Lucille Thornburgh Interview 2

M1: -- twenty-five years (laughter) at the --

F1: Well, you know, what I think is -- and I've seen it on organizing campaigns and strikes before. And especially, like, organizing campaigns --

M2: OK.

GEORGE STONEY: Turn your page.

M2: OK, let's see -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

F1: Even ten years ago, I was (inaudible) get fired and not get the job. That's --

LUCILLE THORNBURGH: This is where we got the injunction.

F1: But those people -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

THORNBURGH: The headline reads, "Judge Enjoins Cherokee Mill Strikers: Gorman," he's from the national office, "seeks true protection."

GEORGE STONEY: Good.

F1: And I think, in the long run, they were better off -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

JUDITH HELFAND: Turn the page.

F1: -- they were always playing the conservative side. People hid. They were not willing to take a risk because the people who took a risk -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

THORNBURGH: This is blacklisted.

F1: -- one way or the other. And, usually they were better off -- (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

THORNBURGH: This is when we were blacklisted -- those of us who were very active in the strike. And the mill management knew us when we were blacklisted forever. We went to the gate and they turned us away.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Now, he wasn't on it. He was --

HELFAND: You just -- he's just gonna get it. You don't have to talk about it.

THORNBURGH: OK. OK. OK.

M1: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) -- and it used to be --

F1: I used to be that way.

M1: And you can imagine --

M1: -- you know, every year we had to yell and holler (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

THORNBURGH: Turn the page?

GEORGE STONEY: Yes, please.

F1: -- we made it if you couldn't find that.

M4: Yup. That's right. They had some newspapers (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

THORNBURGH: This is where we fought the injunction.

GEORGE STONEY: And you didn't get very far?

THORNBURGH: No, we didn't.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. I'm sorry.

M1: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) where we lived -- (inaudible) we don't need time for. Where we lived then --

GEORGE STONEY: Got it?

M1: -- is a little farmhouse.

HELFAND: OK. That's as far as we went.

THORNBURGH: OK.

JAMIE STONEY: Don't want to get her picture.

F1: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) I said. I think that people --

JAMIE STONEY: And we're going separately onto --

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Yup.

M3: -- the Joan of Arc thing --

M4: Yup. Yup.

M3: -- when you get this...

M3: OK.

F2: They just don't know. Just like I told you about some time ago. They're --

JAMIE STONEY: Going in.

F2: -- said, "Why, yes. That's headed to the" --

F3: Oh. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

GEORGE STONEY: We'll hold that and then cut to the (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

M4: OK.

M3: Mm-hmm. Let me try something here. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

THORNBURGH: OK.

GEORGE STONEY: Start it from the beginning, please. See it with the book closed.

THORNBURGH: Oh. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

M4: OK. I feel it.

HELFAND: -- sitting right here. Do you see these empty chairs? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

JAMIE STONEY: -- evil will never cease. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

JAMIE STONEY: OK. Going around to some of the things that you talked about. 00:03:00Now, look to your left for a moment as if you -- and, then, look towards Homer.

F1: They don't make 'em like that anymore.

JAMIE STONEY: Now, back towards Foots. OK. Flip the page. Another page.

HELFAND: Flip the page.

JAMIE STONEY: Turn the page, please. And run your finger under the headline please. And turn the page.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. That's --

(break in audio)

JAMIE STONEY: Fifteen seconds at the head?

HELFAND: What?

JAMIE STONEY: Fifteen seconds at the head, right?

(inaudible)

CREW: I'm not -- I don't know.

JAMIE STONEY: I usually leave it on auto 'cause it's easier. Just pick the better -- about a 4/5.

GEORGE STONEY: 4/5?

JAMIE STONEY: 4/5, 5/6.

GEORGE STONEY: Watch it, Judy. They're coming up on the...

(motorcycle in background)

JAMIE STONEY: I think we've got dirty heads again.

CREW: Does anybody got the kit?

JAMIE STONEY: Let me do -- let me check confidence playback at the end of this.

GEORGE STONEY: All right. (inaudible) probably do it from here again.

GEORGE STONEY: I bet it's -- it's -- stop!

(break in audio)

CREW: -- got it.

JAMIE STONEY: Let me try this shot and see if it happens again.

CREW: OK.

JAMIE STONEY: You know what, I don't wanna -- what it might have been. Might have been a funky connection. (long pause)

[SILENCE]

JAMIE STONEY: I'm getting a confident lock-up. (long pause) OK.

CREW: Yeah. You've got to tell (inaudible) tonight. (laughter)

CREW: Is anything open?

