, uh, it would've been more now, but very poor. And--(clears
throat)--so We--West Georgia was very nice on giving me--I mean, they worked
01:01:00with me. And, uh, and then I'd--I, I would, uh, just drive around the rural areas--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --when I found out and knock on the door, and many people wouldn't let me
in. I mean, the--'cause I knew they were folk healers. But I'd have to talk
myself in some.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh-huh.
HILL: But I got a pretty good sample--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and I got a sample of different categories--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and I, uh, I guess that took a year--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --to collect all the data.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, yeah.
HILL: And, uh, then wrote it up as a dissertation.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And West Georgia gave me a quarter off to write.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: To write this.
HILL: Um-hm. And still gave me courses when I wanted 'em--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --to teach. You know, at the same time I wrote a, a, uh, BA degree--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yes, I noticed that--
HILL: --for West Georgia and, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --that you, you were--
HILL: --and got the--got it approved through the Board of Regents, and got--and
there was-- Then the colleague that I had was still there, and so he and I, uh,
01:02:00uh, had all the anthropology courses, and then they gave--and then I hired, uh,
an archaeologist--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --there. So--and then I hired a--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --so it was--it had been a joint department--let's clarify upon--
HILL: --it was a joint sociology/anthropology department--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --when you, when you first arrived--
HILL: --when I went, yeah.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --on campus.
HILL: Yeah.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And then you said, "Gee, let's try to get an independent BA degree."
HILL: You know, and then--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --did it also mean an independent department, or just a BA
degree. HILL: --BA degree. It was in--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --within that joint department--
HILL: --uh, it became an independent department after I left.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Um-- But I hired Lew [Lewis H.] Larson, who was a pretty famous anthropologist--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --uh, as the--as the archeologist.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And he did some definitive work, work at, um--(clears throat)--Ocmulgee--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --in Georgia. Uh, the Mississippian period there. And, um, so he built
01:03:00re--an archeology, a very--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --uh, ongoing archeology program.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Um-- And I hired, um, also Craig-- I've forgotten Craig's last name, but
he was one of my colleagues when I was a, a student at the University of Alabama.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And so he was an archeologist, and he had done research in Yucatan. So,
um--and then we hired some part-time people, as well.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So we s--uh, the anthropology department--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --started growing--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --and, uh, we had a lot of majors, and still--they still do.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: It's--it has maintained.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And its strength is archaeology. They have--uh, West Georgia had somebody
give 'em a million dollars for an archaeology lab--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --(clears throat)--to build an archaeology lab--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --so--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And, um, so that--I was doing that, as well as, uh, uh, writing my dissertation.
01:04:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So I finished my dissertation in '71, end of '71.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh-huh.
HILL: And I can't remember whether my degree--my PhD was in December '71 or in--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --spring of '72?
HILL: --spring of '72. I think--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --w-whichever, but I'd--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --lost some time--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --I mean, given the fact that I went straight through and was-- (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, yeah.
HILL: But I was still rather young. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Um--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: And I noticed they made you an interim chair.
HILL: Um-hm.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh, no wait, that's at Georgia State--
HILL: --no--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --that comes later--
HILL: --no, that was, that was at Georgia State--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --I'm confusing that, yeah--
HILL: --yeah, I was not interim chair--
01:05:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --because of sociology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, OK.
HILL: Uh, but I--and I was good friends with the dean at West Georgia, and he
liked anthropology, so--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, OK--
HILL: --he, um, um, um, supported all the work--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --toward a BA degree there--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --in anthropology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And so Georgia State started recruiting me. (clears throat)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Ah. You--were you--you, you did--you weren't actively looking.
You were--
HILL: --unh-uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --you were there, and--
HILL: --well, I did--actually, I--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh--
HILL: --went on a couple of interviews--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, OK--
HILL: --'cause people were recruiting me--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and, uh, I went to Virginia and, uh, actually University of Washington, Seattle--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh--
HILL: --tried to recruit me--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK, OK--
HILL: --and, uh-- And at that time they wanted somebody--an expert in folk
medicine in the United States--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, OK, so that was what--
HILL: --and there weren't many people that had done that--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --and that was attractive--
HILL: --as me--as a medical anthropologist.
01:06:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, OK.
HILL: So I had--I'd, I'd maintained kind of a interest in anthropology in
education, although medical anthropology was my number one, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --interest. Uh, so I became, uh--I think I served on a committee or two in
the Society for Applied Anthropology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --the committee on education and anthropology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: Um, which we can talk about later. But, um--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --I thought in the second interview we would talk about--
HILL: --yes--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --your work with the--
HILL: --with the--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --associations, professional associations--
HILL: --OK, that's good.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: So I can look them up. (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: But--and I was, um, also, uh, active in medical anthropology, as well.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right, yeah.
