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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-0240, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
At thirteen, Geddes Dodson entered the local textile mill as an employee, and he remained a mill worker for the next sixty years. During that time, he worked a variety of jobs, moving from cleaning up the spinning room to more skilled positions and eventually into work as a machinist, one of the most respected and highly paid positions in the factories. His father had entered the mill as a young man but retained a strong connection to agriculture, owning farmland that he either rented to a tenant farmer or cultivated himself much of his adult life. Nevertheless, his father, mother and all of their children spent most of their lives working. Dodson describes life in a mill village in the 1920s and 1930s, offering examples of how his mother balanced work and family, the way race determined employment, the ways children moved from education into the workforce and the various ways injuries could happen during the workday. In addition, he returns several times to issues of violence and gender, showing how men used physical force to defend their reputations, establish their authority over other men, and protect their women from other men. As an anti-union worker during the 1934 strike, he also offers some insight into the reasons some workers chose to join with the mill owners to fight against the flying squadrons.
Geddes Dodson worked as a textile mill employee for sixty years. During that time, he progressed through the factory's employment hierarchy, seeing many different aspects of life within the mills. He often focuses on issues involving masculinity and unionism.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Do you remember anything about your grandparents on either side of the family?
My daddy's daddy went to war way back. I don't know what war it was. And [my daddy] was born while his daddy was gone to war. His daddy never did get back home alive. His mother, Grandma Dodson, married again, and married a Thomas fellow. I don't know what his name was. They had one son, and his name was Uncle Tom Thomas. And my daddy had one sister, and her name was Aunt Mat Dodson.
What was your father's name?
I declare, I don't know, without he was named after his daddy. Joseph Elam
When was your father born?
He was not quite sixty years old in 1924 [born in 1864]. See, my brother's boys got our old family record Bible. And I tried to get him to loan it to me to let me get some reference off of it, and he wouldn't even let me have it.
Your grandfather probably died in the Civil War.
Yes, he died on the way back home.
From the Civil War.
Yes.
What about the other side of the family?
The Whittaker side. He [grandfather?] was a Whittaker, but I don't remember his given name.
Where did your Dodson grandparents live?
My daddy said he was raised down in Piedmont [South Carolina].
In Greenville County.
Yes.
You reckon he was born down there?
I don't know. He probably was.
Was your grandfather a farmer?
Yes. That's what the biggest majority of people done then.
What was your father's occupation?
He was a textile worker. He was overseer over several weave rooms, moving around. And he was a loom fixer. He had a stroke, and he died about five years later, and he was not quite sixty years old, in 1924.
He must have been born about 1864.
Yes. See, he'd have been way over a hundred years old if he'd have been still living.
Did he grow up on a farm?
Yes, he growed up on the farm, and he said he had cut wood in the snow
barefooted a many a day. And he just had to raise hisself. He said [chuckle] [laughter] [Laughter]
And your father's stepfather was afraid of him.
Yes.
I guess your father left the farm and went . . .
Yes, he left the farm. He had a great big farm up in Oconee County before
I was born. And he told me all about that. He lived in the barn and let
somebody live in his house and rent it. He was a textile worker, and he
rented his farm out, let this family work it, and they lived in the
house, and he lived in the barn. [chuckle]
Was that after he had gone off on his own, by himself?
Yes, it was after him and my mother had married. He moved around, and the
first thing I remember, why, we was a-living at Inman, South Carolina.
And the old mill, great big old mill about the size of Brandon Mill, was
down thisaway and the streets run up that way. And I was a little bitty
feller, and my mother'd make me a pallet out on the front porch. I was
too little to get out and run around. But I remember that, and I lay
[laughter] [Laughter]
How old were you then?
Oh, I was just a little tot. I showed you that picture of me and my
sister, and that was after we moved to Appalache. You know I was small
when we lived at Inman. But I remember laying on that pallet. [chuckle]
Was your mother working in the mill at all then, in Inman?
