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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 H-0182, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Mill workers Carl and Mary Thompson describe their experiences as skilled employees and active members of their local communities in this 1979 interview. The first part of the interview is dominated by Mary's narrative. As a pattern maker, Mary's job moved her around the Southeast, but as was true for many highly skilled workers, improvements in technology eliminated her job opportunities after World War II. She sought employment in the mills because her parents had been mill workers, and she attributes her abilities in negotiating the factory system and in supporting herself as an independent working woman to her upbringing. Though her parents were strict and expected all family members to contribute to the household income, she remembers her childhood fondly. She married at fifteen, but her first husband left her just after their daughter was born. She describes how she found childcare and also the social censure she faced as a young divorcee. Carl enters the interview during this part of the conversation. He and Mary reflect on how Roosevelt's New Deal policies affected mill workers. They also talk about the power structure in the mills and discuss why the nearby townspeople looked down on the textile workers. When asked about the religious practices in the textile towns, Carl and Mary both emphasize the importance of church in community life, particularly the Pentecostal or Holiness meetings. They both also share their conversion stories. In the mill villages, the Thompsons remember that people looked out for each other, lending help, money or other assistance when another person needed it. The end of the interview focuses on Carl's story, and he describes how he came to work in the mills at an early age. As a skilled male worker, Carl was often asked to work more dangerous jobs such as running the carding machine. He chose to protect himself by refusing to do anything he believed was unsafe, and this caused him to lose several jobs. Unlike Mary, Carl had few responsibilities as a young man, which enabled him to quit jobs when he wanted, enabling him and some of his other friends to hitchhike around the country during the Depression, visiting other places and searching for jobs.
Mill workers Carl and Mary Thompson describe their experiences as skilled employees and active members of their local communities.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
… my mind. I just can't remember names. I tried to think the other day of
some of the names at the company that I worked for, and it's hard to
remember. Because it has been a good while ago. But I first came in 1933
and worked down here a few months, less than a year, and went back to
Greenville, South Carolina. I went to Slater, South Carolina, and worked
there a while, and then I went to Judson and worked there a while, and
then went back to Slater. At that time it was Carter Manufacturing
Company. And then I went to South Boston, Virginia, and stayed a while.
Now I don't remember how long I stayed, because I would just stay till
the job was caught up. That was Carter Manufacturing Company. Then I
went to Alta Vista, Virginia, and worked there a while, and that was
Burlington. And then I worked at Radford, Virginia, and that was
Burlington, and went to Roanoke, Virginia. And it seems to me like that
was Burlington. I ain't going to say for sure. And then I came back to
South Carolina, and I went to Johnson City, Tennessee, and worked a
while. Went back and worked at… What's that little place in South
Carolina I worked?
And you came back to Charlotte in what year?
I think it was about 1939.
So you did all that moving in six years.
That was during the War.
And I worked at a chemical plant up there, the Chesapeake Bay Chemical Plant.
Why were you moving around so much?
Mostly it was the work I did. I made patterns, and then they made the cloth like the pattern was made. After they got all the looms filled with the patterns, you see, they laid us off or either sent us somewhere else to work. If there was somebody else wanting work, they'd call. I was a… I guess you'd call grass widow or something. Anyway, I had a little girl, but she stayed at my mother's most of the time. Sometime I'd take her with me. And so I was free to go, and I could make more money like that, and I had a child to support. So that's the reason I went around, because I couldn't afford to lay up several weeks a month and had my child to support. So anywhere they wanted to send me or I found out there was a job, I went to and worked till they'd catch up, and then I'd go back somewhere else.
You said "they." Were you working with one company that had a number of plants?
Not all the time. I worked for several companies. I worked for Burlington, I worked for Carter, and I worked down here at Cone. And then I worked at Bessemer City, and I forgot the name of that company. And then I worked another place in South Carolina.
They sent you to Bimburg one time from down here, and you went down there and stayed.
And then when I come back I worked down here a while, and then I went to
Baltimore and went to work up there at a chemical plant. And I worked up
there till sometime in 1945, and I came back here and worked here a
while. Then me and him got married. And then I went to that Cone's at
Pineville and worked after that. Then I worked at Bessemer City after
that. But then I decided that this running around wasn't for married
Was it Knievel or Charlotte …
Chadbourn.
Chadbourn. And then I went and put in for my Social Security on disability, and I got it on account of my heart. So I haven't worked since.
Could you explain to me a little more what this job of setting up patterns was like?
It was drawing patterns. They had frames, and they put these warps on the frame and had lots of threads to it and they put it over. Well, I had to draw them threads through the drop wires harness and reed. And then they were taken to the weave room. We went by a pattern, and the way we drawed it is the way the cloth come out. Like yours would be a stripe, and his'n would be a check. And I worked on fancy work most of the time. They have got plain work, but most of my work was always on fancy. And that's the reason I was more able to travel around and get jobs, because it took special drawing-in hands for the fancy on account of it's harder to do, and I had worked so much on it. And you made more money on it.
Didn't the mills have drawing-in hands of their own?
They usually all of them had some, regular help, and then they'd get laid off sometime, but some of them had husbands and they didn't care. They'd draw their unemployment till they were called back to work. But the only one that I stayed with, I stayed with Slater about ten years. When I first started to work, I was at Poe Mill Manufacturing Company.
That was at Greenville.
I was just fourteen years old when I first started there and worked there in the summer, and then went back to school in the winter, and then worked again in the summer, and then got married.
I don't understand exactly why the labor was so sporadic. Why would they all of a sudden need a lot of drawing-in hands?
Because they'd change patterns. They'd change the styles, just like everything else, you know; they always have changed different styles. And when they had to change styles, they had to draw a new pattern for it. They finally got draw-in machines for them. That's the reason there ain't no more of it now. There's still some. I've got a sister—I believe she's working at Poinsett now—but she's more of a plain drawing hand. And she's still working some, but she just works a while and they get caught up and lay her off. It's never been a fulltime job, that I know of, for anyone. I've worked as much as maybe a year or two and then get laid off, but that was very seldom for some people to run that far. But that's what we did, we made patterns, and then they'd run weave room. See, they'd tie them back behind the looms and just keep on running the same patterns till they changed styles, and then they'd have to be drawed again.
They'd all have to be done over again.
Yes.
You see, we had to draw by a draft that was made for us to draw threads,
and there'd be from maybe a thousand ends in the whole pattern
Instead of printing the stripe, it would be woven in.
Yes. You don't see too much woven material now. It was better then than it is now, I thought. They just kept making different kinds of patterns and had to have different things as styles come in. But all of that's about gone now. And what they do have, mostly, they've gotten machines to do it.
Them draw-in machines would take care of a lot more hands. They could take one machine, and it'd take the place of maybe ten or twelve hands, what maybe ten or twelve could do. And it was a whole lot cheaper and a whole lot faster, too, put out more work.
But I was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina. I was borned up there in town, but I was raised there at Poe Mill.
Let's talk about your childhood some. What did your parents do?
My father worked in the mill. My mother, till she got married, worked in
the cotton mill. But she had seven children.
I think he was a mechanic in the machine shop.
Was he a fixer?
He run all kind of things, but when he retired he was running a lathe. Before then he had a cancer on his hand and had to have his hand took off. And they fixed a clamp, and he could run the lathe, because he had always worked in a machine shop. He couldn't run his other jobs, so they put him on a lathe, and he run the lathe then till he retired. He was seventy-two when he retired.
Why did he move so much?