HILL: And, uh, Georgia State, uh-- I went over for an interview, and they
offered me more money than I thought I could make, and, uh--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --and, you know, I, I really loved rural life, and, and, and rural
01:07:00culture, and there I was, going to take a job in the middle of the largest city
in the Southeast.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: (laughs) Yes.
HILL: (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: And I did. (laughs) So I went to work at Georgia State, I believe, in
September of '73. Am I right? Or '74?
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh, uh, in '73.
HILL: OK.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Seventy-three.
HILL: In '73, and they had just hired a new chair of the anthropology
department, Don Lindberg, who was a primatologist.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And they'd--he had gotten his degree from Berkeley, uh, but I think he was
teaching at Davis, and they hired him--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --from Davis to come and be chair, uh, because Yerkes wanted him--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --Yerkes Primate Center--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --sure--
HILL: --that's connected with Emory [University].
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Emory, right.
HILL: And also at Georgia State, the head of the psychology department was a
01:08:00primatologist, and he--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, interesting--
HILL: --he was a--he, he was the first one to do--one of the first ones to do
in-depth studies of language acquisition of Chimpanzees.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. OK.
HILL: And so to have also a prominent primatologist as head of the anthropology department--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --it just made sense and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --like, fit. So Don and I went there at the same time--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --and he was chair of the department.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK, and so you're a new assistant professor now. I mean, new--
HILL: --I'm a new--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --new to that university--
HILL: --I'm assistant professor--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --beginning '73 at Georgia State University--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --right, having had--having put in three years of teaching--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --almost three years of teaching--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --at this point, yeah.
HILL: Yeah. And, and my professors were supportive of me getting my PhD all
along, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --so--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So now you're at Georgia State--
HILL: --um-hm--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --and you're an assistant professor, and--
01:09:00
HILL: --um-hm--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh, uh--and I notice, though, they--within two years or so,
don't they make you an interim chair?
HILL: They do, because Don Lindberg--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --as an assistant professor--
HILL: --did not like--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --(laughs)--
HILL: --he did not like being chair of a department. Don--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --was a very gracious gentleman--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --who could not play the politics, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --was not interested in the politics, had no clue about Southern culture.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: He grew up in Pennsylvania.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So he would come back from the meetings, and we would have two-hour--he
and I would sit around two hours with me, um, deconstructing--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, debriefing him on what went on--(laughs)--
HILL: --on what went on in the chairs' meeting--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --explaining.
HILL: --(laughs)--'cause he couldn't-- He said, "They made all these decisions,
and I didn't even know how they got there." (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. (laughs)
HILL: So me trying to teach him about Southern culture and how it works--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and so on, and he just didn't like it. And the dean--the dean made him
01:10:00make some decisions he didn't want to make. And, uh, so he resigned.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And they put me as interim chair.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And then--and then, within a year I think I was full chair.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: You got promoted--
HILL: --got promoted--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --to associate--
HILL: --uh-huh, and f--and chair--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --and then full-time chair.
HILL: Exactly.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. Now, you were at Georgia State University for twenty-four
or five years, something like--
HILL: --twenty-seven years--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --for twenty-seven years, a long tour of duty. And during that
time you were chair, or director of graduate--graduate studies, or had some kind
of formal role for much of that time, for--
HILL: --yes--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --for much of that time.
HILL: --for about twenty-five years of that time--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --twenty-four, twenty-five years of that time.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: So when you were hired, uh, uh, how did you see the department
01:11:00at that point, and what--how did you want to see it develop? Because when you
went to work at Georgia State you were, uh--
HILL: --1973--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and, uh, and, um-- How I want--my ideas at that time were to develop
medical anthropology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --'cause that was my interest. And I thought that Georgia State should
develop a program in, uh, what we call multiculturalism, or--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --uh, ethnicity. I guess ethnicity--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --in the cities.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK. OK.
HILL: And have a local, ongoing research--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --component of the program that would be what would be applied, although
01:12:00I, at that time, was still not necessarily using the word "applied," I think.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Mm--I don't think I was. But I meant to work with governmental agencies--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --and city agencies--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --uh, uh, private and non-private, uh, uh, to, uh--as they were resettling
ethnic groups in the city.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, OK.
