Why did the textile workers union in the southern United States spread so rapidly? The textile industry was, at one time, one of the largest industries in the south. Starting in the late 1800?s with small local looms and spreading to become corporations controlling the south and whose influence stretched internationally. One of the south?s first textile corporations originated in Gaston County, North Carolina, and its huge success led to the opening of mills across the Carolina?s and Virginia. As these industries grew they began to control more and more of their employees lives. These huge corporations were permitted to take advantage of their workers because of the individuals inability to fight back. The employees of these mills lived in conditions resembling that of slaves before the civil war. They were worked grueling hours in inhospitable prisons called textile plants, yet were paid on average less than any other industrial worker in America. In the early twentieth century a sentiment of contempt began to grow between the laboring class and the all-powerful corporation. The masses began to push for union representation. The industry?s numbers represents the importance of this industry. Textiles were the foundation of southern economy. In 1900 there were one hundred seventy-seven mills in North Carolina, but by the early nineteen twenties, that number had grown to over five hundred. Fifty were in Gaston County alone, and ?by 1929 there were more than one hundred mills in Gaston County which could process cotton, with nearly seventeen thousand workers earning their living exclusively from the mills (Williams 29).
The Review on Social Isolation and the Female, Live in Domestic Worker in South Africa
In a world which tends to discriminate against race, gender and class, many black, female, lower class women face an uphill battle in day to day life. Those who manage to find employment often work as domestic workers in the homes of the more elite. These women often serve many roles within a household such as nanny, cook and cleaner. Many of these women become live in maids for the convenience of ...
Textiles were a booming industry in the south. South Carolina employed only 2,053 people in the industry at the turn of the century, but by 1920, nearly 50,000 people worked in mills, one sixth of South Carolina?s population. Virginia?s textile industry grew just as quickly with the incorporation of the Riverside Cotton Mills which had only 2,240 spindles and a mere one hundred looms. By the turn of the century the mill expanded and operated 67,650 spindles and 200,000 looms. Growth seemed to continue almost exponentially until the depression set in in1929. It could easily be said that the depression was the cause of the ill will that the workers felt toward their employers. Although the mills seemed to be doing great, grossing sales in the billions of dollars, the working class in the mills were seeing very little of the industries success. Textile workers earned less than any other laborer. With the success as abundant as it was in the textile industry, it is no wonder that the laborers sought unionization since they were seeing so little of the profit at their end of the industry. In 1902 only one textile workers union in Virginia was reported by the state Labor Commissioner. It had forty members, of whom none were employed (Smith 52).
So, massive strikes were impossible to organize and because of this the workers had little leverage. There were still small local strikes that were mostly unsuccessful. One of which was reported in Mill on the Dan. When Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor visited Danville, Virginia where in response to their attempts to organize hoped to catalyze the endeavors. A single mill went on strike in a city that was supported by five others. The company did not compromise, and slowly the workers trickled back to their jobs. In 1929 the first notable strike broke out in Gaston County. This massive strike was preceded by a brief strike in nearby Mecklenburg County, and other smaller labor disputes in counties surrounding Gaston, but this strike, known as the Loray Mill Strike, began the massive spread of unionization sentiment in the south. The year of 1929 marked the boom of the spread of unionization in the south, agitated by the success of the Loray Mill strike. South Carolina?s, as well as Virginia?s industry executives were fearing the spread of this push for unionization would spread across North Carolina?s borders and into their states. Their fears were not unwarranted. The last major labor battle in textile south was in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina between pro-union laborers and the J. P. Stevens Company. Worker there joined the TWU (Textile Workers Union) and then merged with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union of America to form ACTWU (the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union of America) creating a union giant with over 400,000 members. Soon afterward nearly all of the south?s textile corporations were unionized. From 1929 when the TWUA was first formed, to 1976 when the ACWU and the TWUA merged, over 140,000 textile workers had joined the union. Why did the union gain support so rapidly? There were several factors that led to the expedience of expansion.