JAMIE STONEY: Judith? Tell me if you like this tail shot here.

CREW: We're gonna go to Newnan. I'm going to go to Newnan.

CREW: Again?

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, I don't.

GEORGE STONEY: We've got two cans of aluminum we've got to be moving. You see?

JAMIE STONEY: But were we going to Newnan tomorrow night or Gadsden.

GEORGE STONEY: We don't know yet.

JAMIE STONEY: Right there is fine.

GEORGE STONEY: OK.

JAMIE STONEY: Take the lens cap off.

CREW: Well, I took pictures. I'll put it back on.

GEORGE STONEY: We don't know yet.

JAMIE STONEY: You don't know yet?

GEORGE STONEY: No.

JAMIE STONEY: When will we know? When we get there? (laughter) Where are we going tomorrow night? OK. So, do we know where we're gonna be the day after?

GEORGE STONEY: We should be in Newnan.

JAMIE STONEY: So, if I have it shipped to the Days Inn in Newnan for Saturday morning --

GEORGE STONEY: That should be all right. Yes.

JAMIE STONEY: Smile.

GEORGE STONEY: That should be --

(break in audio)

GEORGE STONEY: No. No. Facing --

CINDY: Hold on a second.

THORNBURGH: Facing toward what?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah. Yeah. The -- the --

CINDY: Lucille?

THORNBURGH: Yes?

CINDY: Listen, um, this book that you had brought by, do you have a minute to tell me what this is about?

THORNBURGH: Oh, sure.

CINDY: You started to explain it before. I got sidetracked.

THORNBURGH: OK. Uh, yeah. I think if the labor movement had a saint that possibly Nelson Cruikshank would be numbered among those.

CINDY: No kidding.

THORNBURGH: Uh-huh.

CINDY: All right.

THORNBURGH: Uh, he was a government bureaucrat and what this book is all about -- it's very funny. You're going to enjoy reading it.

CINDY: Oh, great.

THORNBURGH: It has all kinds of anecdotes in there and different things that he went through with. And he was in -- he was in the labor movement. I noticed whoever wrote the preface this year. And Jimmy Carter and Rosalyn Carter --

CINDY: Oh, foreword. Yeah.

THORNBURGH: They were the people who wrote the foreword.

CINDY: OK.

THORNBURGH: And it -- it said that his work here, when he -- he forged a career in the labor movement when it was a genuine movement of the exploited unorganized. I thought that was a good statement.

CINDY: What year is this?

THORNBURGH: He was a great guy. I don't know exactly. You'll find it in here what year it was.

CINDY: Well, it says, "Anecdotes, stories, and memoirs of a New Deal liberal." That must have put him in the '30s sometime.

THORNBURGH: Oh, he -- oh, he did.

CINDY: OK.

THORNBURGH: Oh, definitely. It was in the '30s. He was one of the first persons that I heard of in the Labor Movement in 1934.

CINDY: No kidding! Oh, that's --

THORNBURGH: They told us about him.

CINDY: OK.

THORNBURGH: And, see, there he is -- the Cruikshank -- Cruikshank family about nineteen three.

CINDY: Wow.

THORNBURGH: So, I -- I want you to --

CINDY: He's probably this little tyke right here, right?

THORNBURGH: He was that little tyke.

CINDY: OK.

THORNBURGH: And then -- I think you're going to enjoy this book because he has many funny things in there.

CINDY: Uh-huh. Well, tell me a little bit about the book.

THORNBURGH: I haven't read the book as carefully as I should have. Because, 00:10:00you see, it's brand new. It's a new book. But --

CINDY: Now --

THORNBURGH: -- all this he has in here. And, see, he has friends and colleagues to be his enemies right at -- he had both friends and enemies that he talks about all of them in this. And, among his friends, he talks about George Meany and Arthur Goldberg.

CINDY: What's that?

THORNBURGH: You remember Arthur Goldberg.

F7: I've not heard of that. No. That's before my time. (laughter)

THORNBURGH: Certainly not at that time. But I think this book is just -- he has it -- carload of strawberries, for instance. And here you were askin' about dates in there. That is from 1936 to 1941.

CINDY: OK.

THORNBURGH: It's -- it's -- I think it's a wonderful book.

CINDY: Oh, so it's well written?

THORNBURGH: Oh, it is.

GEORGE STONEY: Lucille, just listening to Cindy for a minute. Cindy you talk.

CINDY: So, um --

GEORGE STONEY: And you look at her, um, Lucille.

CINDY: So, is it the style of writing that you particularly like or is it the issues that he's dealing with or what -- what makes this book special?

