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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview
G-0040-1, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill”
This is the first part of a two-part interview with union activist Eula McGill. McGill describes what it was like to grow up in various mill towns in Georgia and Alabama during the early twentieth century. Born in Resaca, Georgia, in 1911, McGill grew up in Sugar Valley, Georgia, where her father worked in the Gulf State steel mill. McGill describes her childhood and early education in this mill town, focusing on her early awareness of union activism in the town. At the age of 14, McGill had to leave school because of her family's economic hardships; she found work in a textile mill as a spinner in the Dwight textile mills. During her teen years, McGill continued to work in textile mills, during which time she briefly married and gave birth to a son. Because she had to work, McGill's parents became the primary caregivers for her child. In the late 1920s, McGill moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where she briefly worked at the candy counter at Kress's department store. Shortly thereafter, McGill migrated to Selma, Alabama, where she returned to the textiles industry as a spinner at Selma Manufacturing. McGill describes working during the early years of the Depression, when it became increasingly difficult to make ends meet. During the early 1930s, McGill became involved in labor activism and helped to organize a local union and general strike in 1934. Following that, she moved up in the ranks of the labor movement as a labor organizer. She emphasizes her work with the Women's Trade Union League and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union. In addition, she explains some of the obstacles that the labor movement faced in the South and what it was like to be a single woman who worked as a labor organizer.
Eula McGill grew up in Sugar Valley, Georgia, during the early twentieth century. Raised in a working class family, McGill had to leave school because of her family's economic hardships and began to work in a textile mill as a spinner at the age of 14. By the late 1920s, McGill had moved to Alabama, where she became a leader in the labor movement in Selma. Throughout the Great Depression, McGill primarily worked as a labor organizer, first for the Women's Trade Union League and later for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Tell me something about your early life: who your parents were and where you grew up.
I was born near Resaca, Georgia on May 15, 1911. My father worked in an ore mine in Sugar Valley, Georgia, which was a short distance from Resaca. And when that mine was worked out (or what they called "played out"), when they'd got all the ore that they could get out economically they shut the mine down. And we moved to Gadsden, Alabama.
Well, let's talk a little bit more about your life in Georgia. You were born outside Nance's Spring, right?
Near Nance's Spring.
Which was what?
It was a big spring where a lot of people in and around there came and got water. It was just kind of like a community spring, but it was on Mr. Bob Nance's land.
And you lived on his land?
Yes.
Rented a house?
Yes, rented a house.
The area you lived in, was it part of the area that you called the "pocket"?
No, no.
Nance's Spring wasn't in it?
No, the "pocket's" beyond Sugar Valley, about three miles out from Sugar Valley.
Would you describe that area, though?
Well, it's mountainous; now it's made into a
national park, but [laughter]
They ran the whiskey across the state line?
It wasn't much good for farming. Well actually, I imagine it looked pretty much then like it is today, because there's not much area in there (that I can see) that could be farmed because of the terrain.
Were people that you knew involved in moonshining?
No, I didn't know them. But my uncles were pretty good drinkers, and I heard of it because they drank.
So your father, then, would walk from Nance's Spring to Sugar Valley to work in the ore mine?
I assume he walked; I don't know of any other way he could have gotten there. And it's not a bad walk; I could walk it, you know. There was a dirt road through there.
You moved to Resaca so he could be nearer to his work?
We left Resaca and moved over in near Sugar Valley sometime after I was born.
But you moved first from Nance's Spring then to Resaca, and then from Resaca to the mine?
No, I call it Resaca because that's the post office, see; I say Resaca because Nance's Spring's in that Resaca area. And Resaca is just a little bitty place—you know, a grocery store and a mill and a post office and a few houses. Just a small place.
Oh I see, OK. So you moved to Sugar Valley, yes.
Yes, shortly after I was born we moved over to Sugar Valley to be a little nearer. Now from Sugar Valley up to the mine the men rode what they called the "dummy line:" it was a little old dinky engine with a car that they used to transport stuff from Sugar Valley up to the mine, and the men rode this car. I was on it one time as a kid, I remember. And it always was jumping the track, and the men'd have to get out and put it back on. But the mine used it primarily to transport things from down at the depot or Sugar Valley up to the mine area.