She was a weaver. And back then they didn't have these automatic shuttle eyes of thread; they had to suck the filling through the eye, and then put it in the loom, start it up.
Did they have a particular name for those shuttles?
The old suck-eye shuttles. And she wove then on them.
At that time, was your father a loom fixer?
Yes, he was a loom fixer. Sometime he'd get an overseer's job. And when he didn't have one of them, he fixed looms. And I remember way back then if you quit, you had to work a two weeks' notice.
[Interruption]
And my daddy was overseer at a little old mill somewhere—I
don't remember where it was—but when he took this job, the
fellows come to him and said, "You see that fellow over
yonder?" My daddy said, "Yeah." They said,
"Well, he's the bully around here. He'll run you off."
My daddy said, "He won't run me. I ain't the runnin'
kind." [Laughter] [chuckle] [chuckle] [chuckle]
That's quite a story.
[Laughter] [chuckle]
Did he know who you were?
Yes, he knew who I was. [Chuckle] [Chuckle] [Chuckle]
He used to be a bully.
Yes, he was a bully, but he didn't bully my daddy.
That was the first job you had?
That was the first job I had in the mill at Woodside. And then I got sweeping and one thing and another, and I run a band machine down under the mill. They had an automatic band machine. I kept the yarn on that automatic machine, and it twisted like a rope only it's little. We were using them for belts on the spinning frames. And I run that hand machine and watched that other one, kept it a-going. And then I went up in the weave room and started sweeping up there. And my daddy made me a reed hook out of a spoon you stir coffee with. I got one in there laying on the chest of drawers now I made myself. I don't know what went with the one he made me. But them little old two-harness weave, you just need a little old short reed hook, and the spoon was the handle. You put your thumb in the spoon and draw in them ends.
How old were you then?
I wasn't quite fourteen. I've been in the mill over sixty years. And then
I learned to weave. I learned to tie a weaver's knot. And nobody didn't
teach me how to weave. I just watched the weavers after I learned how to
tie that knot. Back then you had to get a permit to go to work when you
was just fourteen, and they wouldn't let you work but eight hours a day
if you wasn't old enough. [Laughter] [laughter]
This was before he had had the stroke.
That was after he had the stroke. See, he wasn't able to work [chuckle] [chuckle] [chuckle] [chuckle] [Chuckle] [Laughter]
How long after he had had his stroke was it before he died?
We left Woodside and moved to Brandon, and he was door watchman over there. He lived around six years. It was about four steps down from the door to the walk. My daddy was sitting there on the top step one day, and I don't remember what this fellow's name was, but he was smart, and he got my daddy by the heels and drug that poor old fellow down them steps a-bumping on his fanny. My daddy got out his knife and boy, he raked him down across there before he could get away, and they got him separated. And then he died over there on Traction Street in the first of the year in 1924. And then we stayed there, and then . . .
Was your mother working in the mill then?
She was drawing in over there at Woodside when we lived over there. She
was drawing in up in the second floor; the slasher room was up there.
The draw-in frames was long, with the backs to the window. And there was
an old
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
He said, "You're a d— lying s.b." And when he
said that, why, he took his knife and made a whack at him. And the boss
weaver was standing there, and he hit my daddy's arm and knocked the
pressure off, but he still cut his neck open all the way around and
missed his windpipe about a half an inch. Old man Wofford, the boss
weaver, fired [my daddy]. He didn't [chuckle] [chuckle] [chuckle]
When did you retire?
I retired the ninth of July last year [1979]. And I stayed at Dunean
fifty-one years and five months. And my wife and I have been married
fifty-six years the seventeenth of this month. Never slept a night
without a job
Let's go back and get a little more information on your mother. What was her name?
Her name was Mary Idella Whittaker.
Where was she born?
Her daddy was a farmer up above Spartanburg in the country.
In Spartanburg County.
Yes. Our grandpa's name was Henry, and I don't remember what Grandma's given name was. See, I was a little bitty tot then.
Did you go up there to visit them?
