T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History Collection

ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME: George Blair Pickett #4700.0051

IDENTIFICATION: [ca. 1929- ], son of the president and general manager of the New Llano Cooperative Colony near Leesville, Louisiana.

INTERVIEWER: Margaret Fisher

DATE: December 2, 1974 FOCUS DATES: 1930-1950

ABSTRACT:

Tape 57A

Pickett's military career; colony children's education; kid colony, the colony's day care center; socialist ideology of the colony; colony moves from Llano, California, to Louisiana in 1917; His father, George Pickett, as president and general manager of the colony; colony's manufacturing ventures to sustain itself; skills and backgrounds of colonists; why people came to the colony; colony took in destitute "outsiders" during the Depression; deterioration of the colony; Eugene Carl's role in the revolt against Pickett's father in 1935; colony split into father's supporters and Carl's supporters; violence against his father; colony buildings sold to Leesville citizens to pay the colony's court costs from suits brought by former colonists; his father's early background; father's belief in socialism.

Tape 57B

Pickett's mother's background; religious practice in the colony; colony meetings; role of women; most colonists were socialists and "radicals"; colonists from other countries; what colonists did after the break up of the colony; his father's lecture tours.

TAPES: T 57A, T 57B TOTAL PLAYING TIME: 2 hours

# PAGES TRANSCRIPT: 48

RESTRICTIONS: copyright retained by the interviewee, interviewer, and/or their heirs.