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| The Dookey Book A story and letter of the way it was in East Rockingham in the 1950s written by Mike Culver |
| September 05, 2004 North Carolina Museum of History 4650 Mail Service Center Raleigh, NC 27699-4650 Dear Sirs: In the early 1950s my cousins and I would often attend the Hannah Pickett Theater in East Rockingham, NC. The admission was 9 cents for we kids, but a steep 15 cents for adults. The Hannah Pickett Theater was owned by the Hannah Pickett textile mill. (The Hannah Pickett Mill had been renamed the "Safie Mill," but the theater was still called the Hannah Pickett.) In other words, the theater was a company owned theater. The company store was next door. Sometimes one or more of my group would have less than the full 9 cents admission. Consequently we would exercise our "secret plan," and walk around the theater and company store to the trash pile between the rear of the store/theater and a railroad track. This trash pile was where they burned old "dookey books" which had been depleted by the company store and theater. There we would search through the unburned dookey books looking for the rare book which might have a 1 cent ticket or two still attached. What's a "dookey book?" It was our term for the company script issued by the textile mills as an advancement on pay. The company script had to be spent in company owned businesses - either at the company store, the company theater, or to pay rent on a company owned house. The script was bound in books of tickets. A $2.50 dookey book contained five 25 cent tickets, five 10 cent tickets, ten 5 cent tickets, ten 2 cent tickets, and five 1 cent tickets. When these dookey books were spent at a company owned business, the company clerk would remove the correct amount of tickets for a particular purchase from the book. If a ticket had been removed by the holder of the dookey book, it was invalid and wouldn't be accepted. In other words, the tickets had to be attached in the book to have any value. Our search through the trash would be for the rare dookey book which had not yet been burned and had one or more tickets still attached. Five cents in cash, and four dookey books, each having a one cent ticket attached, would allow you to watch a Gene Autry movie accompanied by a news reel and the latest chapter of a Rocketman serial. On one occasion I was embarrassed when the man in the box office said, "I know you younguns are gettin' these dookey books out of the trash." Nevertheless, he accepted them. I attempted a search for the term "dookey book" on the Internet and found nothing. This leads me to believe that the term might have been local only to Rockingham. I did learn that the coal mines in West Virginia and Kentucky had similar systems, but they called their books "flippers." The official term was "company script." The song, "Sixteen Tons," made popular by Tennessee Ernie Ford in the 1950s, makes several references to these books and their potential for keeping coal miners constantly indebted to their employer. Which brings me to the point of this letter: Some years back I video taped the 50th wedding anniversary of a Rockingham couple, Horace and Alene Hyatt. A discussion about dookey books arose and Mr. Hyatt commented, "I've got a dookey book at home." Sometime later I video taped the college graduation of Mr. Hyatt's grandson. At the graduation dinner, Mr. Hyatt got my attention and said, "I've got something for you." He pulled the dookey book out of his jacket pocket and gave it to me. This dookey book was issued by a Rockingham, NC, textile mill sometime before the early 1950s when they were discontinued. It is in pristine condition, as if it was picked-up at the mill office only yesterday. The front of the book has the words, "The Coupons in this Book are Good for $2.50." Under that statement is the qualifier, "Merchandise Only." Under that are the words, "Operatives Trading Co. Rockingham, N.C." The remainder of the face of the book has blank spaces where the user and issuer are to write their names. The blanks have not been filled-in. The book bears the serial number "No. 642B." My sister has urged me to try to sell this dookey book on "EBay." Whether the dookey book has any monetary value is questionable. However, it does have historical value to the state of North Carolina because it represents an era of state textile mill life that is now all but forgotten. Would the North Carolina Museum of History have an interest in this dookey book for its artifact collection? If you have an interest, please advise me as to how I may donate it. Thank you. Sincerely yours, Mike Culver HMC:09-05-04 |
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