Yes, I went up there and visit[ed] them. They had some plates with
Hickman's Memorial Hall, a picture in the plates. And I was little, and
I wouldn't eat without that. I called it a mill plate. After they was
dead and gone there was some of them plates left, and I loved them so
good till my mother gave them to me. And the last one got broke since
we've been living here in this house. [chuckle] [chuckle]
Do you know how your mother and father met?
No, I don't. My mother and daddy married when she wasn't but about fourteen.
He was older than she was.
A little older, yes. He died when he wasn't quite sixty, and she lived to be eighty-two, the mother of eleven children. There were six boys. My oldest brother's name was Estes.
He was the oldest one in the family.
He was the oldest child. Estes, and then Nettie was next, and then Inez, and I never did see Lillian and Estelle; they had died. Well, I don't remember none of them back ahead of me. And then Clyde and Emma. She was older than I am. She's dead. Henry was younger than me. And then there was two twin boys born over on Charles Street at Woodside, Olin and Zolin. One of them died just a little while after they was born. And then they seen the other one was going to die, and they just kept the other out, and he died a few hours later. And they just put them both in the same little casket together. And that was six boys and five girls.
Did your mother work regularly in the mill all this time, while
She worked between times. Oh, yes, over there at Woodside, after we left Vance Street and moved on Fifth Street, after my daddy sold that house, they put her a couple of draw-in racks down at the house. And just put her a full warp on there, and she'd put the drop wires and the harness and the reed on there and draw the drop wires first and then draw the harness and then put the reed up there and draw the reed. She could draw a reed just like that, in ten minutes. And I remember I used to have two racks—and I was that little then, of course—but I could draw the harness. She would draw the drop wires, and I'd set down there at that rack and draw the harness, the ends in the harness, eyes in the harness. And then she'd take and put the reed on it and then tie it up on the front so they could. . . . And then cut the pattern off long enough behind so they could take it up there and tie it on a machine full of warp. And every time she'd change, she'd just pull that warp over and get her ends up there and draw another pattern and cut it off. And they'd tie it on one of them big old automatic machines. And my sister was crippled, and she'd help her draw in some.
Which sister?
Emma. She was older than me.
Did you know of anybody else that ever got to do this work at home like this?
Yes, there was several women drawed in at home.
I've never heard of that before.
Yes, they just had that big old full warp and a wooden rack. And lay the
warp on the back and pull it up over there
It was pretty common back then?
Yes, it was pretty common, this . . .
How old were you then, when that was being done?
That was back. . . . I forgot to put it in a while ago, but I had worked in the mill up there at Woodside some.
That's where you first started working in a mill.
Yes. But them was the good old days.
Would several women usually work together if they did this kind of thing at home?
I don't know of nobody else that had two racks, but I think some other women had some at home that wanted to stay at home and do the housework and draw in between housework time. And I remember while we was over there on Fifth Street during World War I, why, that flu epidemic was raging, and so many people were dying. We every one had it, Mother and all of us. And I remember we was all so sick, my mother just got up and went to waiting on us, giving us aspirins and hot lemon tea. I had a mattress on my bed, and I perspired so much till it went through the mattress and dripped on the floor. That's a fact; that's right. I remember that just as well as if it was yesterday. But we all got over it. There wasn't none of our family died.
Did you know some people that died?
Oh, there was people that was dying everywhere with that flu during World War I. It's true, because there was a bunch of people died over there at Woodside with it.
People you knew?
Yes, but I don't remember their name. I did then, but I don't now.
Can you remember how you felt about everybody being sick and everybody dying?
Well, it was an awful feeling. We didn't know whether we was going to live or die. But the Lord was with us, and he brought us through, every one of us. That was the rottenest sickness I ever had in my life.
It must have been really something. I've heard lots of people talk
It was really bad. And they lost a lot of soldiers out at Camp Sevier.
Out there where the
Talking about your mother doing the drawing-in at home, they must have been real hard up to find workers if they had . . .
