The Reynolda House Museum of American Art Oral History Project was established in 1980 as a program devoted to the study of the Reynolds family, Reynolda, and Winston-Salem history. The initial goals of the project were to collect and preserve information about 1.) the history of Reynolda House when it was the home of R.J. and Katharine Reynolds’s family; 2.) Reynolds family history; and 3.) the transformation of Reynolda House from a private home to a museum for American art. The interviews explored not only what life was like at Reynolda, but also what life was like in Winston-Salem, N.C., during the early and mid-twentieth century, touching on the area’s socio-economic, political, business, and cultural history.

A significant motivation behind the oral history project was to render historically visible those whose experience is not reflected in traditional written sources. The resulting interviews highlighted the Black residents and workers of the estate, and it is only through the oral histories that we are able to learn the story of Five Row, the African American community located across the road from Reynolda Village.

The bulk of the interviews were conducted in 1980 by Lu Ann Jones, then a graduate student in the Southern Oral History Program at the University of North Carolina. The later interviews were conducted by Sherold D. Hollingsworth, Assistant to the Founding President, Barbara Babcock Milhouse, and various museum staff members.