The Essay on Female Mill Workers in England and Japan
B Mr. Carmer March 24, 2013 Comparing Workers in England and Japan The Industrial Revolution was the greatest transforming event in human history. Big factors in the revolution were the human figures. Such as exhausted laborers pouring molten steel or the eight year old child working with a bottling machine. But the main focus will be the women and young girls in the textile industry of England ...
First of all, leadership was a major issue in the growth of the union. ?A new whisper rose in Gaston county and throughout the South, the voice of labor leadership asking concessions from the employees? (Cope and Wellman 163).
Because of the terrible conditions workers had to endure it wasn?t very difficult for the leaders to carry the masses into the unavoidable labor battle. History has proven that any oppressed people can by persuaded to rise up with the aide of proficient leadership. Hitler?s rise to power is but one example among many. The civil rights movement is another headed by Martin Luther King Jr. and Booker T. Washington. The rise of the working class in Russia under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin is still another. The textile workers in the south are no exception. In the textile industry, the oppression was rooted in working conditions and and salaries.
As the industry had grown, mill towns sprang up. These villages were built by the mills, and housed its laborers. At first these towns seemed to create a healthy symbiotic relationship between the employees and their employers, but these mill towns weren?t the free housing and free living utopia?s they were marketed as. These towns began to resemble the plantation houses and surrounding slave houses during the period of slavery in American history. Much like the slaves the textile workers worked in trade for housing and food. The mills offered a paycheck, but they also offered a line of credit at a mill owned store, which was then deducted from the individual’s paycheck. Rent was also deducted. There were cases when workers came home with only a few cents left on their checks after deductions were made. This relationship does not seem beneficial to the worker, but it worked under the close bonds of local ownership. One small time mill owner, when strikes began to pop up, noted that, ?Last winter, when the snow was on the ground and times were hard, we took care of our employees, and they appreciate it; they?re not going back on us at this time? (Cope and Wellman 164).
The Term Paper on Working Class Workers Unions Conditions
19 Th Century Working Conditions In England Essay, 19 Th Century Working Conditions In England The Transformation of The Conditions of The Working Class in 19 th Century England The pace in the Lancashire Cotton Mill is frenetic as cotton is transformed into cloth. In a picture of the female workers at the mill in 1900 a women sits just feet from the camera, her eyes gazing down at her hands as ...
However, as more and more mills became incorporated and workers lost touch with their employers, these serene conditions in the mill towns changed to conflict. One conversation in Rise Gonna Rise is a testament to the new conditions. ?We?ve been working all our lives in the cotton mill, and you [the speaker?s wife] can?t take no more. I just wish they?d get somebody up in there that?s got enough sense to run the mill without trying to push the help to death?I?m gonna retire? (28).
The wife?s response to this statement was simply, ?He says he?s gonna quit, but he ain?t. It?s his life? (28).
The industry heads intended to keep these people in this slave like position. They paid them little so that they couldn?t save up money to leave and even used threats to deep workers in the mills. One worker said, ?It was a stinking job. I got paid minimum wage. Two dollars and something?My supervisor told me, ?you?d better do a good job and you?d better not quit because you won?t get another job anywhere if you do.?? She asked him why, and the only response he could think of was ?Because we need a spinner? (Conway 92).
One employee possibly characterized the mill best when he called it a ?sweatshop, slave prison? (Hall 187) The villages were in as bad shape as the relationships between mill owners and employees were. In Like a Family the author found a study of the cotton mill villages conducted by the government. The report was not commendable. ?Piedmont farmers who moved to the mill village found much of what they had come for ? regular pay, easier work, and familiar surroundings- yet at a cost they could not have foreseen. At first, it was heaven to them to work in the mills and draw a payday, however small. But drawing a payday did not always lead to a better life, partly because of the condition in the factory villages. The smaller villages and those in the country are often primitive in the extreme?Larger villages, particularly those located in urban areas and owned by sizable corporations, boasted of grated roads?But these communities were the exceptions not the rule?Villages are dirty and streets unkept, and the very sight of the village is a horror.?