And then your mother got a job in the night boarding house, is that right?
Momma? Yes, Momma run the night boarding house, and we lived in there for a while.
What did she do?
She cooked at night the midnight meal for the men who worked the night shift. They'd come out to eat.
Did she also raise her own food?
I don't remember at that particular time whether there was any room for a garden or not in that area.
Did you have cows, chickens, things like that?
Not then, no: bought everything from the commissary that we needed.
Do you remember what your father did in the ore mine?
No, I don't. He probably did maintenance work because of the
nature of his work—he was a carpenter. And I think he was what
we would call a jack-leg electrician. I think he worked as maintenance,
because that's what
Do you remember that mine? I mean, do you remember how it was?
I can remember in my mind; I can see how it looked with the steamshovels digging out the side of the mountain. Big steamshovels dug up the ore and loaded it onto the cars and brought it into what they called the washer, where it was washed. It was all right out in the open, right near the area where, I guess, there was a dozen houses.
Who did the washing?
I remember seeing young twelve and fourteen year old boys sitting by this belt; they'd look for rocks and things and throw them out before it went into the crusher.
Did any women work there?
No, no women worked around there.
When did you start to school?
My first year at school was there. I don't remember whether they just allowed me to come or whether I was actually enrolled in school. But I did go to the little old school there that was for these children, the people who worked in the mine.
The school was just for the children that worked in the mine?
Or ones who lived in that area.
You were just four years old, though.
Yes, I was between four and five years old. My sister went, and I may
have just gone along because she went. They used to be not too strict
about the younger children coming. But I did go to school there, because
I remember the first poem [laughter]
Do you remember anything about the school?
Yes, an old one-room schoolhouse. In north Georgia we used to pick up (I was trying to think of what this was the other day), us kids near the school picked up . . . it looked like diamonds. What are they called? Quartz?
Yes.
And there were a lot of them; it must have been pertaining to the ore and the type of ground. The kids would say: "Oh, if you get a shoe-box full of these you can send them off and get you a watch." You know, the fancies of kids! We used to gather them at recess and after school, and dig for these shiney little rocks.
Right. I remember we used to dig for sassafras roots.
Well we did; my mother was a great sassafras drinker. And every spring we had to have sassafras along with our poke salad (that was a wild green). The mountain people particularly gathered a lot of wild greens to supplement their diet, because most people back in those days lived mostly on cornbread and peas. My mother used to enjoy going into the mountains and picking the wild greens. They have a thing called (and I like it today—they cultivate it, by the way, in Tennessee and Virginia) highland creeces. Oldtimers called them creecy-greens.
Never heard of them.
I don't know if you've read these Foxfire books now; well, it speaks of all those greens that my
mother. . . . I bought all of the books so my grandchildren would have
them, because I learned about them by eating them when I was a kid. My
mother knew all those wild greens: dandelion,
Well, tell me about your grandparents, your father's family.
Very little I know. Most of what I know is from what I heard from my sister talking [Clara Pringle], because, as I say, we left that area when I was five years old. And I don't suppose I went back for any length of time until years later.
But your grandfather was from Tennessee?
Yes, my grandfather.
Your paternal grandfather?
Yes, was from Tennessee. And my grandmother got acquainted
She was from Dalton?
Dalton, Georgia.
But you never knew that grandfather?
No, no, because he passed away when my father and his brothers and his one sister were real young. And my grandmother came back there because she had no way to provide. And my father as a young man went to work on the farm with his cousin and lived with his uncle and farmed. His oldest brother worked on the railroad, and he must have went to work quite young. And he lost a leg on the railroad.
Your father did?
No, my uncle; my father never worked on the railroad.
Right.
Then later he cooked. You know these camp cars, they called them? After he lost his leg he cooked for the crew on these work cars; you know, they slept and ate on the cars, and went up and down repairing the track for a certain distance. Then he later opened a restaurant in Dalton, Georgia.
What was your grandfather's name?
I don't know my grandfather McGill's name; if I ever knew I have forgotten it.
What about your grandmother McGill?
My grandmother, her name was Nancy Elizabeth Loner, L-o-n-e-r.
