Scarboro Photo Shop Interview

BOBBY: You know one line --

GEORGE STONEY: Go.

BOBBY: I have a album here on Dwight Mill that, uh, has quite a few of the mill photographs in it. Of course the aerial shots, might get a bit easier to get an overall view of what is there. And most of the people, when they come in and look at the old photographs and think of Dwight Mill, this is the view that they think of. This is the most purchased print that I have in my collection of Dwight Mill. And, I understand -- they tell me, that is, that the dispensary was in here. And most everybody remembers this tower, which, I'm sure it was quite impressive to the children. And, prints go on. We have construction photos. This aerial shot was the one that I was able to locate Dwight Inn; I 00:01:00never could find out where it was located. The aerial photograph that I had previous to that didn't have this much on it. It was the same photograph, just not as much of it. This is the big snow. I believe, this would have been the snow in 1940, that we had a tremendous snow.

GEORGE STONEY: This over here?

BOBBY: This is a group of, I gather, to be employees, or else construction workers. Uh, it says "Men employed on building Dwight Manufacturing," so that would have been the construction workers. Uh, this rear view here was a postcard, which has proved to be one of our good sources --

GEORGE STONEY: Sorry, could we do that again? Just, Jamie, pan over there, and when I say "now," you can explain it. Now.

BOBBY: This view is of the rear of the mill, and of course everyone remembers the small smokestack. This came from a postcard which is one of our good sources of our old photographs. I don't know what to say.

GEORGE STONEY: You haven't been in the mill yourself?

BOBBY: I was -- the only time I was ever in the mill myself, I was so young, and I just barely remember it. I just remember being very frightened of all the machinery.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, thank you. So, that gives us a good feeling of --

BOBBY: Then, Alaska and would mail cornbread to her.

GEORGE STONEY: (laughter)

BOBBY: Cornbread mix, that is.

JAMIE STONEY: We're rolling.

JUDITH HELFAND: Did you eat it with salmon? OK. So, why don't you show me something about the Dwight Mill Village?

BOBBY: Oh, the mill village, we have quite a number of photographs. The houses -- of course the larger houses --

GEORGE STONEY: No, no, start again. You're going a little fast.

HELFAND: Did you know a lot about all these mill -- did you know a lot about Dwight Cotton Mill until you started collecting all these pictures?

BOBBY: Uh --

HELFAND: You just heard stories?

BOBBY: Just, yeah.

HELFAND: Mixed, and what kind of stories did you hear about this place?

BOBBY: Well, just people say, "I remember this," and "I remember that," and sometimes it gets pretty crossed up, and you have to sort it out, cause different people --

GEORGE STONEY: OK, action.

HELFAND: Why don't you show me something about the Dwight Mill Village?

BOBBY: Dwight Mill Village, of course, is where most of the workers lived, and 00:04:00something that has struck me about Dwight Mill Village, that I didn't realize for a number of years, the houses is on a very large lots. All the other cotton mill villages that I had ever been in, the houses were just elbow-to-elbow.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about this.

BOBBY: This is Dwight Inn, which was more or less --

GEORGE STONEY: Sorry, sorry. This is -- go ahead. This is --

BOBBY: This is -- this is Dwight Inn, which was a hotel, I believe that was run in conjunction with the mill itself, and the village houses, of course, were in varying sizes; it seems that the better job you had, the larger house you had to live in. And, this one came out of a book, and has a note here, "Rent: $5 per 00:05:00month." Of course, back then, five dollars a month was probably a week's wages.

HELFAND: Are kids coming in to look at these pictures?

BOBBY: Uh, not too much. It's more adults, and uh, most of them's memory seems to go back about 25 years. That's the period they want to look at prints and talk about prints.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us what this is now.

BOBBY: Uh, this is interior of the Dwight Church, which I understand that the mill built for the workers. I have read that they originally held church services inside the mill, so this was probably quite an improvement over that. 00:06:00This just says "Dwight village house," but that's a pretty good size house. I know the average worker didn't live there.

GEORGE STONEY: Who are those people?

BOBBY: Uh, this is a photograph of the people that worked in the cloth room. It's a long photograph; it's a little bit hard to put one in the book. So the only way I could get them in there is just to fold them in half. And occasionally, you have somebody come in, and they find one of their parents, or their uncle, or their aunt, and that gets them all excited.

GEORGE STONEY: Oh, nice. Very nice. OK.