Well, he didn't move so much. He stayed at Poe Mill from the time I was about five years old till I was about eighteen, I guess. And then he got a better job in Georgia. An uncle of mine knew about the job in Georgia and told him about it, and he went down there a while. And then he come back and went to Union Bleachery, and he worked there for several years. And then he went to Poinsett, and he was working there in 1945, and I forget what year he retired. He was seventy-two when he retired, but I forget how old he was then. But he worked there a good many years. But he didn't move too much, but it was always a better job, mostly. But the Union Bleachery got to where it hurt him, that dyeing stuff, you know, there, and so he got the job at Poinsett and stayed there then till he retired, until he was seventy-two years old.
What do you remember about your childhood? What things stand out in your mind?
Why did your parents object to dancing so strongly?
I don't know. That was just the way they were raised. You know, the Baptists used to be against dancing, and my mother was always a Baptist, and so they were just against it, I guess. They was against drinking. There wasn't no drinking in our house. No cursing. That's unusual now, for the families now. I'm proud my mother raised me that way. But our father didn't do it; my brothers didn't do it. My sisters never did drink or smoke. My father did smoke cigarettes. He was the only one that used tobacco. It was just the way they were raised, and they raised us that way, and I can't see that we were hurt by it.
But did any of you ever sneak off and try any of these things?
We used to get under the house and get this rabbit tobacco and roll it in
paper and try to smoke it, but it tasted bad, so we never did do very
much of it.
Just more devilish than anything else.
Yes, we didn't do any harm. We didn't smoke cigarettes; we never thought
about such as that. One time there was a girl who had some snuff, and
she wanted me to taste some, and I took just a little bit on my tongue
and like to strangle myself.
You said if your mother had found out, she would have whipped you. Was she the one who did the disciplining?
She's the one who done most of the disciplining. We were a little scared
of Daddy when he got mad at us for anything, but Mama was the one,
Who handled the family's finances?
My mother did. My daddy was one of these "Live today and let tomorrow
take care of itself."
Did she ever give him an allowance or something like that?
Very seldom she give him anything. Of course, he always had an
automobile. And she managed enough to pay the things that he needed, but
I have knowed him to want a Coca-Cola, and she'd fuss that that was
throwing away money. She didn't let her children throw away money. She
wasn't mean, that she wouldn't let you have what you wanted, but there
wasn't too much money to spend for things like that then. Not with seven
children to raise. He was pretty good; he never did fuss at her about
the way she managed the money, because he knowed she was a better
manager than he was. He couldn't have kept an automobile to drive all
the time if… There wasn't too many people around there had automobiles
then. But we usually had an automobile, and if my father wasn't working
at all on Sunday we'd always go up in the mountains or somewhere and
take a picnic dinner, all the
So you saw her as kind of the mean one, huh?
You said you had your own animals and all. I guess you had a garden, too.
Yes, we had a garden. The mill company gave a place to put your hogs. And
the cows was back in the backyard. They had barns, with four stalls in
it for four houses, and every house had one stall for a cow. But our
hogs had to be on down. There was a place down there fixed for them. We
had chickens, mostly, in the yard, but we had a little garden. But about
three or four blocks from there there was some open land, and we had a
garden there. They let us have gardens there. And we always had a
garden, raised our own things and had our own meat and our own milk and
butter. And my mother sold buttermilk. We liked butter very well, but we
wasn't crazy about milk, so she sold milk and made money
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
That's really interesting, that you kids would hire yourself out to help neighbors.
Oh, yes, sir, we was going to make a dime every way we can.
Yes, that dollar would have went farther than five dollars would go now, though.
Did you have to give that money to your mother, or was that yours?
We had to give it to Mama, but the only thing is, she usually bought us some cloth to make us a dress, or the boys would get a shirt out of it or something like that. We'd get cloth; then we'd have to make us a dress. Of course, if we had enough dresses right then, we wasn't allowed to have too many; we couldn't afford them. But then she'd spend the money maybe to buy ice cream for all of us or something like that.
So, in a way, you always got a little of it back in some kind of treat.
I got some of it, and we'd have ice cream suppers at our church, and we'd get some of that money to buy us ice cream at the church. And boys and girls would get together and play and sing at different homes, too, and we enjoyed ourself thataway.
Tell me about some of this. I was going to ask you what type things you did when you had some free time, what type games you played and what you did to entertain yourself.
We went to parties and done about the same thing… Well, I don't know what
they do at parties now. I don't guess it's the same thing
What would you talk about?
Like all boys and girls.
When did you feel like you had grown up, that you were an adult?
We was just then like they are now; we thought we knowed it all when we was fourteen years old. All boys and girls thinks that. Then after they get up around thirty, they find out they didn't know nothing. That's the whole thing about it. It's the same thing. They've always thought they knowed it all when they started about fourteen.
How old were you when you married?
I lacked one month of being sixteen. I was fifteen.
How did you meet your husband?
At a party at my house. He had lived in the mountains about all his life, and his daddy and him had come down and got a job in the cotton mill there at Poe Mill. And they moved down there, and his mother had twelve children, I believe, but one of them was married when I met him. And he come to a party one night there, and that's how I met him. And then after we got married, his people moved back to the mountains. They didn't stay down there very long, and then after we separated he went back up there above Slater. He went to work at Slater and stayed up there with his daddy and them.
Did your parents approve of your getting married so young?
No, they didn't want me to, but I did.
Did you run off? Did you elope?
Yes, run off. Like all of them, nearly. Back then, we thought that if we
just got married, we could be free then, do as we pleased, and found out
you don't ever get free in life.
You said you had a child real quickly. How did getting pregnant so young make you feel?
I was eighteen when she was born. Back then, I guess everywhere, around
where we lived that was mostly what they did. They got married young and
started a family young, but I didn't have but one. I stopped.
You said once you got married and had a child, that put an end to things.
It put an end to running around to parties. You see, married people didn't go to parties then, not with the single ones.
Did that upset you any?
No.
It sounded like maybe you were just a little …
You worked so hard you didn't even think about things like that. I didn't. After my baby got two months old, I went back to work in the mill. We worked so hard, and then we got two rooms there on the mill village and we kept house there on the mill village.
Who took care of the child after you went back to work?
My mother, till she got bigger, and then you could hire colored people for two dollars a week to come there every day and take care of them, so I hired a colored woman after she got big enough, weaned and all.
I was talking to a woman this morning who told me that while her child was young, they allowed her to come home during the day to nurse the child.
I did.
Did they allow you to do that?
I sure did. I worked there after me and my husband separated. My father
then was living at Union Bleachery. I don't know whether you know
anything about Greenville or not, but it's about a mile or a little more
from American Spinning Company. I don't know whether they still go by
But they didn't give you any special time off, did they, to do …
No.
I talked to this woman, and they had given her breaks during the day.
Well, they would, practically, in some …
They didn't let me have no breaks to go home.
I remember several there at Rock Hill that had babies, and they let them go home and nurse.
They lived right close, but you see …
But you were a good ways away.
In other words, they could walk home maybe in ten minutes, and they'd give them about thirty minutes to go home and nurse the baby, then go back.
After my daughter got up in school, I went back to work at Slater and I
took her and we moved up there. And I'd always work all I could. If they
had plenty of drawing in, sometimes I'd work sixteen hours a day. And
after she got in school, when they wanted me to work late I'd go home
and get her and bring her some coloring books and pencil and paper, and
bring her down there and sit her by the drawing frame, and we'd sit
there and I'd work till eleven o'clock and take her home.
Did many women do that? Was that a pretty common practice?