OK, so your grandfather died and your grandmother came back to be with her people in Georgia; and your father went to live with who?
Luke Loner.
Luke Loner? Did he have to quit school young to do that work? Or do you know when he quit school?
I don't know, no. Then he had a younger brother Robert who stayed in Tennessee (or if he came back to Georgia he went back to Tennessee) with some of the relatives there. I believe he stayed with a cousin called Tommy McGill around Gray, Tennessee.
Is that when your father learned carpentry? How did he learn carpentry? Do you know?
Well, he learned carpentry by learning from some worker, or apprenticing
to someone else. He built barns and houses. He always worked as a
carpenter, to my knowledge. I remember, he told me one time about early
life, getting him a job in the cotton mill in Dalton. I know he was
laughing and talking about the language that people used [laughter] [laughter]
Did he see cotton mill work or people who worked in cotton mills as being not as well accepted?
Well, no, I don't think that; my father just didn't
like it—the lint and all got to him. Then I think he tried
briefly coal mining in Tennessee a little bit. And he told me then that
he couldn't stand being closed in. He told me he got him a
job one time and tried to work in the mines with one of his cousins; and
he said you had to lay in water. He said the
What about your mother's family?
I don't know too much about them. My mother's father was John Wilson, and my grandmother died before I was born (my grandmother Wilson).
What did they do for a living?
Farmed, yes; my grandfather was a farmer, a very good farmer. Had what we
called a little bit of "bottom land"; people in the
mountains thought that if they had a little bit of bottom land they were
a little better off than the people who had to farm the hillside. He had
a farm laying right in there between Resaca post office and
Nance's Spring, on each side of the railroad. And my mother
and her brothers (back then the trains burned wood, when she was growing
up),
Her parents were part Cherokee, weren't they?
Yes, both of them.
Both her parents?
Descended from Cherokee indians.
Do you remember them talking about that?
My mother did; she was very proud of it. She always liked to refer back;
every chance she got she'd tell people that she was part
Cherokee Indian [laughter]
Why was that?
I don't know; she just felt like, I reckon, that she was
different
How many children did your maternal grandmother have? How many brothers and sisters did your mother have?
Twelve—no, there weren't twelve. Jess, Charlie, Doc, Rena, and the one that died, Momma and Aunt Mae.
A lot of children, then.
Seven. Her oldest brother Jess had twelve. Florence, eight! I'm forgetting them. Florence is the only one remaining alive now.
What about your mother's education?
She had no education; none of them ever went to school.
None of her brothers or sisters?
Never, except the younger ones. Aunt Florence had a fairly good. . . . I don't even know if she finished grammar school or not. She and Aunt Rena were the only ones that I remember could even read and write. Even Uncle Charlie, who was younger than Momma. . . . If there were any schools around there when Momma and them were growing, I never heard of it. A lot of times they'd have a school in a church, you know, in the winter months, because the school had to let out when the kids had to farm. It was not a nine months' schoolterm, even back then around in the rural area up there. And most of the people worked on the farm and they weren't encouraged to go to school, unfortunately.
Did your mother work in the fields?
Yes, she liked it. As long as she lived she always liked the outside.
She didn't work inside, do the housework?
No.
Did all the kids work?
Yes, all the kids had to help out and work. Momma, though, was the only girl that worked in the field. She preferred it that way. Aunt Mae was the housekeeper, and Aunt Mae was older. And, of course, the other girls were younger. And when my grandmother passed away my mother had married, at the age of seventeen, and the unmarried children and my grandfather came and lived . . . or, rather, my father and mother moved in the house with my grandfather and looked after the younger children until they married and left the home.
And so they sent the younger children to school, the younger brothers and sisters?
Yes. The two younger sisters, Aunt Florence and Aunt Rena, they did get to go to school pretty much.
How did your mother feel about not being able to read and write? Was she self-conscious about that?
No, she wasn't. I think she would love to have known how, but she was very clever. Anything she wanted to know she asked my Dad. My Dad read to her an awful lot.
He read out loud to her from books?
Yes, the Bible—both of them were very religious and attended
church. Anything she wanted to know she asked Poppa—very
quietly [laughter]
Did your father ever try to teach her to?
