Foots Weaver Interview2

Partial Transcript: FOOTS WEAVER:-- and that Monday morning (inaudible) right next to them , my next job.

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses the textile workers' strike of 1934, how the treasurer ran off with the money, union organizing and his political leanings.

Keywords: union organizing

Subjects: Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934)

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: What were the conditions like in the mill that made everybody want to organize a union.

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses working at Cherokee Spinning Company, union organizing, the leadership of the union local, and Lucille Thornburgh.

Keywords: Cherokee Spinning Company; Lucille Thornburgh

Subjects: Blacklisting, Labor

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: You started working at Cherokee in 1922--

FOOTS WEAVER: 1922. And then I left there and went to Ohio, and stayed in Ohio until 1927.

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses how he came to work a Cherokee Spinning Company, his work in textile mills and conditions in the textile mill

Keywords: Cherokee Spinning Company; spinning

Subjects: Textile factories; Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: Tell me about how hard you worked to organize.

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses his work as a volunteer organizer, and issues with wages at Cherokee Spinning Company.

Keywords: union organizing

Subjects: Collective bargaining--Textile industry; Textile workers--Labor unions; Wages

Partial Transcript: FOOTS WEAVER: When I was blackballed, Lucille was blackballed, she couldn't go to work back down there. Jimmy Monroe was blackballed he couldn't go back to work down there.

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses how being blacklisted actually turned out to be a good thing for some workers in the long run, organizing at Cherokee Mill, the textile workers' strike of 1934 and a walk out in 1933.

Keywords: National Industrial Recovery Act section 7a; picket lines; union organizing

Subjects: Blacklisting, Labor; Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934); United States. National Recovery Administration

Partial Transcript: F1: What did you do to help organize?

FOOTS WEAVER: Personally to organize, that's what i'd done just now, I went through the history of it.

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses his work organizing and how an injunction broke the strike at Cherokee,

Keywords: breaking the strike; picket lines; union organizing

Subjects: Labor union locals; Labor union meetings; Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934)

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: Now why, what did you think the union would be able to do?

FOOTS WEAVER: What?

JUDITH HELFAND: What did you think the union would do?

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses why he fought for the union.

Keywords: union organizing

Subjects: Labor union locals

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: But now a lot of people say that lintheads, you know, they'd work for anything and they couldn't fight back.

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses the character of textile workers.

Keywords: lintheads

Subjects: Textile workers

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: Well the strike was over, right?

FOOTS WEAVER: Yeah.

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses what happened when the strike ended, and Judith Helfand discovers that she is talking with Foots Weaver and discusses the media coverage of the strike.

Subjects: Labor leaders; Labor unions and mass media; Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934)

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: You haven't seen Lucille since that strike? Why?

Segment Synopsis: Foot Weaver discusses why he hasn't kept in contact with Lucille Thornburgh and why he stopped being a textile worker.

Keywords: Lucille Thornburgh

Subjects: Women labor leaders

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: Now did you go to North Carolina with a lot of the other blacklisted mill workers?

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses how he and other blacklisted textile workers had to leave Knoxville after the textile workers' strike of 1934.

Keywords: aftermath of the strike

Subjects: Blacklisting, Labor; Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934)

Partial Transcript: FOOTS WEAVER: Let's see I was born in '07, 1907, I was -- my mother died in 1934 she did, she feel and broke her neck down a pair of steps

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses the issues he had with trying to organzie and sustain the union in Knoxville.

Keywords: union organizing

Subjects: Labor leaders; Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: Why aren't you frightened?

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses how his background effected his concerns about the union.

Subjects: Working class--Family relationships

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: Do you relate your emphysema to working in the cotton mill?

Segment Synopsis: Foots Weaver discusses the impact that working in the cotton mill had on his health.

Keywords: brown lung

Subjects: Textile workers--Health and hygiene