No, there wasn't too many of them that was single like me that was raising a child. That wasn't as common then as it is now. Most of them was married people, and if they had to work they worked them hours, some of them did. Some of them that had husbands wouldn't even do that, if they had more than one child. But I just had one. And they didn't have to do it, to tell you the truth, but there wasn't very many. There was one once in a while that would bring their child if they had to have work, but it wasn't a common thing.
You said you had a black woman to come take care of her. Would she just come take care of the child, or did she help you with your housework?
She'd do the housework and take care of the child. You could usually pick up right good colored people. Of course, sometime you'd have trouble with them. I never did like to, but I had to do it anyway. I went to the welfare office lots of times and asked for somebody to keep my child, and I'd always have to let them live in. And they'd send me somebody, and if they didn't work out they'd take them off of the welfare. If they done something that they could have helped doing and just didn't work out, why, they'd tell them that they'd have to work or they'd be took off the welfare. If they'd do that now, they'd be better off. Then they'd send me somebody else. But very seldom I had to report them, that something happened. They'd steal money or steal food or something like that, and I'd catch them and have to let them off, and then they'd just turn them out of the welfare.
You said they would live in. Was that pretty common? Did most of the women you had work for you live in?
Most of the time they did, because when she was at that age
When did your mother start taking care of your daughter?
She taken care of her before she started school, from the time she was a baby on up. She'd go sometime and stay with Mama a week or two at a time, but she didn't take care of her after she started school. I'd always hire somebody.
How did you feel about this having to travel around and leave your daughter in Greenville?
When I'd leave her, I'd leave her with my mother, so I never did worry
about it. And if I was on a job that I had to stay a while and couldn't
come home, if I could come home once a month I'd come home, and if I
seen I couldn't—it was too far, or I had to work on Saturday (I wouldn't
have had time to come home and go back on Sunday)—I'd call Mama or send
money, and then Mama would put her on the train if it was somewhere that
she didn't have to change. You know, Altavista, Virginia, she'd send her
up there, and she'd send her to South Boston. She'd put her on a train,
and then I'd meet the train. She'd come by herself. And then I'd send
her back on Sunday night. So I was with her. It never was over three or
four weeks at the most that I ever wasn't around her, as far as
Did you feel then like it wasn't working out very well?
Oh, I'd get worried lots of times about having to leave her at Mama's and
her wanting to come to me, and sometimes I couldn't take her. But I kept
up with most everything she done. I knew about whether she was behaving
herself or not, and so I worried some but not too much. I knowed I had
to work. There wasn't no way of keeping her up, and I had her spoilt so
I had to… I'm just like all the mothers; I'd give her things she didn't
have to have. I wasn't like my mother; I wasn't as tight with her as my
mother was with us. And it might have been better if I had been, because
now she don't pay too much attention to that dollar
How old was she when you and your husband separated?
We separated so many times, it's hard to say. The first time, she wasn't but five weeks old, and then we went back together so many times. After she got about two years old, we never did go back together. We was around one another, because we worked at the same place a good bit. He went to Detroit, Michigan, and I went up there and stayed with him two or three weeks and left to come back home.
Why did you separate? Do you mind telling me?
He loved the women too well.
He was running around?
Yes. He didn't want to settle down, and so we separated for good.
Did you get a legal divorce eventually?
We did finally get one, but it was about twelve to fifteen years.
How did people treat you?
I had my friends, just like everybody else had. Really, I'm always a person, I don't meet no strangers, and I can make friends with most everybody. If they didn't like me, it didn't make no difference to me; I'd just let them alone.
Did people think you were doing something wrong by not pretending to be married?
Oh, I knew they did, but they didn't have the guts to tell me to my face.
Did it bother you that people thought that way?
No, it didn't.
Did you say "grass widows"?
That's what they called them back then, grass widows. Now I think they just call them, what? I don't know what they call people that's divorced now, or separated.
Do you know where that term originated? That's an interesting phrase.
No, I sure don't.
I don't, either.
I've heard that all my life.
I've heard it all my life, but I don't know where it originated at. But now they say, "I'm separated from my husband," or "I will divorce."
Yes, that kind of branded the woman.
Yes, they've quit using that "grass widow."
They didn't call a man that. They were just single after they had separated, but a woman was branded a grass widow. I guess that's to separate a widow from a divorced person, is all I know. It didn't make any difference to me noway.
But now, if they're not divorced, they'll just say, "No, we're not living together, we're separated," and that's all. And after they get divorced, say, "Well, we're divorced."
I know they don't brand them now.
Yes, I don't think it's quite such a social stigma anymore.
No.
I don't think so, either.
It's been a long time since I've heared that word "a grass
I hadn't heard it in years. I have to think about us calling people that's separated …
You used to hear it rather often back years and years ago, but it's very seldom you hear it now.
But it didn't make any difference to me. I never did worry about it. I
had my own friends. I always made lots of friends, so I never did have
any trouble. I still make lots of friends, and I don't worry about the
ones I don't make, either. I always just try to hold my head up and do
right and live as close to the Lord as I can, so I don't really worry
about things like that. If nobody don't like me, well, that's just their
hard luck, not mine.
Let's talk a little bit about how you first went to work. You said you worked in the summers when you were young.
Yes. I was fourteen when I went to work in the summer. I went to work there at Poe Mill, and I went to work creeling on warpers. And then I run the warpers, and then I went back to school. And then the next summer I went to the spooler room and worked in the spooler room a good while; then I went back to school. But I quit then in school and went back to work, and I worked in the spooler, and then I went to the draw-in room and learned to draw in. And so I stayed in the draw-in room from then on.
And drawing in was your first permanent job?
Yes.
How did you get those summer jobs?
My daddy was boss in the machine shop, and you know one always has pulled
for the other; they always tried to work one another's
How did you learn those jobs? Did you get any formal training, or did they assign you to someone?
You have somebody to show you to get started. Then you just keep learning. Then, in some of the jobs, you had to work six weeks to learn, but then we never did. I never did work but three or four weeks.
Did you get paid while you were learning?
No. But that mill quit that. They quit and got to paying. I think they give them about two weeks to learn, and then start paying them. But I don't think I ever worked over two or three weeks without pay to learn anything. And then when I went to drawing in, that was piecework. And my sister drawed in, and she was the one that taught me, so I got the pay from the start there. They paid you so much for a warp, and so I got pay from the start. Of course, I was slow and I didn't make very much. When your speed picks up, you make more and more. But my sister taught me there. Now anyone that come in there that didn't have nobody to teach them, had to pay somebody to teach them. They wouldn't hire you unless you could hire somebody to teach you.
Oh, you paid somebody to teach you.
Yes.
Why would they do that?
Because it was expensive to teach anyone.
But that person would lose their pay, I guess, while they were…
Yes, that's right, while they was teaching them. But most people had somebody that would teach them. But it didn't cost me nothing.
Had you ever been in the mill before the summer jobs?
I hadn't worked any.
Had you been in? Had you visited?
Oh, yes, my daddy was the bossman. He'd take us down there and take us all the way through, and so we'd been in the mill ever since I can remember.
But did you have someone to teach you those summer jobs?
Yes, but you didn't have to pay for that. They'd just start you off, and
it was all piecework. Now creeling, you tied the threads on at the back,
and you had to fill up a whole thing, and it run up on the warps then.
That's the first job I ever done. Somebody showed me how; I wouldn't
have been able to do it. And then after I learned to do that, I learned
to pull the threads through, and then I just learnt myself warping. When
the warper hand would go off to the rest room or somewhere, it's a
wonder I hadn't tore up the warps, but I had seen her enough that I
learned
Was drawing in the only job you had to pay to get somebody to teach you?
