Her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is in American History. She also served as the director for "An Oral History of Southern Agriculture," for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (1986-1991). She has been the co-contributing Editor for Oral History for the Journal of American History and is an elected member of the Council of the Oral History Association. Her publications include co-authorship of Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (1987), which won the American Historical Association's Albert J. Beveridge Award and the Organization of American Historians' Merle Curti Award.