The Term Paper on The Labor Unions United Ford Workers
The Labor Unions Unions have become commonplace in the labor arena. They provide employees with a valuable tool that allows them to stand together against their employer to make sure that their rights are upheld in the workplace. This paper will focus on labor unions with regards to how they work in two very different companies, Ford Motor Company and United Airlines. Also, a brief history will be ...
Workers lived in these conditions and worked in prisons. They worked in factories that had no windows and were surrounded by barbwire fences. The executives had been able to push the workday to an average of twelve hours, while the law prohibited an individual to work over ten. The executives found loopholes in the labor laws, and by doing so employed children, working them up to even fifteen hours a day. Knowing all this, the motivation of the workers is obvious: they wanted change, and a better life. This motivation was but one of the reasons the TWU spread so quickly. However, motivation alone was not enough to create change. Without a union to back them, the workers could do little about this outright oppression. These conditions were but one of the reasons that the spread of the TWU was such a rapid growth. In conditions like this, people are willing to do anything. They are much more motivated to create change and at every opportunity they took advantage of anything they could to benefit them and to decrease the powers of the textile giants who controlled their lives. All they actually needed was for the opportunities to present themselves.
The TWU had much help, but until they found their leaders who organized the masses of willing people, their mere desires and hopes were useless. This leadership came in many forms and from many different people. Each single battle or strike seemed to have its own organizers. It seemed that the people were reluctant to join unions for fears of fulfilled threats. However, organizers persisted. For various reasons, from political aspirations to simple human kindness, leaders stepped up and exited workers into unionization. The executives at a Virginia mill noted that, ?The union has held quite a number of meetings, to some extent coercive measures [have been] adopted, in order to get the operatives into the union? (Smith 51).
The Term Paper on Labor Union Unions Workers Years
Overreaching Themes throughout the text: The shift from a traditional working society to an industrial society The struggle of labor unions to promote change in labor practices The effects that the law had on workers, employers, and labor unions Key Events portrayed throughout the text: The actions of the Molly Maguires The great immigration waves into the United States The Taylor ist movement The ...
The president of Dan River Mills, Fitzgerald noticed that, ?It is true that in many instances the nefarious influence of the professional agitator has found fertile soil in the American workman?s brain?? (Smith 264).
These professional agitators as Fitzgerald called them were the men who stepped up to protect the workers rights. However, Fitzgerald seems to speak of these men with a negative connotation but this was because he was an executive at the Fitzgerald and Ray Co. (Smith 265).
Robert Walsh was one of these ?political agitators.? As a member of the National Workers Labor Board (NWLB), pushed the workers to ?organize your unions, strong and liberal, fearless and far-seeking,? and to push ?until there will remain not one wage earner in the country deprived of full voice in determining the conditions of his job?? (Hall 186).
Walsh could have possibly started single-handedly the influx of workers into unions. The event that marked the turning point of the battle between the companies and the small unions began in Columbus, Georgia. A mill in that area fired employees who recently joined a local branch of the TWUA, and as a result a strike incurred. Walsh prompted the NWLB to intervene on the workers behalf. The NWLB set up laws pertaining to that particular mill which forced the company to abolish ?yello-dog? contracts prohibiting its employees to join unions. Although these laws only pertained to that individual mill, the success achieved spread new hope in union throughout the south. Between 1912 and 1915 a resurgence of strikes flowed across the south, especially in South carolina. For a period of time conditions had improved because of the labor shortage caused by WWI (Carlton 255).
After WWI American men who had given up their jobs to their wives, came home expecting their jobs back. The weman wanted to keep their new found freedom, so the new influx of help created a surplus in the labor force. ?As an excessive number of workers eventually converged? a situation somewhat similar to that of the Dust-Bowl Okies developed? (Williams 29).