No, and I've often wondered about that. And I'm ashamed of myself today. Maybe when I was going to school, a lot of times it was just me and her at home alone; I could have probably helped her. Maybe I was too embarrassed, or maybe I didn't want to embarrass her by asking her if I could teach her.
Right. Do you know when your mother and father were born?
I'd have to look up; we've got an old family Bible that's got all that in it, but I swear I can't remember. Let's see: Momma died when she was sixty-eight.
When was that?
I believe she died in '55. Poppa was sixty-three, and he died in 1946.
What were your father and mother's names?
Momma's name was Mary Rachael Sue Ann, and Poppa was Joseph Hamilton.
Joseph Hamilton McGill. Now how many kids did they have?
Two, my sister and I; my older sister, seven years older.
She was born in 1905?
Yes, I guess so.
And you were born in 1911.
Yes.
Your mother only had the two children then? But she raised her. . . .
Oh, we had from time to time cousins living with us, because my
mother's oldest brother passed away and he had twelve
children. And my
Oh I see, they came down to Gadsden.
Yes, they lived in Gadsden and went to school—stayed with us and went to school.
Did your father read to you when you were a kid?
No, seems like I've been reading all my life.
Really? Do you remember when you started reading?
No, but I just can't remember when I couldn't read.
But you don't remember his reading out loud?
No. But he read to Momma; he'd read her the newspaper. We
always took a newspaper; I don't even remember when we ever
didn't have a newspaper come into the house. When he was
short Poppa got ahold of books. I remember an old blue-backed speller
(and we still have it; my sister still
What do you remember about your childhood in Sugar Valley?
Very little. Yes, I can remember I was about four years old, maybe three and a half. . . . I'm just guessing, because we moved to Alabama when I was five. And since then I remember fairly well, because I was very sick the first winter me moved to Gadsden (I had pneumonia and measles, and was very sick). And from then on I can remember vividly.
Now how did you father decide to move to Gadsden?
Well there was no work.
But how did he find a job there? Did he have relatives already there?
My uncle first went there, my mother's brother Charlie, and went to work for Gulf State Steel Company.
So he helped your father get a job there, or told him something?
Well, he told him he might get. . . . So we went down and he went to work, just before World War I.
And what exactly did he do for Gulf State Steel Company?
He was a carpenter, maintenance, you know. You know those blast furnaces then (I don't know if they have to now, they may have got some changes in the way they smelt the ore), when they'd burn out inside, to be relined the carpenters had to go in there and build forms. And then they had to repair tressles and keep the tracks around in the plant, in the steel mills. Most steel mills have train tracks through there to take the ore in. Well, just a lot of carpentry work has to go on around a steel mill.
Was building the forms dangerous work?
Well, it could be. I remember one night (Poppa was working nights) he went into the furnace to start, and evidently they hadn't cooled down enough. And someone turned some steam on, and he was pretty badly hurt. They brought him out, and he had a scar on his head; it looked like when the doctor sewed it up he left coal dust, and he had a black mark across there. Evidently he didn't clean it; that's what I thought, that maybe they didn't clean it good enough when they sewed it up.
Did you go to school then in Gadsden?
Yes, and I was frightened—we all were. I can remember, every time there was an accident in the steel plant they'd blow the whistle. A lot of people back in those days did not have time clocks in their homes, and everything then blew a whistle for starting time: the textile mill did. They'd blow a whistle for a certain length of time and let you know you had so much time to get there; then the whistle blew for work time. Then it blew for lunch and for coming back after lunch, and at quitting time. But if the whistle blew other than that we knew there had been an accident, and it used to frighten me. I'd be in school and I'd hear that whistle, and it used to frighten me to death, because you heard it a lot. But that was the only time my father was ever injured.
You started to school, then, in Gadsden? I mean, you kept on to school in Gadsden?
Yes, that's right.
What do you remember about going to school? What was the school like then?
Oh, it was a very good school, and the land was donated by
Did you go to high school?
I sure did, and I enjoyed it. We never resented having to clean up,
because we were proud of it. [Interruption]
Did you live in the mill village?