THORNBURGH: Oh, I think I like it because he put a very serious situation into 00:11:00comedy form.

GEORGE STONEY: OK.

THORNBURGH: You had everybody in a humorous way so that everybody would enjoy.

CINDY: The labor movement? Uh-huh.

THORNBURGH: Uh-huh. And, see, he has it chronicled here from -- like from 1926-1936. And then he has it 1921-1925.

CINDY: Uh-huh. Did he write about the strike?

THORNBURGH: I don't think there's anything in here particularly. He -- he -- naturally, he had the nation-wide textile strike, but anything about the Cherokee strike in particular --

(break in audio)

(traffic sounds)

GEORGE STONEY: She'll be on her way by the time you get in here. I want --

JAMIE STONEY: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: They're coming around the corner.

JAMIE STONEY: OK. Just give Judy ten seconds.

GEORGE STONEY: Lucille!

(long pause; traffic sounds)

JAMIE STONEY: OK.

(break in audio)

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, Lucille, the first thing I want you to tell us about is the -- about your -- where your family came from and how you got into the cotton mill. First, you know, how old you are, all of that. Uh, and when I ask you a question make sure you put my question in your answer.

THORNBURGH: Yes.

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, that's the right way. The wrong way is, uh, Judy what did you have for breakfast this morning.

HELFAND: Pineapple juice without the cantaloupe.

GEORGE STONEY: You see?

THORNBURGH: Uh-huh.

GEORGE STONEY: All OK?

CREW: Yes, sir.

GEORGE STONEY: All right. Lucille, tell me about your folks.

THORNBURGH: Well we lived, and I was born, up in Jefferson County about two miles east of Strawberry Plains. My father had an old -- at that time was considered a rather large -- farm and, also, a little grocery store. His was the only grocery store in a five-mile radius around there. So, we knew all the neighbors and all the mail was delivered at his store. The mail, see, at that time -- at the time I was born in 1908 -- the mail was being delivered in horse and buggy. And the buggies couldn't go through all those muddy fields. So, they left the mail there at my father's store and all the people would come there to get their mail. So, we knew who was writing to who because we saw all the mail around there. (laughter) That was something that we really enjoyed -- 00:14:00people coming and get their mail. He usually got there about one o'clock in the afternoon to make that round of Route 1 Strawberry Plains.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, tell us how and why your family got into town.

THORNBURGH: My mother -- you asked me now why we got into town -- we lived, so far, well it seemed at that time -- of course it's only 18 miles out of Knoxville -- but, at that time, with the rough roads and all, it seemed like a long ways from Knoxville. And my mother wanted the children to be educated. And she wanted to move and my father did, too. They wanted to move to wherever the children -- there were six of us -- where they would have better schools. It was a very bad mistake. They made a mistake in sellin' the store and the farm up there. Because when we moved to Knoxville, my father bought a store 00:15:00over on the corner of Aller and Yuneka Streets. And he set up a store there and tried to run it like he had in the country with crediting everybody. And, needless to say, he couldn't make it that way. So, he soon went out of business there and started working in a meat market for somebody else.

GEORGE STONEY: And what about you?

THORNBURGH: Well, at that time when we moved to Knoxville, I was -- I went to school for a little while -- only got through the seventh grade. And, by that time, I was getting' old enough to go to work. So, you know, I had no skills, no training. So, the only place I went to work -- and I started working at the Appalachian Mill.

GEORGE STONEY: Sorry. Let's start again because I want to say the only place you could work was in the cotton mill. OK. Let's start with your schooling. OK?

THORNBURGH: All right. Now, what did I say?

HELFAND: You got through the seventh grade.

THORNBURGH: Seventh grade.

GEORGE STONEY: Yup. I went to school. I got to the seventh grade and I had to go to work. OK?

THORNBURGH: OK. Uh, I went to school through the seventh grade. And, then, I had to go to work. My father couldn't make a living for all that big family there. So, all of us older kids -- I had two sisters older and a brother older and we all started working in the mills. That's the only thing we could do. We didn't have training for anything else. My brother worked at the Brookside. Uh, one of my sisters would at the, uh, Appalachian. And, then, one of the younger sisters worked at the Knoxville Glove Company. So, we were all working in factories, but, um, I was away from here then. I left Knoxville to go -- my -- one of my sisters, Ruth, who was older than I was, had gone to visit a friend in Cleveland, Ohio. And while she was up there, she got a job with the Cleveland Railroad Company and she wanted me to come to Cleveland. But, in the 00:17:00meantime, we both decided that we'd rather go to Denver. So, we both went to Denver without any job in sight at all. We went there and moved into YWCA and sta rted looking for a job. And my first job was at a restaurant there as a waitress. I lasted two hours. I didn't make it there at all. And the next job that I had was with a little -- a very small -- upholstering company where, of course, I had no skills there. But all they needed was somebody to write receipts by hand and I could do that. And they were willing to pay me $14 a week. So, I took that job. And, then, from that I got a job as a file clerk with the Door Engineering Company, which was a big outfit there. And I really started making big money then. I started making $60 a month.