The Essay on Nineteenth Century Labor Workers Strike
In the latter part of the nineteenth century the United States experienced rapid industrial growth. While the captains of industry accumulated huge amounts of wealth, the workers who toiled in their factories experienced no real rise of standard of living. Factory workers faced dangerous conditions, long work days, low pay and little or no control over the fate of their jobs. Children and women ...
Williams was referring to the situation during the great depression in which thousands of farmers migrated west to california where they hoped to find work in agriculture, but found that the overabundance of labor there created harsh working conditions and small salaries. The situation there as well as the term Okies was popularized by __________ in The Grapes fo Wrath. The TWU, which was founded in 1901 in the northern New England mills, gained 70,000 members in the years following the war (Hall 186).
With the unions new found strength a series of strikes traversed the south between 1919 and 1921, flowing like a wave and changing the face of employer-employee relationships. The wave began on the outskirts of textile mill concentrations. In Columbus, South Carolina the union struck in selected mills, then in 1912 a wave of strikes moved through South Carolina and ending finally in 1915. They?re demands were union recognition and a forty-eight hour workweek. The TWU now centered on North Carolina. One hundred and fifty workers walked out after their weekly pay was cut in half when the wartime bonus was dropped. They called for union support and the next day the TWU banner was behind them as Highlands #1 plant struck as well. Rather than negotiate the company closed both plants. The Governor of North Carolina, Thomas Bicket also played a part in the spread of unionization. Bicket outlawed discrimination in hiring on the bases of ?organization affiliation.? The plants were reopened to a workweek less five hours, yet an unchanged pay rate. This union success only instigated union growth even further. Within a few weeks these standards spread to mills in Belmont, Concord, and Kannapolis (Hall 189).
Southern textile workers had finally begun to see what the union represented and as laws were created to prohibit discrimination because of union affiliation, it was easier and less risky for employees to sign the union card. By the end of 1919 the TWU had recognized 45,000 members in the Carolinas alone (Hall 194-196).
The Great Depression of 1929 hit the textile industry first. With the drop in wartime goods, mills were forced to close simply because there was a vast overproduction, and without the wartime demand, the surplus was not being bought up. As early as 1927 the textile industry felt the depression creeping upon it. The union fight fell off as mill owners simply could not afford to meet strikers demands, and when strikes did occur plants simply shut down and owners were happy not to have to run all winter long at a loss. However, by 1927 the union’s flame reignited. In Henderson, North Carolina a walkout began the resurgence of the TWUA. Although the strike failed with threats of evictions, it did gain the TWUA eight hundred members. The hardest of the union?s battles were yet to be fought. In 1929 violent strikes broke out. Unsatisfied employees were fighting against the ?stretch-out? policy of the mills. This policy laid-off individuals and forced larger workloads on the remaining workers. First, Elizabethton, Tennessee walked out. After the Sheriff, J. M. Moreland, a major unionist backer was forced out of office and a local businessman who supported the TWUA was forced into submission by ?tricky lawmakers,? the strike was ended with none of the original resolutions met (Hall 214).
Soon afterward, another violent strike broke out in Gaston County North Carolina. ?Gaston County epitomized the phenomenal wartime growth of the southern textile industry, as well as its postwar instability? (Hall 214).
This was the most violent and well known strike in the history of the textile workers battle. The strike ended with the police chief dead, a leading unionist, Ella Maye Wiggins, shot in the back, looting of union buildings conducted by police organizations, and the State militia intervening on the behalf of the mill. The strike fell with their Ella Maye Wiggin?s death, the acquittal of her killers, and a conviction of seven union members for the killing of the chief of police. Ella Maye?s death became a flag for the union as this incident was reported throughout the entire industry. Another such battle in Marion, North Carolina stopped before it started. The company expected the strike and when the picketers arrived, the sheriff and his deputies were waiting. They threw tear gas at them and when they turned to run they were shot in the back. It was later found out that the shooters had a list of men to kill and aimed specifically at them, the strike leaders (Hall 217).