No. First we lived in a rented house, then we lived in a steel plant house in the steel plant village—company-owned house. My Dad liked to be close to work; we moved within two blocks of the gate he had to go in to work.
But the kids from the steel village and from the mill village all went to school together at Dwight School?
Yes, yes. That was the only school.
Did you feel a difference between the different kinds of kids? And were there different heirarchies or class at all?
No, no. We all went to school together. Frankly, I can only remember two students in my class that came from the mills. And as I think back now I just wonder if they didn't go to school, or why I can only remember two children that went to school in my class. And of course I had a cousin, Kathleen Loner, whose father was a superintendent of the mill, and my grandmother's nephew. She was a grade ahead of me, and they lived in a big house where the supervision of the mill had a separate place in the village that they lived. And it was right up on the hill near the school.
They had a nicer house, then?
Yes. [laughter]
Were there some kids in the school that were better off than others?
Oh yes. In my class there was Sue Frances Shaddix, whose
So you really played with children from all different. . . .
That's right. We always managed to sit close together in class, Mabel and Sue Frances. Mabel and Sue Frances didn't get along too good, for some reason or another; I think their mothers clashed and were a little bit jealous of each other. I was closer to Sue Frances than I was Mabel, because she was kind of a timid, shy person and I always'd kind of be protective of Sue Frances. Then I had two very good friends, Italian girls who lived near us that went to school with us; their fathers worked in the mill.
Were there blacks working in this steel mill?
Yes, some blacks, not many.
Men or women?
During World War I, yes, there were some black women working
They were actually doing. . . ?
Yes, because they'd come out, they were. . . . In the summer time I used to take my father's lunch to the plant gate, and he'd come out and get it; sometimes he'd come out and sit down on the grass and eat. My mother'd always taken him to the plant gate a hot meal at noon, and in the summer I took it.
What about the mill?
Cotton mill?
Yes. Did people bring lunches up to people who worked in the mill?
I don't know, because they worked a little different than the . . . . That's when they worked twelve hour day they had a lunch period, but they stopped off at noon.
I remember you talking about passing the mill walking to school, and seeing the. . . .
. . . The older children bringing the little children out. Yes, the mothers would come out on the grass and nurse the babies.
At a certain time in the day?
Yes.
When?
As I remember it they'd come out at ten and two. I'd see that mostly in the summer, because I had a friend who lived in the cotton mill village and in the summertime I used to visit her. The mill was run by steam and it had a big lake, and she and I used to sit on the side of that lake and read books. That's when I remember mainly seeing these women come out and sit out on the grass to nurse the babies.
Later on did that custom cease, when you were working in the mill?
I don't know; oh no, it didn't happen, I
didn't see it. I worked nights; I only worked a very short
time on day time. The boss tricked me. He came around one day and asked
me whether I'd work nights for thirty days and
he'd put me back on the day shift. He told me a lie; I never
did get back on days [laughter]
What did you like in school? What interested you?
Everything.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Never thought about it.
You never did?
No.
Did you have any sense of your parents' wanting you to be something?
No, no.
But they were clear about wanting you to go to school?
Oh yes, yes.
Did they want you to finish high school?
Yes. It was the worst thing that ever happened when Poppa wasn't able to let me go on to school.
What about your sister? Did she go to school?
She never cared too much about it. She never read. She's just
different from me. She just wanted to quit school and go to work, when
she didn't really have to. She just didn't like
school; she quit school and went to work in the hosiery mill when she
was fourteen. But I would like
So when did you first become aware of unions and union activity?
Oh, when I was about seven years old, when the activity started around Gadsden during World War I. There was quite a bit of union activity. My mother went to all the union rallies when she heard of them; we'd get on the street car and go.
You mean not even whether your father was involved or not?
My father had to work; he never was off during the times we'd have these little rallies, unless it was on Saturday or Sunday. He didn't dare go; if he was seen there, you know, he was likely to get fired, because most of the people who went were people who were already in the unions. There were no laws in those days, no protective laws whatsoever; you had no chance. And if you valued your job, why, you were very careful. It had to be done very quietly. But some of the men who had, you know, already obtained recognition, they attended.
What kind of organizing was going on around Gadsden during the war?