Yes, they was just scarce of workers.
How old do you think you were when she was drawing in at home?
I was done past fourteen, and right around there.
So that would have been right around World War I. The War was going on then?
Yes, it was . . .
And that may have been why they couldn't get enough help.
They was kind of scarce of menfolk.
[Interruption]
Why don't you talk a little bit about some of the things that your mother and father taught you when you were growing up? Did they have any kind of sayings or things they would tell you about how to live your life or how to behave?
One thing, when I went to church, I set up there like a little statue. I
didn't cut up and hoop and holler like they do now, little tots. My
mother fed me on peachtree tea, and that made me behave in church, see.
And my daddy always taught me, he'd tell me, "Now, son, you
don't have to ask no questions. You can watch people about good
manners," and says [chuckle]
What did you mean by "peachtree tea"?
She just got her a little keen hickory and just made some little fine strops all over your little legs and back. It didn't cut the skin, but it turned them a little red.
And that was one of the things you were told to do, you had to sit still in church.
Anything. I don't remember my daddy ever whipping me. My mother done
that. I was a little bitty skinny weakly fellow when I was growing up,
and so my daddy felt sorry for me. He worried about me, in a way. And he
fed me on [unclear] [laughter]
What about religion? Did they take you all to church as children?
Yes. My daddy was rough, but he went to church and believed in doing
right and living right. And I know he was saved before he died, because
we had killed some hogs over there at Brandon in the wintertime. My
mother had worked them up, and we had worked them up, and made a great
big panful of homemade sausage. And cooked the liver and lights back
then. The lungs; they called it the lights and the liver. Cook that
together and make that good, thick gravy in there. That was really good.
[chuckle] [Laughter]
Did you all belong to the Baptist?
Yes, we belonged to the Baptist church over there at Brandon.
Was your mother a Baptist, too?
Yes, she was a Baptist.
Did she ever read the Bible at home?
Oh, she set and read the Bible and rocked the cradle with her toe. They
had cradles with a rocker on each end just like a rocking chair. She'd
set and read her Bible to us children and tell us how to do. [laughter]
Did you all have a garden in all the different mill villages you lived in?
Had a garden at all the different mills. Over at Woodside they had
hogpens down in the pasture, and they had cow stalls down all around.
And you could keep the cow and raise hogs. I remember over at Woodside
one time, that creek goes down through there. It rained so hard till the
creek got out of the banks and washed the hogpens and the hogs away, and
a lot of people lost their hogs that year. And we moved to Brandon, and
we had the cow stall in our backyard, down on the back of the lot. And
we kept a cow way up till almost the time I married. After my daddy
died, we didn't keep another cow. And I remember [chuckle] [chuckle] [unclear]
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Let me ask again about your mother's working. I'm trying to understand a little bit about how women who would be having so many children would go to work and then stop a while and go back, how that worked out.
They just let them off so long. I think my wife explained to you about
her mother working at [Chuckle]
Would your mother work up until two or three months before she would have a child and then stop?
Yes, that's the way all of them. . . . Some of them worked up to a week or two before the child was born.
How long would she stay home before she would start back?
Maybe a month or two.
And she could get her same job back.
Get a leave of absence, and then go back to work.
Did she do that pretty regularly?
Well, see, I was one of the last corp. [Chuckle]
So you're not sure about how it was with the earlier ones.
No. I don't even remember when Henry was born. He and my daddy were right at the same age when they died. Henry didn't live to be quite sixty, and my daddy didn't, either.
Did your mother like to do drawing in?
Oh, she loved it.
That takes a lot of eye strain.
Yes.
Did she have to wear glasses or anything like that?
Yes, she wore glasses. I've got her picture in there on the wall. They
still have them ladies drawing in down here. And then they draw some
of
How long did you get to go to school?
I just went to the fourth grade. They had to burn the schoolhouse down to
get me out of the fourth grade. [Chuckle]
Why did you decide not to go any further in school?