This wave of strikes was largely unsuccessful, but because of the extreme measures used to break the strikes it was obvious that unions were effective and supported. With the notoriety that came with these extreme cases the role of the TWUA and the voice of unionism spread. In 1930, the Dan River Mills (Dan River, North Carolina), the largest Textile Company in the south began its struggles. The vice-president of the TWUA went to the city, and hoping for support from the AFL poured all of the union?s recourses into the workers. However, as the AFL did not provide support the strike withered away. In 1932 hosiery workers in High Point, North Carolina walked out. They demanded and end to wage cuts and a few days later 15,000 other textile workers struck beside them (Hall 218).
The union was steadily spreading, but it had not wet reached its peak yet. Between the years of 1933 and 1934, the federal government finally stepped in on the workers? side. Under Franklin D. Roosevelt?s new deal laws were established to protect the workers rights. A minimum wage was established and child labor was outlawed. However, in actuality, this had little effect on the lives of the workers. The little money that the workers made by the national minimum wage increase was taken back by the mills by raising the price of rent, workers were still evicted for joining unions (only excuses were used instead of reasons).
However, despite all of this the union had its largest growth ever: from 40,000 members in September 1933 to 270,000 members in August of 1934 (Hall 304).
With the ineffectiveness of the NIRA, the workers were outraged. The President of one local branch of the union asked for federal help before, as he wrote it, ?WE HAVE TO CALL OUR UNION MEMBERS TO ARMS AGAINST THIS FORKED TAIL EVIL? (Hall 307).
The enraged unionists struck across the region again in 1933, much like they did in 1929. Along with the NIRA the New Deal relief programs for the unemployed also helped the stikers. Strikers were guaranteed relief when they went on strike. Also, other New Deal programs were created. Discrimination because of union affiliation was prohibited. However, workers were still evicted for joining unions (Hall 300-301).
A native of the Graniteville Mill in South Carolina said, ?she had never joined a union, for reasons that to her seemed the essence of common sense? (Hall 306).
??There was no union whatever in Graniteville S.C. before the National Industrial Recovery act was make law as the Employers would not allow it? they would discharge anyone who joined a Union, but after the Law was passed and put in effect, we thought that we would be protected by the Federal Government [and] that no Employer could discharge any worker because they joined a Union of their own choosing.? On June 19, 1933, just three days after Roosevelt signed the NIRA; she paid her dues and became a full member of the TWUA? On August 8 the second hand got orders to fire her on the grounds that she couldn?t keep up her work. If her work had not been satisfactory, she concluded, they would have fired her long before. They ?discharged me for joining the Union.?? (Hall 306-307) Among all of this, Communism also aided the spread of unionization. The communist backed NTWU (the National Textile Workers Union) began to concentrate their efforts on the south (Williams 28).
Although the NTWU had already made a showing in South Carolina in 1898, ?the turn-of-the-century wave of union activity began to recede after 1902. Its collapse was due in large part to strong management oppossition?who took major steps to destroy unions? The unions were hardly gone foreever; indeed, as economic conditions changed in the 1910?s they enjoyed another burst of popularity among workers. For the time being, however, the ?threat? was evanescent? (Carlton 144).
However, in 1929, after failings in the north to spread their Bolshevistic ideology, the NTWU decided to make another attempt to gain support in the south. Most American were ignorant to what communism was. Many weren?t able to establish the differences between Socialism and Communism (Williams 30).
Communists looked for methods of expanding their party into the southern states. The Communist Party of the United States of American finally settled on the distress of the textile industry as an opportunity. The Communists moved into the south headed by Fred Beal, a newcomer to the party, but chosen because of his connection with northern mills (Cope and Wellman 167).