HELFAND: (inaudible)

JAMIE STONEY: Good. OK, Judy. Go ahead.

HELFAND: OK. Bobby, let's just pretend that we're doing this -- you're 00:07:00meeting me for the first time; you haven't been doing this all day, (inaudible), and --

BOBBy: We have several albums of pictures of Dwight Mill --

HELFAND: You know what, why don't we just act a little more natural? Why don't you stand up and just --

JAMIE STONEY: OK, go ahead.

(overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

HELFAND: OK.

JAMIE STONEY: Go ahead, Bobby.

HELFAND: OK, look at me. So, I'm looking for pictures at the Dwight mill Village, and the mill company.

BOBBY: We have several albums involving Dwight Mill, and also Dwight School. Uh --

HELFAND: OK. What's that?

BOBBY: This particular one shows the drug store, and uh, I'd want to say, commissary. I think it was just a store mainly for the convenience of the workers there at the mill. We have pictures of groups of mill workers, uh, the 00:08:00mill houses. This particular one here is of the Boy Scout troop, the bandstand, which I think that was big, because back then we didn't have radio or television.

HELFAND: What about the baseball team?

BOBBY: Uh, the baseball teams were very big at the mill, and they would journey to the surrounding towns and play teams from the other mills.

JAMIE STONEY: Is it true they had guys that were baseball players that never touched the loom?

BOBBY: Right, they brought them in out of the colleges.

JAMIE STONEY: I heard they used to draft guys out of the semi-pro teams, and they'd play for the mills, and then go up back into semi-pro.

BOBBY: Well now, I don't know about that, but I have heard my family talk about the college athletes that would have a job at the mill only during the summer months. And of course, all they did was play baseball.

JAMIE STONEY: Mm-hmm.

BOBBY: So, uh, it was kind of a way of making sure our team wins. (laughter) Because that was quite -- quite competitive.

JAMIE STONEY: Well I'd seen in some of the papers we were looking at, like, the score of Goodyear versus another town, but it was not -- not Alabama City or Gadsden; it would be Goodyear or --

BOBBY: Dwight Mill.

JAMIE STONEY: Right.

HELFAND: What's the biggest -- what's the -- what's the picture that everyone's coming in here looking for?

BOBBY: Uh, that is the picture of the, uh --

HELFAND: Could you start with, "The picture that everybody seems to want about Dwight Mills" --

BOBBY: Oh, OK.

HELFAND: -- and take it from there?

BOBBY: The picture most everybody seems to want about Dwight Mill is this front show of, uh, what I have been told is the dispensary. And of course, that's where they went to see the doctor, so that's a place that they would remember.

JAMIE STONEY: Could you show it to me again, but -- do it again, but don't show the picture, because we -- we're looking over your shoulder --

BOBBY: Oh, oh, OK.

JAMIE STONEY: No problem.

HELFAND: Just, the thing that I -- that you said before -- (inaudible) -- the thing --

BOBBY: The picture that most people feel like represents Dwight Mill, and the 00:10:00one that they -- buy quite a few is of the tower with the ivy growing on it, where the dispensary was located. That's the biggest seller that we have of Dwight Mill.

HELFAND: Keep on flipping; just go through it randomly.

BOBBY: Gotcha.

JAMIE STONEY: You said, you had been in the mill once before?

HELFAND: Not when he was looking at the pictures.

JAMIE STONEY: Yeah he was. He said, because when we was looking at the ones in the mill, he said, "I can --"

BOBBY: -- the back of the mill is made across the lake, and the best show we have of that came from a postcard, which is a good source of our old photographs. Uh, we just pick 'em up anywhere we can get 'em. And sometimes these old postcards have been hand-colored, which makes them a little bit more attractive.

HELFAND: And, who's coming -- I mean who -- who needs to see the picture of 00:11:00the mill? Who's been coming over and over to come buy pictures?

BOBBY: Uh, it's people -- the people that come mostly to look at the old photographs are some of the people that worked there, or their family worked there. And they won't --

HELFAND: Why don't -- can you start that again?

BOBBY: Most of the people that come to look at the photographs of the mill are people who worked there, or people who had relatives working there, and they come in looking to see what -- where it was that their relatives worked, and sometimes we actually locate their relative in a group shot made in the mill.

HELFAND: And you had taken out -- I think that picture of (inaudible) was it? Was that the one you took out?