That's the only one I know of.
I guess that took a lot more skill and a lot more practice and all.
Yes, it'd take more skill. And the bosses couldn't teach you that,
because they didn't know it theirself. So they'd have to get somebody
that knew how to draw in to teach you, and that's the reason you had to
pay for that. Now that was just when I first started. Now years
Labor for nothing.
And they run it a long time like that. And then, you see, the laws …
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
… when they got to talking about Roosevelt, when he come in he was going to put it on forty hours? And I said, "Well, that's dumb, going to pay people as much money to not do nothing." I thought that was the craziest thing I ever heard tell of.
You thought Roosevelt and the forty-hours thing was dumb?
Yes. Well, I'd been working ten hours a day. I didn't mind it. And he
wanted to cut down to eight hours a day and then pay the same
I says, this was what was
That's really interesting, about hiring those young boys out of the country.
When did you say those laws changed so they couldn't do that?
Well, that's been years and years ago.
That was way before Roosevelt come in, because about the time Roosevelt come in, that's when they started that forty hours and started making them pay. They put a minimum wage on.
That was back in the twenties.
Back in the twenties that they stopped that no-pay training period?
I imagine so.
I think we missed it on the first tape. That's why I wanted to get that on here.
I don't remember just what year it was. No, Nola was born in 1929, so it was in the early thirties.
According to that, then, it wasn't long before Roosevelt came in.
It wasn't. It was after I went up there to work, but it was in the early
thirties. It was before Roosevelt come in. But when he come in, he
changed lots of laws. He was the best President we ever had.
How so, besides changing the minimum wage and the hours?
The minimum wage, and cut it down to forty hours, and that was a big help. And then they'd keep raising the minimum wage, and naturally we'd make more money. And from then on, things has been building up. Now it's gotten to where inflation's about to take over, but he's the one that started the country building up to where it is now. And people working eight hours that had been working ten, that's a big difference.
Well, I've worked eleven hours.
We worked ten hours, and then worked five on Saturday, too, you see. We worked fifty-five hours a week till he put that forty hours on. And they wouldn't pay that time-and-a-half unless it was an emergency, so we didn't have to work overtime, just forty hours. Now that was a big cut.
It gave you a lot more time off to spend with your daughter.
That's right. But we never had had it, so we didn't know what to do with
it for a while.
Tell me a little bit about this travelling around to the different jobs. How would you hear about jobs around?
Through the company. They would call the company and tell.
Was there a group of you that would sometimes travel together?
Sometimes there was more than one go, but most of the time I'd find out by myself. Sometimes somebody else would go with me. There was a crowd went to Tarboro, North Carolina, from here, but I wouldn't go up there with them. I had a chance to go there, but that was after me and Carl married, and I wouldn't go up there.
You mean Bimburg?
No, it was Tarboro, when they first started going up there. Then we did go up there and try to get a job, and Carl got one by the time the drawing in was give out, so I didn't get one. I went to Calvine Mill, too. I was working there when it shut down. I don't know whether you know where that's at.
Yes, I've been by there.
And I don't know what company it was—I didn't go—but they called there
wanting some drawing-in hands to Puerto Rico, and they sent some of them
around. But he couldn't send none from Calvine, because we had plenty of
work at the time. I said something about I'd like to go, but he said I'd
be leaving the job, because he'd have to hire somebody in my place. So
he called some of the drawing-in hands that we knew that was out of
work, and some of them went to Puerto Rico. But that's the way it all
So most of you that travelled were the ones that knew how to set up the fancy?
Yes. Most of them was wanting fancy, because it didn't pay them to learn
a bunch of people just for the help they get.
Would the plain mills usually have their own draw-in hands?
They usually had theirs. They didn't use very many, and it wasn't too hard to teach people the plain work, because that was just drawing straight threads through, so that wasn't hard to teach people.
Where would you stay when you would go off to a mill?
They'd get you places to stay in boarding houses and hotels and anywhere close that they had. And I stayed at hotels at some of them; I stayed at boarding houses. Most of them was boarding houses, because I preferred boarding houses. I'd a heap rather stay in a boarding house, because it wasn't as lonesome away from home. But it was mostly either hotels or boarding houses.
What was it like, living in a boarding house?
It was kind of family-like. Most every boarding house I ever lived in was
real nice. Usually someone real nice runs it, and it's kind of like
living in a family. You know, I was raised in a big family
Yes, you'd get used to everyone after you stayed there a while, stay maybe six months or maybe sometime a year. And you'd get acquainted with them, and you'd just hate to see them leave, or you'd hate to leave yourself whenever you would leave, because you'd made a lot of friends and enjoyed yourself and all. And it was almost like leaving home, whenever you'd stay a pretty good while thataway.
I wouldn't stay in just any kind. I've heard of broken-down boarding houses and rough boarding houses and such as that, but I wouldn't stay at places like that. It had to be a nice respectable place.
Would people in the houses get together and …
Play cards. They mostly played cards and maybe checkers and dominoes and
things like that. We'd do that every night, nearly. If there was enough
there, sometime we'd go uptown or something like that, you know, at
different places. But we'd play cards till eleven or twelve o'clock at
night lots of times. He never would play cards
I'd like to know a little bit more about this job. You said the supervisors wouldn't know how to do it. Did that mean you could kind of go about your work the way you wanted to?
Sure. They knew if you made a mistake. When it went to the weave room it
showed up, and you had to go in there and straighten it
Do you feel like that gave you any more freedom than other workers?
I enjoyed it more than anything I've done. I tell you, lots of people would complain about the work, but honest to goodness, I'd rather draw in than eat when I was hungry. I never got tired of drawing in. And it kept your mind occupied all the time, because if you didn't keep your mind on it you'd make a mistake. It was something that you had to keep your mind going all the time, and counting in your mind. Every thread had to be counted. And you knew just when to drop off and start another pattern and all, and it was interesting to me.
It sounds like you took a lot of pride in it.
I loved drawing in. I was a person who always liked things that took a mind to do, and not just labor. Now when I went to school, arithmetic and algebra, something that took a little studying. Now I enjoyed that. But when you come to other work, reading and writing and such as that, that was boresome to me.
And of course your job was really kind of a practical application of that math.
Yes, so I really loved it. I always did love to draw in.
Did those of you who were draw-in hands ever set some kind of informal rules about how long you'd work or how fast you'd work?
No, you could work as fast as you wanted to. Of course, there was laws;
if you worked over eight hours after the law come in, you'd have to be
paid time-and-a-half. But before the law come in, they didn't have to
pay time-and-a-half noway, but you still got paid for the work you done;
it was piecework. And the more you worked, the more money you made, but
you still didn't get time-and-a-half. But if the bossman wanted you to
work and you wanted to work, there wasn't no law that said that you
couldn't work or nothing like that. So maybe I'd want to work late, and
if they needed me the bossman would ask me, and I'd tell him I would. I
always was right up to working late, getting all the work in I could. So
that's just the way it was. It was all piecework, and if I drawed in
fast I just made more money. Somebody else fool around and go to the
bathroom or sit around and talk and such as that, why, they just lost
their money. But I was out for making all the money I could.
Did you prefer piece rate over an hourly wage?
Oh, yes. That gives you the incentive to get more interested in your
work, to see how much you can do. Yes, I liked piecework the best.