Beal first came to Charlotte, North Carolina and studied the region looking for the best place to strike. He found Gastonia, North Carolina. The town was already in a state of unrest and the workers were ready to strike. Beal wanted publicity and he new Gastonia was the place to get it. The Loray mill in Gastonia was the largest textile mill in the world (Williams 32).
Fred Beal sent for support from the party and went into Gaston County. Beal said, ?If you organize the workers at Loray, you can organize the south,? and his Communist associate George Pershing noted that, ?The key to the South is North Carolina; the key to North Carolina is Gaston County; and the key to Gaston County is the Loray Mill? (Williams 31).
The Party established their own textile union, the National Textile Workers Union. The textile workers of Gaston? (Williams 31).
Although the strike failed and the NTWU was relatively unsuccessful, they remained a prominent union in the south throughout the thirties. Communist organizers were sent to gain union members, and spread communist handbills and speeches across the region. The workers did not know the difference between one union and another. This fact, along with their ignorance regarding communism made the NTWU a prominent organization in the south. The TWU came back to Gastonia in 1934 and another strike incurred with much the same results (Salmond 185).
The unions efforts in Gastonia seemed futile, and even when the TWUA, the newly named union consisting of the Textile Workers Organization Committee and the United Textile Workers of America (Smith 492), attempted to sway the workers of Gastonia in 1946, they retreated finding almost no interest in the city. The state once again interfered, and the 1,500 went back to work under the bayonets of guards from the state militia (Salmond 187).
However, the TWUA still continued its work. Tensions eased up for a period between 1935 and 1940. A depression in the southern textile industry came about. Many mills went bankrupt, and even the famous Loray mill was sold to Firestone, Inc. for the manufacturing of tires (Salmond 189).
The TWUA moved on the great Dan River Mills Corporation in 1939. The Union finally began to win success. The union and the mill negotiated from 1939 to 1943 when the dispute was taken to the national war labor board. The dispute was settled in the favor of the union; granting higher wages and smaller work loads (Smith 495).
After World War II the federal government played a more prevalent role in controlling the mill bosses, and ensuring the rights of the workers to protest and enabling them to safely invest in collective bargaining. The last major textile labor battle was in 1983 in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina between the TWUA and J.P. Stevens and Company. The TWUA joined with the ACWU to form ACTWU and together they battled the company. The battle went to the supreme court where the union finally won the battle, ensuring wage rights and work load restrictions (Conway 119).
The textile battle of the twentieth century was a roller coaster ride that stretched from local city governments and organizations to the federal level. These strikes led to success, disaster, death, discrimination, patriotism, fellowship, and even legal battles. This roller caster ride began with strikes in the nineteenth century, and by 1900, there were nearly sixty local organizations around the south, but by 1914 because of strong opposition by the mill owners these numbers dwindled. Only one textile union still existed and it had only forty-six members. Then in 1929 came the wave of textile strikes across the south that resulted from the depression and labor surplus. Many of theses strikes were organized by the TWU, others by the NTWU (a communist based union set on spreading ideas of socialism), and still others were simply local walkouts that spread to engulf as much as an entire county. More of these battles were lost than won. This was due to state supported aid that favored the rich owners. In attempt to protect traditional southern economy, state governments in the south jumped at any chance to throw down organized labor attempts. Yet the workers were bound together by common strife and kept on fighting. The depression hit the industry in the late thirties and tensions settled as plants closed and mills idled by. President Roosevelt issued his New Deal plan which supposedly protected workers rights. However, his actions were largely ignored. Only thirty-two percent of men in the southern textile industry saw a raise in pay. (Hall 306).
The TWU had a scarce spreading of members before the depression, but as a result of hope ignited by the New Deal, its membership jumped to forty thousand, the largest textile union at that time. In the forties the newly formed TWUA began its campaign across the south. With the aid of the Textile Workers Organization Committee, the TWUA became the first truly successful campaign of organization against the mill bosses. When the organization combined with the ACWU an already established union with members in excess of 400,000 the mill owners had no choice but to subside. A full eighty year battle that began with friendly protest which led to mass violence, then subsided with federal assistance changed more about southern culture and identity than anything in American history except the Civil War, yet there is relatively little known about it, and hardly anything written on the subject. The collection I did find was very selective and difficult to obtain. Many books were out of print, and only available in local libraries in cities of interest. The only book I found to be truly reliable was written by professors at the University of North Carolina, Like a Family.. As far as I can tell they had no reasons or motives to be biased.