I just had work and I wanted to work. And my daddy was paralyzed, and I had to work to help make a living for the family.
Did your other brothers and sisters get to go to school more than you did, or not?
I think they went a little higher than I did. But you know, back when I was a young boy, there didn't but very few young people finish high school. All I know of at Woodside was three Smith boys finished high school.
Did your brothers and sisters go to work in the mill?
Yes, they went to work.
Where did they start, the different ones?
My brothers all made loom fixers, and Clyde, the last one that died, run
a second hand's job. His name was Clyde Oliver, COD, Clyde Oliver
Dodson. And working over there at Poinsett, he helped the second hands
over there. And if they had to [Chuckle] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter]
Tell me a little bit about how you met your wife.
We lived over there at Brandon on Traction Street. That was over on the
other side of Brandon Mill. She lived up on West Avenue, out from Judson
Baptist Church, where all them pecan trees are out through there. And me
and one of my boyfriends was out walking around one day. The switch
track went down behind Brandon Mill. There was a mill pond in the
pasture behind Brandon Mill, and we was over there in that pasture
looking around at that mill pond. and my wife and another girl come down
the track, where the shifter come in there and brought freight and
hauled it out. And we seen them girls over there, and we jumped the
fence and went over there and met them. [Laughter]
How long did you go together before you got married?
We went together three years, and then we was married three years before Doris was born, the first child.
What would people do back then for entertainment?
Oh, the moving picture shows. You know where you go under the underpass at West Greenville? They had a theater down there. Goodenoughs run it. And we had mill ball teams, too, then. We'd go to mill ballgames. And then that Brandon Theater, we'd go down there.
Did they have any string bands around here?
Oh, yes, Brandon had a brass band.
That the mill sponsored.
Yes. Old Roy Young used to blow that old trumpet, and boy, he could really toot that thing.
What about the hillbilly bands, string bands,
There wasn't no hillbilly bands much then. Just brass bands, about like Lawrence Welk has on his program.
You don't remember the Monroe Brothers being around here at all. Bill and Charlie Monroe used to be here a while. Do you remember them?
Yes, I remember them.
Did you like that kind of music?
I used to like it pretty well, but not. . . . I like that old brass band
like Lawrence Welk's and that big old bass horn, "A- [Laughter]boop-boop-boop-boop, boop-boop-boop." There was two girls named White, Vera
and Mertis. Before I met my wife and married, I carried them to that
theater down there a time or two. And me and the youngest one was
standing out there on the outside of the mill at Brandon on the sidewalk
a-talking. An old boy come along and says, "Why don't you-all
get married?" And she said, "I want a man when I
marry."
Did you all go dancing when you were courting?
Just picture shows. Go to walk.
One of the things I wanted to talk some about were all these strikes and things that went on in the textile mills back in the twenties and thirties. Do you remember about any of those?
Yes. I can take you over to Grayson Cemetery and show you people's tomb rocks, that got killed during the strike, that worked in the mill.
Which mill?
Judson. I wasn't working over there. But there's one tall rock like a tree over there, over on this side, with a notch, limb has been cut off? I've forgot his name, but it's over there on the rock. He got killed. There was some more got killed.
How did they get killed?
This flying squad[ron], you know. They had got to fighting and killing, shooting one another at Judson.
Did you see any of that yourself?
When they struck down here, I went in there and worked on. And the flying squad[ron] come down there, and they had windows all around the weave room of the mill, and they opened. Steel windows that pushed out, and then a rod hung in notches.
Which mill is this one?
Dunean down here. And that last strike they had down here . . .
Was that when they had the flying squadron?
Yes, the flying squadron come.
1934.
They had brought big boxes of new picker sticks up there and put them
there in the weave room. And they had told us, "Now if them
flying squad [Chuckle] [Chuckle]
Did you see that?
I was standing right there with them on the outside of the door.
Outside of the mill.
Yes. That upper door up here, that office, you know. There was a door there.
You were in working in the mill. The mill was still running.