BOBBY: Uh --

HELFAND: You took out the other one. OK, so maybe we could -- you could flip through that one, and then take it out. Uh, why don't -- you could start a 00:12:00couple over -- you could -- you could just flip like three of them over and then take out that last one. You could even talk about some of these houses. I guess that management had the bigger houses than the other folks did.

BOBBY: Uh, yes they did. The -- uh, it seems to be that the better job you had, the larger home you had, and uh, the supervisor's home was the big one on top of the hill overlooking all the other homes. Uh, people come in that are retired workers from over there that used to work there, looking at the photographs, and then also we have, uh, relatives of people that worked there coming in to look to see where their relatives worked, and sometimes we actually find their relative in these group shots. And of course, when we do that, we 00:13:00like to write the identities down, so that -- to me the photographs are much more valuable if we've got the people identified.

HELFAND: That's great. Why don't -- who do you think that the biggest seller is the ivy-colored -- the ivy-coated, uh, tower?

BOBBY: Well, if you look at the aerial shot of the mill, you can see that such a gigantic thing. And then two, uh, most of the exterior of it would just look like the side of a warehouse. And this tower with the ivy growing on it was rather distinctive, and would stick in their minds.

HELFAND: Did they bring the ivy over from Massachusetts?

BOBBY: I have no idea where the ivy came from. Uh --

JAMIE STONEY: You said the dispensary was there, so if someone went there when they were sick or something, it would probably be one of their memories.

BOBBY: Yeah. The i-- the tower would be, I'm sure it would stick in a 00:14:00child's mind, because that's where he went to see the doctor, and maybe he got a shot.

JAMIE STONEY: OK.

JAMIE STONEY: This is room tone for the interview that is before this.

(SILENCE)

JAMIE STONEY: OK.

(background noise, cars passing by)

(laughter)

JAMIE STONEY: I don't -- no, I don't mind, it's just ever since they started advertising on matchbooks, a lot of them get weird, you know? It's strange, but --

CREW: (inaudible) where one of those (inaudible), I hear you --

JAMIE STONEY: Uh, trade it in and buy yourself a good Mercedes. That's why I rent this one. Don't pay to own --

(break in audio)

CREW: We're going to move to the median. Let's try to get them through it, so (inaudible).

JAMIE STONEY: You're going to also -- you, that production -- there's a place over by that corner, (inaudible) corner?

CREW: Oh, no, no, no, you're talking (inaudible) productions, probably.

JAMIE STONEY: Yeah.

CREW: No, I'm getting into multimedia, computer media (inaudible).

JAMIE STONEY: Oh, OK. That stuff's nice.

CREW: Oh, no, no, no -- (inaudible) sound up (inaudible).

JAMIE STONEY: B-roll sounds, wipe it if it needs (inaudible).

(break in audio)

GEORGE STONEY: Ready?

JAMIE STONEY: Speed.

BOBBY: Let me show you the brick that I got out of Dwight Mill.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, fine, perfect. One more.

HELFAND: I mean, how you got your brick, right?

M1: What the hell is that?

CREW: What the hell is that thing?

[break]

JAMIE STONEY: Let's do it, quickly.

GEORGE STONEY: Rolling, rolling.

BOBBY: Let me show you the brick that I got out of Dwight Mill. It was brought to me by a friend who went over to get him one, and he knew that I would like to have one, so he brought it to me.

GEORGE STONEY: Fine thank you --

(break in audio)

GEORGE STONEY: Ready, Jamie?

JAMIE STONEY: Yup.

GEORGE STONEY: All right, could you tell me your experience in Mississippi, how old you were when all this happened? Go.

M1: Well, uh, I resided in a little town called Stonewall, Mississippi, about 20 miles south of Meridian, and I was living there in 1934 during the mill strike. And what really sticks in my mind about the strike is the fact that at night, uh, there would be bonfires around the mill wherever there was a gate, or an 00:18:00entrance, you know, and men would be standing around with clubs, and things like this, and there was no activity going in and out of the mill whatsoever. Now, as far as I can remember, I don't remember any violence, or any thing of that nature, but they did shut it down completely for three weeks, and then it was resolved, and they all went back to work.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. I want you tell me that again. You showed me the other day, you were showing me something about the clubs and so forth. And also tell me a little bit about the nature of that town. It was a small town, remote, all of that kind of thing. So start again and just do the whole thing again, all right, sir?

