Herron, long-time resident and businessman in Auburn, Illinois, discusses early 20th century home and social life in Auburn: his family history, cooking and home remedies, housework, rural education, courtship and marriage, social events, entertainment, immigrants, Auburn businesses, the Great Depression and WPA activities, electricity and early radio, and activities of the Ku Klux Klan. He also recalls the business district fire of 1910 and fire protection, WWI, 1918 influenza epidemic, Pearl Harbor and the WWII homefront. He discusses his careers: farming, horse racing, real estate, ownership of an automobile dealership, and coal mining. He recalls coal mining union activities, violence between the PMA and the UMW, and black lung disease.

5 tapes, 450 mins., 2 vols., 108 pp. Interview by Shirley Marshall, 1980 OPEN See collateral file: interviewer's notes, photocopies of automobile advertisements, photographs of Herron and his family, scrip issued during the Depression by the Springfield Credit Clearing Committee, and a 1942 automobile price list.