Also, many of their sources of information were primary sources that originated from interviews with actual mill workers (partly for the lack of alternate source material. Many of the views in the book were backed by actual quotes, which made the information nearly incontrovertible. I did notice that they did not give the view of the owners, but the invaluable information they did donate about the actual conditions and lives of the workers was essential. Because of the lack of owner?s opinion I did locate two very interesting books on mills which included owner opinions. One was a biography of Robert Schoolfield, the owner of Dan River Mills. This gave me much information on actual local events in the mills. In certain cases I could use this information to generalize and interpret wide spread happenings across the region. However, the information on the owner was very biased and obviously attempted to justify the conditions put upon the workers, so I purposely neglected to include much of that information. Mill on the Dan also provided me with very similar information, but I found it more reliable, telling both sides of the story and giving a very detailed account of the year to year history of the mill.
I found a short excerpt in the book, The County of Gaston that was extremely useful. It stressed the importance of the mills to the city because the textile industry was tied into every chapter of the book. However, I found that the information tilted in the mill executives? favor. The book condemns communism and blames it solely for the cause of the Gaston County uprising, while neglecting to mention the workers actual conditions. I mainly blame this on the fact that the book was written by prominent citizens of Gaston County, was published by the County?s historical society. As the authors probably lived through the strike, the events and prejudices regarding the strike were more than likely still prevalent in he authors? memories. I found two books on the actual 1929 general strike in Gaston County, The Thirteenth Juror and The Story of the Loray Mill Strike. The Thirteenth Juror mainly focuses on Fred Beal and the communist influence regarding the strike. Since simply an interested bystander (Forward) wrote it, there is no reason to expect bias. The Story of the Loray Mill Strike is a more historical account, telling the events from no particular points of view. Facts as well as quotes are offered from both sides of the issue, and no blame seems to be placed on either side.
The book establishes a history of the Gastonia textile industry from the start of labor organization up until the plants closing in 1993, but the bulk of the book concerns the issue of the 1929 strike; its causes and its effects. The final book I used mainly gave me information on mill conditions. Although it was based on conditions in the latter half of the century, Rise Gonna Rise was an invaluable source on conditions in the mill villages as well as the final years of the labor struggles up until 1980. I researched in many other books, but I found this selection to be the most valuable and unbiased. Although the authors of some of these books may be opinionated, facts are facts and if one can get through the persuasive tone the author?s use, facts cannot be altered, and facts are what I based my research upon.
Bibliography:
Bibliography Carlton, David L. Mill and Town in South Carolina: 1880-1920. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1982. Conway, Mimi. Rise Gonna Rise: A Portrait of Southern Textile Workers. New York, NY: Nachor Books, 1979. Cope, Robert F. and Manly Wade Wellman. The County of Gaston: Two Centuries of a North Carolina Region. Gastonia, NC: Gaston County Historical Society, 1961. Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, James Leloudis, Robert Korstad, Mary Murphy, Lu Ann Jones, and Christopher Daly. Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987. King, Robert E. Robert Addison Schoolfield (1853-1931): A Biographical History of the Leader of Danville, Virginia?s Textile Mills During Their First 50 Years. Richmond, Virginia: William Byrd Press, 1979. Rhyne, Jennings J. Some Southern Cotton Mill Workers and Their Villages.
Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1980. Smith, Robert Sidney. Mill on the Dan: A History of dan River Mills, 1882-1950.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1960. Salmond, John A. The Story of the Loray Mill Strike: Gastonia 1929. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