The Textile Workers were organizing the Dwight Mills; the Amalgamated
Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers were trying to organize the
Gulf State Steel; and the Iron Molders and the Founders; and I
don't know what union it was (I assume it was the Car
Repairmen) in what we called the car works. There was a plant in Gadsden
that made railroad freight cars (boxcars, they were called), and it was
called the car works. There were two stove foundaries, one in Attalla
and one in Gadsden. Now
Was your sister involved in the hosiery union?
Yes, she joined at the hosiery mill. Then she later worked in an overall plant there for a while that was unionized. But she was a knitter; they made socks, not full-fashion hosiery. There's a lot of difference in full-fashion knitting and seamless knitting. Back then all the fashionable hose had seams.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
She was active mainly because the man that she was going with was very active in organizing in the car works. Mainly, I think, it was because of his interest that she had interest, because later she seemed to lose all interest in unions—in fact, tried to discourage me when I first joined. It was actually a fear of me losing my job, I guess. She was the only one in the whole family that tried to discourage me from it.
But her boyfriend was very. . . ?
At that time, yes.
What about your father?
Well, he was active to an extent, but they never got going as good in the steel mills at that time as they did some other places. For some reason or other they just couldn't get enough interest. My father joined, because I remember the first time that we had a discussion in the house. As I remember, we came in; my mother had been to a Labor Day rally (had a big barbacue and a parade and speaking, and we had been there). I guess it was the first time I'd really paid attention to the speaking.
What were the Labor Day parades like? Could you tell me a little bit more about the parades?
Oh yes, they were very elaborate, as I remember it—might not be considered elaborate today. But they'd have flat-bed trucks, and like if a man was a blacksmith he'd be up there doing his job on this truck. And if somebody'd have a sewing machine or a knitting machine. . . . The bricklayers would be laying brick, and the carpenters hammering—on each float.
Were there women on the floats?
Oh, there were a few women, because the textile, as I said. . . . The mill came out on strike during that, because they lost the strike and lost out entirely in the Dwight Mill. We had a neighbor that was very active in that strike. There were some women in the overall factory, which had a union contract. And I can't remember, it didn't last very long; that overall plant closed down and went out of business right after the boom. And most of the unions that were organized in the foundaries and in the mills (well, they never got a contract in Dwight Mill, but in the hosiery mill and in the overall factory) right after the war was over and, I guess, the labor supply got a little more plentiful, the companies were able to defeat the unions, and they lost out. And they didn't revive up until in the thirties.
But you came back from a Labor Day parade?
Yes, we came back in the afternoon and were eating supper, and I remember
very distinctly saying, "Well Poppa, what is a union?"
And he said, "Well, I'll tell you: a union is an
organization of people getting together to try to better their working
conditions. Now," he said, "I carry a union card, but
don't tell anybody, because the union's not
recognized where I work and I'd lose my job." And I
never told anyone. He told me, I remember [laughter]
So you were very much aware of unions, and saw unions as a good thing, and admired your father for being involved in the unions very young?
Yes, and admired this man my sister went with. He was a good bit older
than her, and he was a big influence on me too at that time because of
his activity. He was very much in the front; in fact, they had a warrant
out for his arrest and he had to leave the state. And he never came back
[laughter]
What did they think he had done? What was he accused of doing?
Well, there was some dynamite in the car works office, I suppose, that went off and destroyed part of the office. And he was among the ones that they had warrants out for, accusing them of being involved.
And he left the state?
He left to avoid prosecution; and he never came back to work in Alabama again, because in the thirties when we started organizing around he was still active in the union, in the railroad brotherhoods. He went to work out of Jacksonville, Florida for Seaboard Railroad. And he came to Birmingham one time on a meeting, during the time we were having it, and he came out to see us. Of course at that time I was very involved in trying to organize textiles.
Did he realize he had had such an influence on you?
Oh yes. Then I saw him later on while I was in Jacksonville one time, and I called him and went out to his home and had supper with him.
What was his name?
Lelus Waddell—L-e-l-u-s Waddell.
So how did you happen to start your first job?