People that didn't like to work much, that wanted to sit around and talk
and
Did any of you ever compete to see who would do the most?
I don't know whether you could call it competing or not. Some of us could do it whole lots better than others. There was some that could do even better than me. I could usually stay up about with the top. And there was some of them that wasn't a fast hand and didn't want to be. As long as they could make the minimum wage, they were satisfied, and so they didn't make too much. But drawing in is a good-paying job. They always paid us good.
How much did you make?
Well, there was different prices. When Roosevelt first come in, we made
twenty-five cents an hour.
Did the other people in the mill look up to you or treat you any better?
No. We was all cotton mill people, so it didn't make any difference. I
don't guess they did. I never did think of myself as
We was all just about alike.
Loom fixers made about the same as we did. Everybody was just about the same. There wasn't no one no better than the others because they had a different job. We was all workers, and cotton mill workers.
One time when they laid me off at Poe Mill, me and another girl, a friend of mine, went down there at Kress's. Never had worked in a store. We got us a job at Kress's right at Christmastime. I never will forget it; it was the hardest work I ever done in my life. You didn't make nothing, though. Now them girls acted a little snooty. They said, "Well, I certainly wouldn't work in a cotton mill for nothing." I said, "I'd rather work in a cotton mill for what money I make than slave like y'all working for what y'all are making." And they didn't make no money, hardly, in the stores then, but it was the prestige, I guess, that they liked. But that's the only time that I ever heard anybody say anything about …
Were you ever called a "linthead" as a child or when you got older?
No, because we lived on the mill village, and everybody else was the same
thing we was.
Did it make you mad?
Yes, it made me mad.
Did it hurt your feelings?
No, it didn't hurt my feelings. It made me mad. I always had a little
temper, and I got about it. I said, "I sure wouldn't
How widespread was the negative town attitude toward cotton mill people?
I don't know. In Greenville, South Carolina, the cotton mill people run the place, nearly. The real city is very small. It's a little bigger now, but back then the city of Greenville wasn't anything, hardly. I had a friend who moved up in the city part and had to go to Greenville High, and they said they were snooty up there at the school about them coming from cotton mill people.
But that's about the only thing I ever heard, because I didn't… My
grandfather lived in town, and my daddy and mother were raised in town.
But then we were raised at the cotton mill. They tried to take those
cotton mills in the city several times. They had to vote on it, and so
everybody'd vote for it to stay out of the city, and the city'd lose.
And one year there, I know that they went and made a law that you had to
pay your taxes… You know, sometimes people would pay their taxes late,
because they didn't make too much, and they just paid them kind of as
they got it, I guess. I don't know. But they made a rule there that
they'd have to have their tax receipt before they could vote, when they
said they was going to vote to take it in the city. They had lost so
many times because everybody in the cotton mill
Why did the mill people vote against it?
Because the mills would have to pay higher taxes, and we didn't want to go in the city noway. We didn't want the city.
Why not?
Because we never had lived in the city, and we wanted to stay at the cotton mills.
They wanted to stay in the county.
We lived about a mile from the city.
Did the mill management come talk to you and try to persuade you to vote against it?
They couldn't say they'd persuade you, no. They brought it up, and then
they said that they would pay everybody's taxes, and then you could pay
the mill company, and then you'd have your receipt. So everybody'd have
their receipt to vote the way they wanted to. So they voted it down. And
I believe that's the last time they've ever brought it up to vote the
cotton mills into the city. I can't remember them ever bringing it back
up. Now the city has stretched out some good bit, but it's not stretched
out thataway. They've take in more land and built more houses and all,
and it's went more south. But at that time the city was very small. I
believe Camperdown was the only one in the city at the time. I'm not
sure. Mills Mill might have been in the city at the time. I think they
had one or two in the city, and, law, Greenville had I don't know how
many cotton mills.
Going back to your work, do you ever remember dreaming about your work at all?
Yes.
Do you remember what you dreamed, the type of dreams you'd have?
I dreamed about drawing in.
Did you ever have any bad ones about it?
The only bad dreams I ever had [were] after I went to supervising in the sewing room. I'd dream sometime about that and having trouble. That was the aggravatingest job that I ever had in my life. My health wouldn't have went down so bad, I don't think, if I hadn't have went for that. But I had dreams about having trouble after I went to the sewing room, but I never did when I was drawing in.
That was at Southern Knitwear?
Yes. Southern Knitwear and Schultz
Did people ever tell jokes in the mill?
Yes, they'd tell jokes, and they were like they are all the time.
What kind of jokes would you tell? Did you ever tell jokes on the machines or one another?
Really, I never was a person could tell a joke. That's one thing I never could do. Some of them would tell me jokes, and I'd try to tell them and I'd forget them by the time I tried to tell somebody else. I never was as interested in jokes as some people are, and I never could tell them.
Do you remember some of the topics they would tell them about?
No. I haven't heard no jokes in so long, I don't recall a whole lot of
them.
I never did care much about it. I'd joke
I tell you, if you're not raised around it, you don't care for it. You
can't tell me that the way people's raised ain't the way they go. They
might sometime get off from it a little bit, but they'll come back. The
Bible says raise the child up the way it should go and it won't depart
from it, and I believe that, because I've seen too much of it. I do
believe sometime they'll go out and maybe make mistakes and all, but
they'll come back. If the people'd start taking their children to church
and teaching them the Bible and all, there wouldn't be nearly the
trouble now. There wouldn't be these children out here running around up
and down
Was the church real important in your family?
Yes, it was.
Did you receive any religious training in your home?
Oh, yes. We always had religious teaching in my home. We were taught what to do and what not to do, and we was taught what the Bible said.
Did the family get together to read the Bible?
Not all together all the time, but my mother would get some of us around.
Some of them was always out playing, but she taught us thataway. My
daddy was a good man, but he left everything, even the teaching, up to
Mama, and he done the work. But they taught us what the Bible said we
should do. What's taught a child stands in their mind the rest of their
life. That's one thing I don't think ever leaves you; it'll keep coming
back. And I believe your conscience will bring it back to you if you
start doing things you oughtn't to, because I can't say that I've been
an angel all my life. And I don't think anybody else has. But I never
have been one.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
So if the parents didn't do it, you say the schools then would kind of pick up on it.
That's right. The schools taught it. We had the teaching of the Bible and
prayer and all in school, and now they have dope and cursing and sex and
everything else now in school. That's the difference in the schools.
That's what's ruining so many children, too, today. Schools back on, if
they can't get it in their homes, at least they could get it in school
if it was in schools. They'd get a little bit of it. At least they'd
know there was a God, and they'd know that there's a Bible, and they'd
know what's right and wrong, if they were taught it in school. Now I'm
not saying you should teach denomination in school; I'm not part of
that. But the Bible should be taught in school, and you should have
prayer in school, and teaching right and wrong in school. And there
wouldn't be so much meanness if there was. My daughter's a study hall
teacher at Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, and she says that it's
awful, what's in school today. She tells me more than anything else.
As you said, the church was real important in your life.
Sure. We went to the Baptist church. There was a Methodist church there
on the village, too, and so once in a while we'd play hooky and go to
the Methodist because some of our friends would be going there. We
really wasn't Methodist, but lots of our friends was Methodist. I'm one
of these that believes that the denomination don't take you to Heaven.
But now my parents was hard-shell Baptists. They believed the Baptists
was all there was.
How do you feel personally that God's been active in your life?
He's been wonderful to me. If I do things wrong, I know
Do you remember any tent revivals ever coming to the mills area?
Oh, yes. We used to just love for them to come.