GEORGE STONEY: Back to when you first went in the cotton mill, could you 00:18:00describe -- tell how old you were and what it was like just as though you were just walking in and feeling it. OK?

THORNBURGH: I --

GEORGE STONEY: And give the year as well.

THORNBURGH: Uh, let's see if I can give the year. I was born in 1908. Hold it a minute. I was born in 1908 and to be 16 years old how -- how -- what would that have been?

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, '24. 1924.

THORNBURGH: Yes, 1924. Twenty-four it was. In 1924 --

GEORGE STONEY: Sorry. Were you rolling then?

JAMIE STONEY: Yes.

GEORGE STONEY: OK.

THORNBURGH: OK. Do you want me to start over again?

GEORGE STONEY: Yes. We'd like to try again.

THORNBURGH: In 1924, I wasn't quite 16 years old because my birthday is in September and I started working there in either April or May in the early spring. I wasn't quite 16, but there was some sort of a labor law.

GEORGE STONEY: Sorry. We have to start again because we need just age -- back 00:19:00to when the cotton mill -- and, then, describe how it is. And about the labor laws. That's very --

THORNBURGH: Oh. Don't put the 1924 in there?

GEORGE STONEY: Oh, yes. That's important. Uh, you (inaudible) -- You're rolling?

JAMIE STONEY: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok.

THORNBURGH: OK. In 1924, at age 16, I started working at the Appalachian Mill and I was running a winding machine there. It seemed that a winding machine sort of because my trade because that's what I did later at Cherokee. But it wasn't that, it was because I was an experienced winder. And it was -- it was the longest day of my life. I know it was. We had to go to work, you know, at -- we worked ten hours. We worked from sev-- what would make ten hours from seven?

GEORGE STONEY: Let's stop it just for a moment. Let's figure --

(break in audio)

GEORGE STONEY: And -- OK?

THORNBURGH: All right. Now, you want to start over?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah.

THORNBURGH: OK.

GEORGE STONEY: In 1924.

THORNBURGH: In 1924, when I was 16 years old, I started working at the Appalachian Mill as a cone winder operator. We went to work at six o'clock in the morning and got off at 4:30 in the afternoon. And that was job where you stood on your feet that entire ten hours. And what we were doing, we was winding thread from a cone onto the spool. And it was strictly piecework. The harder you worked, the more money you'd make. So, I got pretty good at it. It was, uh -- it was hard work, but, still, I was, uh, able to do that. And, then, after that was when I got the opportunity to go to Denver with my sister. And we stayed out there, oh, possibly about a year and a half. Not longer than that.

GEORGE STONEY: I'm sorry, I'm going to ask you to do that again.

THORNBURGH: And start --

GEORGE STONEY: Nineteen -- 1924.

THORNBURGH: In 1924, I was 16 years old. I started working at the Appalachian (whistling in background) Mill as a cone winder operator. And that is a job --

M8: Is that [so cool?]?

HELFAND: That's beautiful.

M8: Yeah. A second. We've got an airplane. Let's just wait a second.

THORNBURGH: In 1924, when I was 16 years old, I started working at the Appalachian Mill as a cone winder operator. And on that machine -- that was a long machine. It had about 50 spindles on it. And I was winding thread from a cone up to a spool. Uh, there wasn't a clock in the room. I didn't have a watch and I didn't know what time it was. So, about nine o'clock, I thought it must be time to go home. That was the longest day that I could ever remember. And I remember very definitely eating my lunch at 10:30 because I thought it must be lunchtime. It wasn't lunchtime. I still had to continue 00:22:00on until 12:00 -- until the whistle blew. Everybody went out when the whistle blew. And most of us carried our lunch. And that was the shortest 30 minutes you've ever had, too. We would go outside the mill and sit on the steps and eat our lunch. But that was a long day. And when I started to thinking about that from now to 4:30, can I make it? Can I make it? But I did make it. And, of course, each day t hat got a little easier, you know?

GEORGE STONEY: Great. That's beautiful. OK. We've talked about your education. I want to go to something very different (inaudible) on any background of cotton mills or anything like that. You just came out of the country. Did you have any conception of what you were getting into?

