| Scope and content |
In this interview Lucy Cherry Crisp reads the dialectal verse which makes up Spring Fever. The poems are in Negro dialect and reflect life in the Falkland community of rural Pitt County during the early twentieth century. For related material see Collection #154. Miss Crisp, a Pitt County, N.C., native, has had a varied career as a poet, journalist, religious counselor, and art museum administrator. Among her published works are two volumes of poetry, Brief Testament and Spring Fever. |
| General note | Interviewer: Donald R. Lennon. Interview date: March 26, 1973. |
| Access restriction | No access restrictions. |
| Cite as |
Lucy Cherry Crisp Oral History Interview (#OH0013), East Carolina Manuscript Collection, J. Y. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA. |
| Terms of use | Repository does not own copyright to the oral history collection. Permission to cite, reproduce, or broadcast must be obtained from both the repository and the participants in the oral history, or their heirs. |
| Acquisitions source |
Joyner- Gift of Lucy Cherry Crisp. |
| Biographical note | Lucy Cherry Crisp (March 4, 1899-November 25, 1977), daughter of Sellers Mark and Annie (Gorham) Crisp, was born in Crisp, Edgecombe County, though her family moved soon after her birth to Falkland in Pitt County. Miss Crisp received a B.S. degree in music from the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina in 1919 and later studied at Columbia University, Boston University, and Radcliffe College. For ten years following her graduation from Woman's College, Miss Crisp taught piano and supervised music programs in several North Carolina and South Carolina schools. She served from 1929 until 1932 as education director and student secretary at the Church of the Convenant in Greensboro. Between 1932 and 1936 she acted as general secretary of student religious activities at Woman's College. The 1936-1937 academic year found Miss Crisp at the First Congregational Church, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she worked as director of the Pilgrim Foundation. Following her work between 1938 and 1940 with the YWCA at Macon, Georgia, she spent six years (1941-1946) in Greenville, N.C., working at the Community Art Center and the U.S.O. Club. Miss Crisp directed the North Carolina State Art Gallery from 1947 until 1955 and the Florence Museum (Florence, S.C.)from 1957 until 1963. Returning to Greenville, she served as director of the Greenville Art Center and spent much of her time writing. |