HILL: Uh, particularly there were a lot of Cambodians and, and Vietnamese,
because that was the Vietnam War.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: Uh, so Atlanta was chosen as one of the places--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --to resettle, and, um, and this was starting '74, '75.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And I think I had my first grant in--it could've been '74, '75--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --on ethnicity.
01:13:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And, uh, I also, uh, had a grant working with, um, Emory in medical anthropology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Um, so those were the two areas, medical anthropology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --and ethnicity. And the other component of, um, the program was
archaeology. We had a--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --an archaeologist, uh, Roy Dickens, who had developed, uh, uh, urban anthropology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Archaeology.
HILL: I mean--excuse me, yes, archaeology.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Urban archaeology, OK.
HILL: And he did, uh--and he got a grant in the mid-to-late '70s to, uh, do the,
um, survey work ahead of the--of, uh, putting in MARTA.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, OK, sure.
HILL: The rapid transit--
01:14:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --system--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --in Atlanta.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Um, so, um, he--that was an ongoing--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --sure--
HILL: It went many years.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Long time, yeah.
HILL: He--that was an ongoing--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --sure--
HILL: --it went, uh, many years--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --long time, yeah--
HILL: --uh, uh, yes, and, uh, and he did very well in, you know, incorporating
students, and they found all these artifacts in, uh, in old neighborhoods, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --so they would reconstruct the neighborhoods in the 1800s, or late 1800s,
or even into the 1900s--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --uh-huh--
HILL: --and got into garbage--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --garbology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, I remember when garbology came in.
HILL: --at that time--yeah, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and, and he was one of the first ones to do that, and--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --so we had an ongoing archaeology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --and then I had research, which is my, uh, medical anthropology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and then starting the, uh, ethnicity studies.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And, um, we only had a BA degree at that time.
01:15:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Oh, OK.
HILL: And we were talking about going for a master's, but that was going to be
difficult, because Georgia fought it.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Ah, OK.
HILL: University of Georgia did not want Georgia State to get a master's degree.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Uh, and, you know, we explained it was going to be in applied--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --and it did not overlap with what, whatever Georgia was doing--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --at the time. Uh, but, um-- And Wilfred Bailey supported it.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: He supported us. And, uh, that was good. But also, to get people at
Georgia State to support it--we'll get the Board of Regents, because at that
time they wanted, uh, you to show you would gain majors, and particularly what
jobs they'd get.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Right.
HILL: And, uh, so--(clears throat)--that is what pushed me really into applied anthropology--
01:16:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --oh, OK--
HILL: --because we could show--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yes--
HILL: --that people with master's degrees in applied anthropology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --could get jobs. And it was that time that you had, uh, other
universities, similar to Georgia State, like Memphis State--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --like South Florida--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --like, um, uh--let's see, what other school? It was Memphis State--Mar--Maryland.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: Beginning to, uh, develop master's degrees in applied anthropology. And so
then all of that was true of the Society for Applied Anthropology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --which we'll talk about later--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right, yeah, right.
HILL: Uh, but that's--and I was doing this work at Georgia State.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And applied anthropology held the whole thing together--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --OK--
HILL: --because the ethnicity stuff, the medical stuff--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --and archaeology--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, it was contract archaeology, and--
HILL: --all went together--
01:17:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --NA--NAGPRA, or NAPRA studies--
HILL: --it was a natural fit--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --and, and the--yeah, yeah--
HILL: --for applied--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --for training students in applied.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And before we got the master's degree, uh, we were training our students
on a master's level.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Um-hm.
HILL: And that sort of--that became recognized nationwide, uh, through at least
two avenues: one, we had students publishing as undergraduates--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and two, when we sent our undergraduates to work on PhDs, they excelled.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah.
HILL: And so we had other universities moaning our students.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: And we used that as one of our arguments--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --right--
HILL: --for a master's degree.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Uh, so I, in my mind, and in the department's mind--and we worked on this altogether--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah--
HILL: --uh, to, uh, make sense for us to get a master's degree--
01:18:00
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --um-hm--
HILL: --and, uh, so that's what we were doing in, uh--well, for five or s--five
years in the '70s.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: It took you five years to get it approved.
HILL: It did. It took us five years to get it--
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: --yeah, OK--
HILL: Uh, it was approved in 1980, I think.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: It was approved while I was on, uh, leave.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: Uh, and I had the post-doc at Berkeley.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Yeah, OK.
HILL: San Francisco.
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: OK.
HILL: So--can we stop a minute? (laughs)
ABBOTT-JAMIESON: Uh, yes. Let's, uh--I'm pausing this now, and we will come back
to it, uh, later. Be sure and push the correct button.
END OF AUDIO FILE
