T. Harry
Williams Center for Oral History Collection
INTERVIEWEE
NAME:
Ellen Bryan Moore COLLECTION: 4700.0537
IDENTIFICATION: [1912-2000]
World War II Veteran; Former Register of
State Lands
INTERVIEWER: Mary Hebert
PROJECT: World War II
and Louisiana State History
DATES: September 26,
1995; October 2, 1995; October 8, 1995.
FOCUS
DATES:
1920's-1970's
ABSTRACT:
T
776
Date
of birth and family information; why Moore decided to join the Women's Army
Corps; how Moore became a recruiter for the WAC; experiences as a recruiter for
the WAC; basic training; reactions to her joining the military; working with
Yugoslavian pilots; USO dances; getting appointed as a recruiter; recruiting
300 women at once; commanding a service unit in New Orleans; working with
returning soldiers; promotions; the educational background of the WAC's;
women's attitudes toward serving in the army; speaking to army troops in the
hopes that they would encourage their female relatives to join the WAC; the
impact of changing the WAC from an auxiliary unit to a unit within the army;
the officer who influenced her the most; meeting her husband Haywood Moore
while she was in the service; the impact the army had on her political career;
her husband's supportive attitude toward her political career; attitude toward
Huey Long's politics; campaigning strategies; what campaigning was like;
reactions of men to her speeches; real estate background; campaigning on a
ticket; how the men on the ticket treated her; her duties at Register of State
Lands; conflicts over ownership of land; campaigning as a group; speaking in
Cajun parishes; personal ethics; why Moore retired from office; her family
background and it's affect on public service.
T
777
Former
Baton Rouge location of the warden's house for the state penitentiary; Moore's
father's appointment as warden; her mother's teaching career; Moore's
grandfather Benjamin Franklin Bryan who was the mayor of the Baton Rouge in the
1880's; family connections to plantation life; support during campaigning from
friends of her family; memories of growing up in the penitentiary; her seventh
birthday party; the Five Tent Girls club that she formed with neighborhood
friends; chores; dancing lessons; attending St. Joseph's Academy; attending
LSU's University Demonstration High School; organizations that she and her
mother belonged to; attending college at Southwestern in Lafayette; how she
began to remodel houses; attending LSU; marriage; Huey Long's administration;
Russell Long; joining Delta Zeta; football; dances; the LSU Hall of
Distinction; how LSU helped her in life.
T
801
Flood
of the Mississippi River; teaching at Wyandotte Elementary in Baton Rouge after
graduation from LSU; the depression in Wyandotte; charity for the Wyandotte
area families including the first soup kitchen in Baton Rouge; concern for
students; discipline students and individual attention for students;
maintaining contacts with her students; teaching at Bernard Terrace Elementary;
working with parents; her father's jobs after his dismissal by Huey Long;
prisoners who worked for her family; products grown by the prisoners that her
family had access to during the depression; visiting the penitentiary; the LSU
scandals; attending LSU's University Demonstration High School; working on her
master's in psychology; teaching after World War II; getting started in
politics; national tour with the Democratic Committee during which she meet
Tipper Gore; the job of an elected official; campaigning in south Louisiana on
Sunday; the Baton Rouge bus boycott in 1953 and views on Civil Rights; Le
Chapeau Chic a social club and the Woman's Club House; other groups which Moore
was active with; circumstances of marriage and divorce to her first husband;
separation of finances with her second husband; her husband's support of her
political career.
TAPES:
776;
777, 801 TOTAL PLAYING TIME:
3.5 Hours
#
PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 159
OTHER
MATERIALS: Interviewer
Release Form; Interviewee Release Form; Proper Name List; Correspondence; News
paper article “The Warden's House.”
RESTRICTIONS: None.