What were they like? You know, I've never been to one until last night. We saw the one out on Wilkinson Boulevard and decided to go.
Sure enough. What are they doing out there?
There's a travelling evangelist who's got one out at Sam Wilson Road. But
I was a Baptist, and never to a
I seen something about it in the paper.
Yes, I've seen something about it. But the way they wrote it up in the paper—I don't know whether it was the paper or not—they wrote it up like it was some kind of show or something. Well, when we went to tent meetings, we went to serve the Lord and worship the Lord. We didn't go for no show or nothing like that. In fact, we wasn't Holiness; we were Baptists. But I have been to Holiness meetings, where they shouted and all like that, and they had wonderful singing and good preaching. They preached the Bible. But I ain't downing shouting and all because I don't know anything about it, but if the Lord puts it on their heart, I say let them go ahead. Any way they think is right to worship God, that's all right with me. But we used to go to some Holiness tent meetings, but most of the time it was Baptist.
Were they set up in the mill village itself?
No, they was usually out in town or out where they'd have
Did a lot of mill workers go to the Holiness church?
Not too many, not where we lived. Now they may some places, but where we lived they didn't because there was a Baptist and a Methodist church there, and most of them went to the Baptist or the Methodist. But they didn't all go church. Now it was back then like it's always been: some people would go to church, and some people didn't. And there was lots of them that didn't go to church. We was allowed to play with them if they was decent children and all, but most of the time we'd have to go with the ones that went to church. Mama and them felt like they was a better influence on us. Maybe they wasn't; I don't know. At least that was the way Mama seen about it.
Did your bosses ever object to people going to the Holiness revivals or to the Holiness church?
No. Some of them didn't ever go to no church theirself, but they didn't object to you going. In fact, several of the bosses belonged to the Baptist church.
How about the mill owners? I wondered if they got bothered when the Holiness revivals would set up.
No, they didn't care. I don't know about Mr. Poe. He was living. He
started the Poe Mill. And then after he died, his son was the owner of
the Poe Mill. And they lived over there between the village and town, on
James Street. We used to go over there. They were very nice to us. But I
don't know what church they went to, but there
What did they do to help the churches?
They paid their money into the churches, and then if they needed painting or any work done, they'd send people out from the mill to have it fixed. The church didn't have to pay to have it painted or repaired or anything; the mill company seen that the churches was kept up.
Did they ever have much say in who would be the minister or what he would preach?
No, they didn't have anything to say in that. It was voted through the church. No, they didn't try to dictate to the churches at all. But I don't know what church they went to. I really hadn't ever thought nothing about it. I don't even know whether they went to a church or not. But I do know that they did keep up our church. Over here at our church, Highland Park, Johnson in Highland Park give thousands of dollars to our church and the Presbyterian Church, give land for both churches, and the Methodist church up yonder. And they helped do repair work and all, too. See, the mill villages always did help keep up the churches that was on the mill villages so that the people would have churches to go to.
Why do you think the companies were so eager to support the churches?
I think it was because they knowed they'd be better workers and better people if they had churches.
How so, better workers?
Because people that's living right is not out getting into trouble. And
if you go to church and read the Bible, you know that you're supposed to
work. And I really think they knew that people would be better workers
and better people, wouldn't have the trouble with them. I don't
Was that part of the Parker School District?
No, it was the Poe Mill Elementary School. We went to school there. It was about middle ways of the village, so everybody could walk easy. And then when we went to Parker High School, we could walk over there or either ride the streetcar or bus. But the Parker High School didn't have anything to do with the village, but the Poe Mill School did. And it burnt down one time, and the mill built it back.
You said if you went to church, you knew you were supposed to work. Did they preach about work very often in the church?
No, it's just in the Bible that people is supposed to make their living by the sweat of their brow. They preached that.
You said they might have been concerned about people misbehaving. What happened if somebody in the village drank too much or something like that?
If they got to giving trouble, they fired them and made them move. But that happened very seldom. I know that people has always looked down on the mill village, but really they was pretty decent people on the mill village, ones that we associated with. I do know that they would get shut of them pretty quick if they was too rough. If they was causing any trouble or giving disturbance or anything like that, they'd just fire them at the mill and get shut of them.
Did they police the mill any at all?
Oh, yes. They had policemen at the mill. Every mill had their own policemen.
Did they ever come around and inspect the mill houses to make sure that you were keeping them up or anything like that?
No, not that I know of. They didn't ours.
They would in the mill, but they never did the houses. They'd come around and inspect in the mill.
If anything went wrong in your house, you reported it down at the mill and they'd send somebody out to fix it.
We talked briefly a little while ago about the mill village, and you indicated it was a pretty close-knit community.
It was. Everybody just about knowed everybody else.
Just like this one was down here before it closed down. See, it wasn't but just two or three blocks.
They are close-knit. Usually, if somebody gets down and out and needs help, there are always people ready to help.
How would you help one another?
If they was down sick, they'd cook food and carry it to them, or any way that they ever needed help, they'd all get together and help. The mill people was good to help, too, if they knew somebody needed help.
There was a row of houses up here burnt down, and they lost all their furniture and all. And the very next day, they went through the mill with the papers and said, "You know, So-and-so's house got burnt up up here, and they lost everything they had. Do you want to give them a little something?" Well, I don't think a hand turned them down. They'd give them a dollar or two dollars, five dollars. And they must have had a hundred dollars.
People misses a whole lots by not having community, too, like that,
because I believe it made you more secure or something. But now
And these people you saw every day. You lived with them, and you worked with them.
And went to church with them. So it's kind of a close-knit family. And I
think people misses a lots by that. I know, we don't have neighbor… The
doors was always open, you know. There wasn't no such thing as burglars
then. And even at night, half the time didn't have the doors shut.
Sometimes they'd shut them; sometimes they wouldn't. If they did, they
just had a little old thumb latch
They're not neighborly like they was back then.
No. Then you didn't think nothing about somebody coming on in your house,
if they wanted to come visit. Children come in and out. But nowadays
it's different. Everybody wants privacy. It's more lonesome, too,
especially as you get older.
Did people ever take up collections to help people make up their wages when they were sick?
Yes, if they'd been sick a long time they would take up… They'd help them in every way they could. My daddy worked at Union Bleachery one time, and we went to the Baptist church up there. And if the family head was out a week sick, the next week they'd give him a pounding.
What's that?
Bring food in, all kinds of food. Fruit and vegetables, canned goods. They'd give him a big pounding.
Did they do things like that in the villages you lived in?
Our church does it sometime, if we know anybody that needs it, but they're not as good to help as they used to. But once in a while a family gets down and out and they'll hear of it and they'll have you bring something to church and they'll give a pounding to somebody. But that's few and far between now. They don't do things now like they used to.
Did that carry over into your work? Did people help each other when they got behind?
Oh, yes. Of course, in my job nobody could help you. I know one time,
though, I was working there at Slater, and I fell and broke my arm,
right in my elbow here. And I was in a cast, and I could draw all of my
warp—I could draw through the drop wires and the harness—but when it
come to the reed you had to hold it different, and I couldn't hold it
and draw a reed. And one of the women would always come and draw my reed
for me, and I'd draw on her. Of course, I couldn't put out as much work
as she could because I had to save one hand, but she'd let me work over
on hers, and she'd draw my reed for me. And I wasn't out of work but a
week. Of course, I had a child to support, so I had to work, but, you
see,
Did people ever sing in the mill?