THORNBURGH: Abso-- did I know what I was doing when I went into the cotton mills? No, I did not. It was just a way to help earn a living for the family. I had no ideas at all about union labor. Now, I had heard of the railroad 00:23:00strike in 1921. But there -- there wasn't any railroad workers living around where we were. And there was very little in the papers about it. But I didn't know that there were even in union. I thought they just quit work. I -- I had no way of knowing anything about the labor movement.

GEORGE STONEY: How did you parents regard you going into the cotton mill? Because we've heard a lot of people saying, "The last thing I want is for my daughter to go into the cotton mill."

THORNBURGH: It was the last thing in the world that my parents wanted -- for us to go into cotton mills. They wanted us to all continue going to school. My mother had visions of us going to university and college and graduating and becoming doctors and lawyers and all that. And that was a dream that was never realized.

GEORGE STONEY: Why?

THORNBURGH: Well, because of the depression there. And there was no way -- as I 00:24:00said, my father couldn't make a living working in a butcher shop and at the food markets around. And he had no other skills either. And my mother had been a cook and a dress maker and they had no way of making a living. So, it was up to us children to do that. We -- we -- we had to. We had to go to work.

GEORGE STONEY: Good. OK. Now --

THORNBURGH: Now, that was at Cherokee.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Now, I think that we wanted you to tell that story because it'll match what Foots was telling us, you see?

THORNBURGH: All right.

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, just roll it.

JAMIE STONEY: Rolling. OK?

GEORGE STONEY: Great.

THORNBURGH: The -- at Cherokee Spinning Company there in 1933, where I was still working as a winding machine operator. But the end of my machine was near a window and right around the corner from that was the weave shop. And I looked out there one day and here's all of these weavers sitting out there in the 00:25:00afternoon. It wasn't their lunch hour. They were sitting out there on a pile of lumber -- just sitting there. And we all -- I told everybody else and they all, as they could, they run to the window and look at 'em. And we all wondered, uh, what are -- what are they doing? And we still didn't quite understand it. But I think, now, that they did gain something from that strike. I don't know what it was, but they never asked us to join 'em. That was just a weave shop. As you know, in the cotton mills the weavers are the elite. They're the elite people, you know. People might not like to say, "Well, I'm a wind girl. I'm a spinner." But they like to boast, "I'm a weaver." You know, um -- you kn ow, "are you workin? at a cotton mill?" "I'm a weaver." That -- that was the elite. That was the -- that was the educated crowd because I suppose running the loom, maybe, was a little more complicated a machine. But they preferred men weavers, too. They had a few 00:26:00women weavers. Not many. Not many. That was a -- that was a man's job just like fixing a machine. That was -- I learned to fix my machine. And I asked my straw boss one day. I said, "Look, I know how to fix these machines. Why can't I fix 'em?" Because, see, they were getting' $12 a week and I was just getting' $8.40 and I wanted a job as fixer. And he looked at me like I was -- he said, "Are you crazy or something? That's a man's job." And no matter how good I was at fixing my machine, I couldn't be a fixer.

GEORGE STONEY: Beautiful. Now, do you remember when --

THORNBURGH: Oh, yes. That's -- that's when we got the eight hours.

GEORGE STONEY: No, sorry. Put my question in your answer about the NRA.

THORNBURGH: Oh.

THORNBURGH: Oh, OK. OK.

GEORGE STONEY: OK?

THORNBURGH: When the NRA came in, we got eight hours then. And our wages went up to $12.40 a week. That was great. But you don't want an argument here in 00:27:00Knoxville was. And it was in all the newspapers. What -- wasn't that gonna cause a crime rate? Or wasn't something gonna happen with those people with all that leisure time on their hands? In fact, a newspaper reporter -- I don't think that's in my scrapbook anywhere -- but a newspaper reporter came out to my house one day to ask, "What do you do with all this leisure time?" We -- that was time that we hadn't had before. And they were really afraid of it -- that we had that leisure time. And, then, we were off on Saturday. See what break that was there? We got the 40-hour week. And --

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about that from a standpoint of -- of mothers and children and so forth. What big change did that make?

THORNBURGH: Oh, that made a big change. That -- that was a great change.

GEORGE STONEY: That -- sorry. The eight hours.

THORNBURGH: The eight-hour day made a great change. It made a great change in our lives. Because after I started working the eight hours and getting home so 00:28:00early in the afternoon with nothing to do, I started to night school. I started at the old Knoxville High School and learned to type.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. That's beautiful. That's just right. Now, we --