M1: Well, I -- I resided in a little town called Stonewall, Mississippi, about 20 miles south of Meridian, and I was living there in 1934 during the strike. And the things that stick in my mind about the strikes is of the bonfires around the mill, and the clubs that the men carried that really were shaped like a milk 00:19:00bottle to me; they were big on one end, and was honed down, you know, not handmade; look machine-made really, because they were real smooth, and the men carried these clubs, but now as far as I know, there was no violence whatsoever. And uh, it lasted three weeks, and then it was resolved. And as far as I know, there was no repi-- reprisals or anything of this nature.

GEORGE STONEY: What was the nature of that town?

M1: Well it was a small town, really smaller than here in Gadsden, the mill village was. The mill wasn't as large. Probably about half as big, and it probably employed maybe 1,000, 1,200 people. Very small town, away from everything else, you know, and it was just kind of a little small southern town.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you have any idea, and you could repeat my question. Do you have any idea how the union idea got to that small town?

M1: Well, no, I was too young. I can't -- I can't remember the nature of 00:20:00the union, or anything like this, because at my age, I didn't -- I wasn't looking for things like that, you know. Uh, you didn't really go into details for a 10-year-old, you know. Uh, you don't remember things like that.

GEORGE STONEY: All right, sir. Uh, Pull back for a long shot. Could you tell us about the building that we're in; tell us about the association, and what kinds of things you save in leading up to the -- one of your prides being that book, that book behind you, you know, with all their -- the employment records?

M1: Well, uh --

GEORGE STONEY: Just, uh, start by telling us, we're in the building of...?

M1: Uh, we're here in this, uh -- the oldest library in the state of Alabama built by Dwight Manufacturing just as soon as they opened the mill, why then they built this library, and it's a very fine building; the genealogical society here owns it now. And it's changed hands a couple of times since the 00:21:00mill was closed down, but the genealogical society was very fortunate to get it and keep it like it is, and we're very proud to have it.

GEORGE STONEY: Why don't you tell us about the book now?

M1: Well, we have some of the books from the mill, and this is a time book beginning in 1896, and I assume this is right at the beginning of the mill, because somewhere around '95 or '96, they started production.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell us what's in it?

M1: Well, uh, it just -- some of these, uh, it gives the, uh, person's name, and the day they worked, and showed their off days. Shows they worked Monday through Saturday, six days a week. Uh, pay rate two dollars a day, and it -- uh, this man here made 24 dollars. One man made $8.25. They were already 00:22:00getting rich back in those days. (laughter)

GEORGE STONEY: Well now, when did you come to Gadsden?

M1: I moved to Gaston in 1936.

GEORGE STONEY: So you know something about the nature of the community?

M1: Oh yeah. I lived here in this village for -- until the middle of World War II when I went into service.

GEORGE STONEY: We've heard that it was a -- could you tell us about the general attitude towards unions here?

M1: Well now, this time became a very strong union, and I say that for the fact I worked in the steel industry, and it was organized nationwide, and our strikes were called in our headquarters in Pittsburgh, and uh, little different from the mill. But basically, the -- I don't think the mill people were as strong union as a steel mill was, because, uh, all -- they were just hardworking people and want to work for a living; didn't want to be disturbed. Uh, I didn't -- 00:23:00I never have felt like the mill village here was a strong union as like the steel plant was over there.

GEORGE STONEY: When you were going to high school here, was there anything about labor history in the schools?

M1: No, no, we never studied that when I was going to school.

GEORGE STONEY: Just forget -- just put my question in your answer.

M1: Well, when I was going to school, we never studied anything about labor relations, or anything of that nature. I don't know, uh, I have no idea of when this got into textbooks, but when I was going to school, it wasn't in the textbooks whatsoever. Uh, the most -- thing we studied as far as the -- uh, your current events things was like your Congress and things of that nature. We studied that in high school, but we never got into labor relations and things of this nature.

GEORGE STONEY: What about the local historical society? Are they interested in that?

M1: Well, no, I don't -- unless it's pertaining --

GEORGE STONEY: Just -- just explain.

M1: Well now the local historical society, uh, I don't think they delve into that very much, because --

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, sorry. Could you start over and say what that is, you see? Because the audience wouldn't know what you meant if you said "that," you see?

M1: Oh, I'm sorry.

GEORGE STONEY: No, it's all right.