Yes, it was running then. It was just about half and half, belonged to
the union and. . . .
What kind of trouble did he get in?
He went to a union meeting one night, and they appointed him as head of the, to keep the books and everything. And so he lost his job and like to went crazy and couldn't get a job nowhere; he was blackballed.
How did the company find out that he was in . . .
They knew it. They didn't hide nothing. And then finally he lost his job, and he went all over the whole country and didn't eat nothing but maybe one little old sandwich a day, and he like to went crazy.
And no body would hire him because they . . .
No body wouldn't hire him.
They had found out that he had joined the union.
But they finally took him back at Mills Mill, because he was a good fellow. And he had to sign that paper, "I'll never put my signature to another union paper," and they hired him back.
What was his name?
John Calvin Amick. He married my sister Inez.
He's not still alive, is he?
No, he's been dead for years. Oh, yes, he went back to work over there. He was a roller shop man, covered them rollers that went on the spinning frame. And then after he went back to work, he went back to work in the slasher room.
That must have been in 1929 or something like that.
It was well back, yes.
So you knew about that already before this other one came along.
Yes, that was before this other one happened around here.
In '34.
But that at Judson was way back when I was just a little fellow. Way back years ago.
Where those people got killed?
Yes.
Oh, really. It was when you were a little boy.
Yes, I was a little fellow. I wasn't even working then.
Who told you about that?
I knew all about it when it was going on.
What happened?
They just had strikes and got to fighting, and some of them got killed.
I hadn't heard about that one before. I'll have to look into that one. That must have been 1921 or '22. You were about sixteen or seventeen years old, or were you that old yet?
We was living over there at Brandon. I was just a young lad.
Not yet working in the mill.
No. My wife could tell you that fellow's name that got killed, or one of them, I know, where that big tall. . . . It's way up on this side. You could drive by around there. It's right on the curve, that big rock tree trunk. You could go by there and get the date off that thing.
Which cemetery is it in?
Grayson. You go out this White Horse Road and turn in there and go down there on that first road that goes around, and go on around the curve, and it's right close to the drive. It'd have the date on it.
What else do you remember about the 1934 strike, when the flying squadron came in? You say some people had joined the union before.
The ones that joined, it finally just died down, and it passed away.
When was it that you joined up?
It was way back during that flying squadron, but I seen where I was wrong. I knew I had to . . .
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
How long had you been a member of it before the flying squadron came through?
Not too awful long.
A year, or half a year?
Something like that. One thing, they had some old. . . . Course I wasn't.
. . . We had a meeting uptown one day upstairs in a building on the
corner of Main and Washington. I went up there, and there was some old
ignorant fellows. I wasn't nothing to brag on about having an education.
[Chuckle] [Laughter]
Who was in charge of the union?
I don't remember their names.
Were they local people?
Yes. But that old fellow that got up and said that was down about Conestee somewhere.
Was he one of the officials?
No, he was just a member, but they'd give you a chance to speak what you thought.
Talk a little bit about the kind of work that you did, working with these machines and how you liked that or what you thought about it. You said you had come up with some ideas, invented some things. Tell me a little bit about how you learned about the different machines you worked with.
I done just like my daddy told me. I learned a whole lot just by watching
people. And then there was some old loom fixers down there. We had a
night school down there, and we didn't get paid to learn to fix looms
That was at Woodside?
Down here.
At Dunean.
They didn't none of them run but one shift back then. We'd go to school
down there, and then they had a night school at Parker High. I went to
loom fixing school at Parker High a long time at night, and they had a
teacher over there. Down here at Dunean, after working ten hours a day
I'd go back up there at night nearly every night and put in rocker
shafts [Laughter]
Were they to go on . . .
Feel the filling. The bobbin, there was a bunch wound around and around and around here, about that long. And that feeler hit right this side of that, and when all this filling up here had run out, all but this bunch, it'd slide on that quill and make it change and put in another bobbin to fill it.
You know what they called the midget feeler.
[Interruption]