Oh, yes. People used to sing all the time. I was thinking about that here
the other week. I used to sing all the time. When I was working, I'd
just sit there and just sing, sing. And now they don't sing. I don't
hear people singing now. I used to get in my car, me and my little girl,
and we'd just sing.
When you would sing at work, would you sing by yourself, or would all the women kind of begin to sing together?
We'd sing by ourself, because we couldn't hardly sing together, not in my
job. But just sit there and sing and work. And then in spooling out
here, I've been through the spool room lots of times, and people used to
be singing, just putting them ends up there everywhere.
Did you ever pull pranks on one another, practical jokes?
No. My mother always taught us it was childish to have practical jokes, that you could hurt people, it was dangerous, and it wasn't fair to the other fellow.
Did any of the other women ever do things like that to one another?
No, they never did have no trouble with them. I've seen young boys sometime pull practical jokes on people, but the bosses usually called you down on that if you was in the mill, getting loud, because it was dangerous.
What type things would those young guys do? Do you remember any of them?
No, I don't. They'd do anything mean till they get caught.
Did either one of you ever get injured on your job?
Carl did. He's got one …
Yes, a finger cut off here, then two more tore-up fingers.
Two New Year's Days, straight together.
What happened?
Caught it in a half-lap on a comber.
You worked in a card room?
Yes.
Was that pretty dangerous work?
Yes, it was, in a way it was pretty dangerous. You'd have to watch yourself. On cards, especially, there were so many things that you could… Even cleaning up, getting your brush maybe caught in a belt or something or other.
Really, it's about the dangerousest job in the mill now, is work in the card room.
And maybe if your brush would get caught in a belt or in a pulley or something like that, naturally it's going to jerk your hand, and all you could do is keep from it, jerking maybe your hand in there or arm. Well, as soon as it caught it, just turn it loose and let it go. But some of them would try to hold it, and they'd jerk more than anybody. And I've seen them jerked in the cards thataway and maybe get their whole arm and all broke, and …
It is a very dangerous job, card room work is.
… the skin pulled off, maybe slam through the bone and all.
My father went to work when he was nine years old, and he got his whole hand tore up, and the thumb growed back on his hand, and that's where the cancer started. Years and years, when he got an old man, he lost his hand then.
I wasn't quite fourteen when I started to work. I was born in Concord,
North Carolina, Cabarrus County. And I lost my mother when I was a year
and nine months old. I lost her and one of my sisters and either one or
two of my brothers. There was ten of us in the family. My mother died
with pneumonia, and also the next to my oldest… She wasn't my full
sister; my half-sister. And I believe it was two of my brothers. They
died right after I was born. I was born September 25,
Did all your family work in the cotton mills, too?
Yes. My daddy was raised on a farm, but he left the farm after he married
my mother and come to Concord. And so all the children were what you
might say raised at a cotton mill. So we stayed at Concord until I was
about three years old, and moved to Fort Mill. And my father then and
the only brother I had then that was living—I had another half-brother,
but he was still living in Concord—and two sisters went to work at
Spring's Mill there at Fort Mill. And they were there until my two
sisters married. And my father and brother worked on in the Spring's
Mill there until 1914. In 1912 they had what they called the Panic. Now
they call it the Depression, but back then they said, "Well, the Panic's
on." The mill went on short time, and they
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
This was what year, the Panic? Was this right after World War I?
No, it was before. It was about 1912. That's when what they called the Panic… Kind of a hard time hit us. And we hadn't been living there but about a year and a half or two years. I believe it was 1914 then, and Papa went over there to Rock Hill to the Arcade Mill and got a job. They offered him a dollar a day over there, and that was when we were working sixty hours a week, from six in the morning until six of a night, and took an hour off for dinner. And so they told him, "You making seventy-five cents a day over there at Spring's. We'll give you a dollar a day, you and your boy." And so him and John went on over there and went to work. And they worked one week, and they didn't like it. I don't know what was the trouble, but Papa said after a while, "I don't like it over here. I'm going back to Fort Mill." And so we just moved back to Fort Mill, right back in the same house that we moved out of. It was one of the mill houses. And we stayed there then for about six years.
Before we left there, though, I started at school in Fort Mill. And I
didn't start at a schoolhouse. What I started to school at wasn't a
thing but a little three-room house, what I'd call a little shotgun
house. It just had three straight rooms; that's all. They call them, I
think, little shotgun houses now. It was a little red house, built right
beside of Harris's Store. And I can remember it just as well as if it
was yesterday. And Papa told me, "Well, you're going
It's a wonder it didn't really hurt you.
I reckon it went so high till whenever it come back down it had done lost its force and all. And it was just like somebody just picking up a rock or something like that, and it come back down and hit me. I reached down and picked it up. I said, "Wow, somebody shot it." I said, "Yes, there was a cartridge shell where the ball fell back down and hit me in the head." I had on a cap then. Back then I wore a cap all the time, just about.
I worked on and on till that mill shut down in about 1933 or 1934.
Was that the Wymojo Mill?
Yes. When it shut down, I left there then and went over there to the Rock Hill Printing and Finishing Company and put in an application over there. They give me a job over there, and I worked over there about three months, and I didn't like it.
What were you doing there?
I was just all over the whole place, just running different things. They
told me, "We want you to learn up on different things so that we can
replace you on something. If an opening comes, if
What did they do at that plant?
It was a printing and finishing company, where they printed and finished all their cloth. A lot of mills from different places, even from Charlotte here, would send their cloth over there to be printed and finished. And back then I reckon there was about 1,500 or 1,800 hands worked in there then. But now I reckon there's about four or five thousand works in there now. It's triple to what it was. And they even tore down all of them houses on the Carter mill village and taken most of that village in there, just kept spreading out. But I didn't like it there; somehow or another I just didn't like it. Been used to a textile plant thataway and not that kind of work.
And so I went down there then to Highland Park, the same company this is down here. They had a mill there.
Mill Number 2.
Yes. And I went to work down there on the second shift, I believe it was.
I got the job on Sunday. I learnt where the bossman lived, and I'd been
out of work about a week or two. And I was beginning to want to go to
work. And so I said, "I'm going to go over to the bossman's house, even
if it is Sunday, and see if he's got a job he can give me." So I went
over there and he come to the door, so I told him, "I'm looking for
work. I reckon I should have waited till in the morning and come on down
to the mill, but I just wanted to find out if you did have any opening."
And he said, "Well, Thompson, I'll tell you, we're starting to overhaul
all the combers tomorrow, and I'll tell you what I'll do. You come in,
and if I don't have nothing else I'll put you to helping overhaul,
cleaning
What kind of frame was that?
It makes the roping for the spinner. And so he said, "Well, go on over
there on them, and if you get in a hole we'll help you out." I said,
"All right." And so I went on over there on them. And so the next night
then after I run them that night, I didn't have no trouble. I never did
have to call them to help me or anything. So the
Why were you scared of it?
On account of I'd seen so many get hurt on them, get their arms broke, get throwed in there, and they had been throwed in and that belt would catch them, and that was when they had overhead pulleys, had the pulleys at the top of the mill. And there was one man, his shirt or something or other got caught in that belt, and that belt throwed him to the top of the mill and busted his brains out, and he fell back down.
It killed him?
It killed him. He was dead whenever he hit the top of the mill. It busted his brains out.
He hit the ceiling?