M1: Uh, the local historical society, they don't get into labor relations and things of this nature. Now they may have someone to come in and maybe speak on something, and they may discuss a strike, or things like that, but it would be up to the speaker, uh, to bring it in his talk, but as far as them, they don't go into the point of asking someone to come in and talk about it. They never do that, I don't think. Not since I've been a member, they haven't.

GEORGE STONEY: You've been a member of the union over in the steel plan for a long, long time.

M1: Well I was a member of the union for 21 years, then I was in management for 16 years, so uh, I had -- I worked both sides of it.

GEORGE STONEY: Would you say that the attitudes here have changed since, uh, you 00:25:00first came here?

M1: Oh yeah, they've changed quite a bit.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you say --

M1: In the -- the attitude at the steel mill has changed quite a bit from the old days. When the union first got organized at the steel mill, it was like a cat and dog fight when the contract come open. And, they'd hire outside people, you know, to negotiate, and things of that nature, and the work -- the attitude between the worker and the -- the boss would kind of get hectic, you know, and things on the job, and then it'd settle down afterwards, you know. But uh, you never saw that over here. When I worked in the mill, you never saw that over here. Because you might live next door to your boss here in the mill, you know, and associate with him, things like that, you know, and it was just a little different atmosphere.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you know Mr. Moody?

M1: Yes sir, sure did.

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about Mr. Moody.

M1: Well, I knew Mr. Moody -- when I first went to work here at Dwight, uh, Mr. Cousins was plant manager, or whatever they call 'em, you know, and Mr. Moody 00:26:00was his associate. And uh, the last job I had here, I worked in an office, and I had occasion to go in their office, in the building, the office room where they worked, and they were very sociable, and very congenial people, I thought. Uh, I didn't really know 'em personally, but uh, I gathered that, you know, just working around them.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, thank you very much.

M1: Uh-huh.

GEORGE STONEY: It's good.

GEORGE STONEY: OK now, we won't --

(break in audio)

JAMIE STONEY: There we go.

GEORGE STONEY: All right, sir.

M1: I attended high school at Emma Sansom High School here, and uh, when I was going to school, there was nothing in our textbooks about labor relations, and the study of it, and uh, really the only way you knew anything was really knowing people involved, you know, in strikes and negotiations, and that's how you learned things. You never learned it in school back in those days. Uh, our -- I guess our school was fairly new and was a little slow getting up to things like that. (laughter)

GEORGE STONEY: OK.

CREW: OK, let's get room tone while we're here right now. We just need you to be real quiet and real still for about 30 seconds. We're just going to record the sound of this room, OK? Rolling?

JAMIE STONEY: Yup.

CREW: Room tone for the, uh, interview that came before this.

(SILENCE

JAMIE STONEY: OK.

M1: A lot more is going to make the --

GEORGE STONEY: We won't try to open it. I think we're just holding it that ways too.

JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: All right, sir, just read the top line.

M1: This book here is a time study, a time book for July the 18th, 1896. The overseer, or supervisor, Mr. Wilson, worked six -- six days, 12 hours at three dollars per day, 36 dollars a week. Then down below --

GEORGE STONEY: Hold it, hold it. We (inaudible).

JAMIE STONEY: I'm just trying to hold it here.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah.

JAMIE STONEY: We got less than --

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah.

JAMIE STONEY: And here is --

GEORGE STONEY: I know.

JAMIE STONEY: OK.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, try it again. Try it again.

M1: This book is a time book for 1896, weekend in July the 18th. Mr. Wilson, 00:29:00who was the overseer worked 12 hours at three dollars per day and made 36 dollars that week. Then one of the hands in the card room, which this is, Mary King, worked six days, 12 hours, total time, made 75 cents a day. She made nine dollars that week.

GEORGE STONEY: And next?

M1: And, skipping down here, we have, uh, someone here, Mr. Cobb, worked, uh, 11 hours at 75 cents a day at $8.25.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, turn the page.

M1: Gonna be kind of hard. Then we have, uh, Mr. Rhodes, who worked, uh, the same thing. He worked Monday through Saturday at 75 cents a day. Uh, Mr. 00:30:00Jones, he worked six days at 75 cents a day, which seems to be the general scale back then. We had one man down here that made 80 cents a day. He made a nickel a day more than everybody else.

GEORGE STONEY: Good. Thank you.

JAMIE STONEY: All right, that's a cut.

JAMIE STONEY: Close it again and hold it. Just want to see if we can time it. Just close the outside cover. Close the cover.

GEORGE STONEY: Just hold it steady. Not -- not that steady.