Well, this friend of mine Dorothy Stringer, they were having (her sister, who of course had children, and she had her mother-in-law there, and Dorothy and her brother lived there), they were having a pretty hard time making ends meet, and Dorothy felt the need to try to help supplement the income so she was going to get her a job in the mill during the summer. And she talked me into going up. Dorothy was about a year older than I was, maybe two, and I was only fourteen (big for my age). They didn't question you back then if you told them you were. . . . Well, if you were sixteen, to go to work you had to have a school permit to prove you were sixteen, so I told them I was seventeen, so I'd avoid having to prove it—because I couldn't prove it, I was only fourteen.
Were there a lot of people working in the mills at fourteen?
I guess so. I know I did; they never questioned it.
But the mill required a school permit?
If you were sixteen you had to prove you were sixteen. [laughter]
How did your parents feel about your going to work that summer?
Well, Poppa never did want me particularly to work in a textile mill, I
guess because of that first experience he had in one. And he swore
Was she against you working there too?
Well, not as much as my father was. He'd make statements that no child of his would ever work in a cotton mill.
Why was that?
I don't know, I guess that first experience. He just thought it was unhealthy. Well, a lot of cotton mill workers back in those days were looked down on; a lot of good people, but they were just looked down on for some reason or another in those areas where there weren't many textile. . . . I don't know why. Maybe it was because so many of the kids worked in there and never got an education; they seemed to be looked down on if they weren't people who wanted to do better. I don't know, people just thought if you worked in a textile mill that there wasn't much to you.
I wonder what he wanted you to do?
I have no idea.
He thought you would get married and not work?
No, they threw a fit when my sister got married. I don't know; I reckon they thought we'd stay home the rest of our lives. I mean, they didn't want my sister to marry, and she married when she was eighteen.
Why didn't they want her to marry?
I don't know; I was only eleven years old at the time, and I know that they didn't. I guess they thought she was maybe too young, I don't know—although my mother was married at seventeen. But people married earlier, I guess, back then.
Exactly how did you get the job then? The two of you just. . . ?
Yes, you almost had to, yes. No, not with my cousin who was a superintendent, because I never did let him know who I was.
How could he not know who you were?
Well, you see, my grandmother passed away, and there for several years we didn't have no. . . . He used to come to our house and visit when my grandmother came to visit. Well, we were separate from them; they lived on one side of town and we lived the other. And since then I grew up. He used to come through the mill and stand and look at me, and I think he was wondering if he didn't know me. But I'd go on just like I didn't see him.
Why didn't you want to let him see you?
I don't know, I just don't have no idea; I guess I didn't want the people to know that . . . or I was afraid maybe he'd know how old I was, and that I shouldn't really be in there. Well I remember, he used to come through—well, he didn't come through much because he was superintendent (you know, the head man there)—and, my God, I guess there were two thousand people who worked there, you know, with two shifts. It was a huge place: from the gate of the mill to my station where I went to work, it was two blocks. It was a huge mill.
Well, how did you get the job then?
Dorothy knew somebody, and she arranged for us to get the job.
And what did you do, exactly?
Spin the yarn. You know, it goes through carding, and then it runs in what they called warping (and it's coming like a roll of cotton onto a spool). Then it comes through this bunch of rollers and it's twisted into yarn. I have to say I wasn't very good at it; I never did like it.
How did you learn your job? How were you trained?
They would put you with someone for a day or two, and then they'd just put you out there on your own.
Just for a couple of days? That's all the time it took to learn?
To show you how. They didn't pay you.
You weren't paid while you were learning?
They paid you when they considered you sufficiently trained to go on the payroll. And in my case I worked six weeks before they started paying me, and Dorothy did too. And for the first fifty-six hours of work I got $3.16, but we had to pay for ice. They charged us ten cents a week for ice. I never had no ice water, but we had to pay ten cents a week (they took it out of our paycheck) to buy ice. Had a big thing up here with coils, and they put the ice in there, and it was supposed to run out and give us ice water. Well, you had to take glasses to drink in if you drank, or a lot of times you'd fold up paper and drink out of it. They didn't have fountains; it came out in a spigot. But I never had no ice water, because they never had any ice in there; I never saw any ice water, but we paid a dime a week for ice. And a penny out of every dollar we made went for the company doctor; whether we used him or not we had to pay for the company doctor. I never used him, but I paid a penny. So I had $3.03 left.