Yes, he just hit the ceiling of the mill, yes. They had big beams up
there, and he hit them, right at the back of his head and his back and
all. He just went right over the belt just like that. And so I said,
"I'm just absolutely afraid of them." And he said, "Well, run them till
I can get somebody." I said, "You've had three weeks. I've been on them
now three weeks, and you haven't tried to get nobody." He said, "No, the
reason I haven't tried to get anybody was on account of I
And I was out of work then for about three or four weeks, and I was boarding with my sister. And so I had some pretty good friends that was working over here, and they was coming back and forth; every weekend they would come home. And so one of them told me one weekend when he was at home, "What about you going back with me on Monday, or either go over there yourself Monday and talk with the overseer, and he'll probably give you a job, because he is hiring some now." I said, "Okay, I'll go over and see him Monday then."
This was coming to Charlotte.
Yes. And so I just walked out on the highway there out of Rock Hill and
thumbed a ride over here. Back then I was doing a good bit of
hitchhiking and all, whenever I'd get out of work. And so I just come on
over here. And I asked him for the job, and he said, "I ain't got a
thing that I could give you. I wisht I did, but I don't have an opening
at all now." And I was wanting work so bad till I just kept standing
around talking with him, and I said, "Well, I sure would love to have a
set of them combers." And he said, "Well, I wish that I had an opening
for you, but I just ain't got it." So I was talking with him about
thirty minutes. I said, "Okay, I'll drop back again probably next week
or sometime, and maybe you'll have an opening in something or other,
maybe spare work or something." And he said, "Okay, you do that. I wisht
I could accommodate you." And I started on out, and honestly, I don't
believe I got over ten steps until he said, "Hey!" And I turned around,
and he said, "Wait a minute." And I stopped, and he come on to me. That
was on a Tuesday. He said, "I'll tell you what you do. You go on home
and rest up this week. You come in next Monday on the third shift.
Is that the big house?
Yes.
That used to be the boarding house.
A house on this street. It was Davidson Street then. And so he showed me
between the houses. He said, "You see that house right yonder, right
between?" And he showed me two houses to look between. And I said,
"Yes." He said, "You go there and tell her that I sent you, and see if
she won't give you a boarding place." That was in April of 1938, I
believe, and I said, "All right," and so I went on over there. And so I
told her that the bossman had sent me up there to see if I could get a
boarding place, but it wasn't no regular boarding house. It was a
private boarding house, a woman and her daughter and her husband living
there, and she was keeping boarders, but she couldn't take care of but
just so many. But she said, "Well, I think I can take you. You don't
mind sleeping in a room with another man, do you?" I said, "Oh, no, I
don't mind sleeping in a room with another man." She said, "Okay. Come
on then." I said, "Well, I'll go to work tonight. I'll just start in."
And so I just went right on in and started boarding with her, and I
boarded with her for about six months. And I left her house then and
went up to a regular boarding house on North Brevard Street, Ray's
Boarding House up there right in front of the Swift Jewel Lard plant up
on Brevard Street, and went to boarding there. And I boarded up there
until I went in the
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[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
And so I went to boarding down there then and continued to work right on down here. And then in 1947 me and her married. We was both boarding down there, and we married in Greenville. I called up the probate judge there at Greenville and told him I wanted to apply for a marriage license and give my name and give hers, too. And so he asked me how old I was. So I told him, "I'm forty-two" and give her age then. I believe she was thirty-six. And so the weekend then, I got off. The mill was running six days a week. And so I told the bossman, "Well, I ain't going to work this weekend. I'm going off. I'm getting married." He said, "Well, if you're getting married, I'll let you off." And I said, "Well, I'm getting married, and me and the woman I'm marrying, we're going to Greenville this afternoon." That was Saturday morning, whenever I left the mill. "We're getting married right after we get there, and if nothing happens I'll be back Monday, and me and her both will go right on back to work." He said, "Okay, go ahead." And so we did. We went on to Greenville, and we got married and stayed at the O Haway Autoway Motel that night. It seems to me like it's tore down now. We come on back and started keeping house up here on this next street. It was Shue's Boarding House, but Shue had moved down here, and they had made an apartment house out of it, and there was about eight apartments in there.
Is this a white house over on Alexander, just down about two blocks?
Yes, it's a big house down right here on the left-hand side of the street, as you go down. And so as soon as we come back Monday, we just went right on up there because we'd done bought our furniture and all and had it moved in. We went to Sears and bought some furniture before we ever married and had it moved in, and so whenever we come back from Greenville Sunday night, we just went right on up there to our home. And then Monday morning we went right on back to work just like usual. And I worked down there then until the mill shut down in 1969. I believe it was April. And I went to work down there in 1938.
But as far as my child life, when I was coming up I was brought up
strict. In other words, if my daddy told me what my chores
And we kept boarders back then, too, and we had a fellow boarding with us
there that had come there and had a job and they didn't have no house
for him, a fellow by the name of Lloyd. And he noticed me every night,
whenever I'd get that Bible and start to reading it. He said, "Mr.
Thompson, you're going to have a minister when he gets grown." And Papa
said, "Well, I wisht he would be." And he said, "Well, I believe he
will. Looks like he loves reading that Bible." I said, "Well, I do. I
love to read the Bible. I ain't much of a reader, but I love to read the
Bible." But I'd read pretty good, to be just in the second or third
grade level. I could read pretty good. We didn't go to church too often
there in Fort Mill. We'd go once in a while. But every Sunday afternoon,
they would have a prayer meeting at one of the neighbors' houses. They
would let the neighbors know it the first of the week and say, "We're
having a prayer meeting at my house Sunday afternoon at two o'clock, and
we want you to come." And so Papa would always go. And every Sunday,
whenever he'd start, he'd say, "Carl, you want to go with me?" and I
always wanted to go. I'd say, "Yeah, I want to go, Papa." He said,
"Well, come on." And so me and him would go on to prayer meeting. My
stepmother would never go. But me and him would always go. And both my
sisters had done married, and my other brother was about four or five
years older than I was, and he didn't care anything about it. And so he
was off playing with some of the older boys. And so me and Papa would
go, and I can see my daddy now. Whenever they would go to have prayer,
he would get up out of his chair. And I'd always sit in a chair right
beside of him, and I'd sit there and wouldn't even move or nothing, and
wouldn't
You really have put it all together.
He can remember dates and all better than I can.
I can't even remember my childhood that well, though.
He's done gone back to his childhood.
During the Depression, I rambled lots. I reckon I covered about fifteen or twenty of the states, mostly hitchhiking. And I did hobo a few times …
Oh, you did?
In a way, just experiences. It wasn't because I just really wanted to,
but I had heard of and seen so many hobos back when we was living there
at Fort Mill, and also at Rock Hill. Why, we've had them to come up to
our back door of a morning, sometimes before breakfast.
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[START OF TAPE 4, SIDE A]
And so we were standing out there on the highway, and it was almost dark,
and a fellow come over there to us. He said, "Boys, I'm sorry to tell
you, you all ain't going to get no rides out of here." I said, "Why?
What's wrong?" He said, "Nobody won't pick you up. There's just been too
much robbery going on. There have been I don't know how many picked up
boys, and they would go on up the road a little piece and maybe put a
gun into their back and take what money they had and take their
automobile, and put them out. People have just got to where they won't
pick you up. They're afraid of you. Now you boys may be
Did you go back to work in the cotton mill after you got home?
Yes, I went back to working in the Wymojo Mill, and I worked on there until it shut down. Then after it shut down there, I come on over here, in 1938.
That's a fascinating story.
That was about the history of mine. Whether you can get anything out of it or not, I …
Oh, you've just given me a wealth of information. I thank you both
We'll feel sorry for you while you're having to hear it.
END OF INTERVIEW