Cythina Chattis, Charlie Jordan, and Union workshop Interviews

Partial Transcript: JAMIE STONEY: And we're rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok.

CYNTHIA CHATTIS: Daddy, when you were little did you have to work?

Keywords: education; mill villages

Subjects: Gardens; Working class--Recreation

Partial Transcript: CHARLIE JORDAN: And when I started to work in 1940, I started at twenty-five cents an hour. I made ten dollars a week.

CYNTHIA CHATTIS: That was in the mill?

Segment Synopsis: Charlie Jordan discusses his career in the textile mills.

Keywords: weavers

Subjects: Industrial engineering; Strikes and lockouts--Textile industry; Wages

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Let me ask you just one very direct question. If you were asked what they were striking for in 1934, what were you going to answer?

CHARLIE JORDAN: Probably better living conditions.

Segment Synopsis: Charlie Jordan discusses how overseers political leanings shaped their workforce and the relationship between mills a churches in the mill villages.

Keywords: churches; mill managers

Subjects: Religion and politics; Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934); Working class--Political activity

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: Oh yeah, um-- Maybe we can talk about your union activity in realtion to Cindy's.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah good.

Segment Synopsis: Charlie Jordan and Cynthis Chattis discuss the family's sympathy towards the union.

Keywords: education; union organizing

Subjects: Cooleemee (N.C.); Textile workers--Labor unions; Working class--Education

Partial Transcript: (Machine sounds)

Segment Synopsis: This segment consists of outdoor sounds.

Partial Transcript: (Inaudible converstation)

Segment Synopsis: This segment consists of conversation as people arrive at the union hall.

Partial Transcript: CYNTHIA CHATTIS: I was doing some stuff at my grandma's house, and I was talking to my daddy and my grandma, and they were telling us what it was like to, uh before the unions came in.

Segment Synopsis: Various union members ask an older employee what life was like prior to the union and when the mill village still existed.

Keywords: mill managers; mill villages

Subjects: Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union; Wages

Partial Transcript: (tone)
F1: 34.

M1: Well the only thing I know is my mother was working here, she honored the picket line she would not cross it.

Segment Synopsis: Various conversants discuss the textile workers' strike of 1934, and how each of them heard about unions, and their involvement in union organizing,

Keywords: picket lines; segregation; union organizing; unions outside the South

Subjects: Cannon Mills Company; Labor Unions; Segregation in education; Strikes and lockouts--Textile industry; Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934)

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Now, a lot of the white people who would be in unions have heard from their parents and grandparents that a lot of people got in trouble in the '30s, and don't want anything to do with it.

Segment Synopsis: A man talks about the impact that African American textile workers have had on the union.

Keywords: African-American mill workers; segregation in unions; unions outside the South

Subjects: African Americans--Segregation; Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: CYNTHIA CHATTIS: Well I'd never heard of union until I came to work at Cone Mills. And when I came to work here, I knew there was a union here, but I didn't see any union activity.

Segment Synopsis: Various converstants discuss how the learned about the union and why they got involved.

Keywords: union organizing

Subjects: Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Ok could you tell us, start telling us, tell them what they're gonna see and will start it.

Segment Synopsis: The conversants watch a video of a newsreel from the textile workers' strike of 1934.

Keywords: Labor Day parade; flying squadrons; legacy of the strike; newsreels

Subjects: Gastonia (N.C.); Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934)

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Talk about that.

F1: They make it look like the unions are the bad guys. And we're in their causing problems.

Segment Synopsis: The converstants discuss how media coverage has changed over the years, in regards to the union.

Keywords: anti-union sentiment in the South; legacy of the strike; newsreels

Subjects: Labor unions and mass media; Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: I wonder if Joanna and Cindy and Bonnie, could you all ask Bob, since he's lived here all these years, if the union has always been so visible?

Segment Synopsis: The conversants ask Bob about the union in the 1950s.

Keywords: union organizing

Subjects: Strikes and lockouts--Textile industry; Textile workers--Labor unions; Union dues