Ray Griggs Interview

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: I'm doing just fine. If you want to talk to me now I'm here.

Segment Synopsis: Ray Griggs discusses how he learned about the Loray Mill Strike and life in the mill villages

Keywords: Loray Mill strike; mill villages; paternalism

Subjects: Textile workers

Partial Transcript: RAY GRIGGS: See every village that they built they'd always set aside land for a church.

Segment Synopsis: Ray Griggs discusses how history has been suppressed in Gastonia and how that has created resentment.

Keywords: churches; paternalism

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

Partial Transcript: RAY GRIGGS: And if you worked in the mill you were looked down upon. Sometimes people would you know call you a linthead.

Segment Synopsis: Ray Griggs discusses how textile workers were perceived in Gastonia.

Keywords: lintheads

Subjects: Gastonia (N.C.); Textile workers

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: How do you think that this, this class conflict plays out today, 57 years later after that big strike you know?

Segment Synopsis: Ray Griggs discusses how Gastonia has changed since the 1930s.

Subjects: Gastonia (N.C.)

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: So is there anything that you can tell me about that strike in '29 or that later strike when your father was sympathetic, you could you tell me something more about your father being sympathetic.

Segment Synopsis: Ray Griggs discusses why his father was reluctant to join the union.

Keywords: union organizing

Subjects: Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: I'm very, very appricative of all of--of this story, um are there people you think that we should talk to, that you spoke with when you were doing your paper about the 1929 strike?

Segment Synopsis: Ray Griggs learns about the textile workers strike of 1934, and discusses the research he did on the 1929 Loray Mill Strike

Keywords: Loray Mill strike; union organizing

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

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: That strike in 1929, was it very big? I mean did a lot of people join up with that local union? Did a lot of people come out on strike?

Segment Synopsis: Ray Griggs discusses the 1929 strike at Loray Mills, and the control that supervisors had on life in the mill village.

Keywords: Loray Mill strike; churches; mill villages

Subjects: Blacklisting, Labor; Strikes and lockouts--Textile industry

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: And what has happened since every time the union tried to get organized?

Segment Synopsis: Ray Griggs discusses how the Loray Mills Strike and how his career as an architect has allowed him to speak freely on these topics.

Keywords: union organizing

Subjects: Architects; Gastonia (N.C.); Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: What did you think when you read that article?

Segment Synopsis: Ray Griggs talks about how his father took the textile mill he worked at to court over workman's compensation.

Keywords: labor law violations

Subjects: Textile workers