$3.03. A week?
Yes, I made $3.16 for the first week they paid me; I paid a dime for ice and three cents.
How much did you make after that first week?
Well, three or four dollars. They paid you so much an hour (you
didn't get paid piecework), so I don't remember
making any more than
Now how could they make a stipulation like that?
Well, I assume to assure that there would be employment there. During that first time I worked there the thirty years was up and the mill closed down and retooled. It was down for a good long while.
Who donated the land?
The Agricola family. It was closed down (I forget) over thirty days; it was closed down a pretty good while.
So you were just all laid off and not paid?
Yes. No one worked, except maybe people in there setting up machinery and stuff. And it was retooled. Now when we left there to go out it was the boom years (about 1928), and I had gotten up to $18. a week, and that was an unheard of amount.
Eighteen dollars a week?
Yes.
Now this was about 1925?
No, no; I went to work there in '25.
How long did you work in that first period?
I guess a couple of years, yes, because it was during the time there that
thirty years was up. And they shut the mill down, and it actually
changed hands; they brought in new management. My Uncle Jim lost his job
with the company. They brought in an entirely new set-up—I
mean, top management. A lot of the supervisors in the plant stayed on,
because the supervisor I
Now how had it changed?
Well, the type of yarn. You see, I had been working on what we called "big yarn" that went to the warpers, and that was easier for me to do. Well, when I went back in there it was small yarn, and we had four bobbins up here that fed in, where I used to have one up here and one down here. I now had two up here and two down here that fed in to make the finer yarn. And it was going to be harder for me to do, I saw that. So I asked what they were going to pay; and they had cut us down to $7.50 a week.
From $18. down to $7.50?
For twelve hours of work, sixty hours a week. See, you didn't even stop to eat.
No lunch?
At night no stopping off to eat; you worked six to six (six o'clock at night to six in the morning). You ate on the run.
Any breaks at all?
No breaks. So when he told me that I just walked out.
What did you say?
I just didn't say nothing; I just walked out.
That's when I said to the boss, "What're
you going to pay me?" He was standing there talking to me, and
I said, "How much is this going to pay?" And he told
me, and I said, "Well, good-bye," and walked out the
door.
Let me go back just a little bit. Summer came to an end; you planned just to work there for the summer and go back to school in the fall. But when fall came your father had lost his job at the mill, right?
Right; well, he'd already been out of the steel mill, but this job he was on played out. He'd already lost his job in the steel mill just previously to that, and then he got this job with the Alabama Power.
Building dams?
Working on the dams.
And so he had left Gadsden and was moving around, and you moved in with your aunt?
Yes; no, Momma and me stayed there, and he came home once in a while then, when I was first working. When I got the job in the mill he was already working for the Alabama Power, but me and Momma were still living at the same place. We had to move out of the company house, but we were still living there. When you lose your job you had to move out of the house; you couldn't stay in the house no more once you didn't work for the company.
Well, when you saw that you weren't going to be able to go back to school in the fall, was that a big thing? I mean, were you unhappy about that?
It was with me, yes; I was very unhappy.
How was that decision made? Your sister was working, right?
Well, the man my sister married was in Birmingham; she moved to Birmingham when she married.
Would she contribute any money to the family?
No, no, no.
Who decided that you should keep on working? Was it you or was it your father?
Well, I guess it was me, and they didn't resist because a paycheck was needed, some money coming in. So I went home.
Yes, down to Steel?
Yes.
After you lost your job?
So my aunt wrote me a letter and told me that Osko Cochrane, the boss,
had seen her in the grocery store and asked where I was; and she told
him. And he said, "Well, get in touch with her and tell her to
come back to work, but to talk to me before she comes—if she
wants to work." He knew I needed to work, and he was a friend
of the family (his sister and my mother were very close—lived
next door to each other—and we knew him, you know.) So he
worked nights, of course, like I did, so I went over to his house, and
his niece went with me (we were good friends). We went over to his house
and he was just getting up as he slept days. He told me, "You
come on in. You're going to have to talk to [his nickname was
"Wild Bill," but I can't remember [laughter]