ACTWU Summer Group and Marion "Peanut" Brown Interviews

Partial Transcript: (laughter crosstalk)

F1: Take my house, I'll go down to Sears and get me a tent. I have a Sears card, don't worry about it.
(laughter)

JUDITH HELFAND: Virginia you started with, you started with your grandma. Your mother learned to spin when she was 14 years old?

Segment Synopsis: Several discussants talk about growing up in a mill village.

Keywords: spinners; spinning

Subjects: Child labor; Gardening; Rural-urban migration; Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934); Textile workers; Working class--Education

Partial Transcript: JUDITH HELFAND: Virginia, what about that bridge in '34?

VIRGINIA: Oh yeah, I've always liked that. The original bridge isn't there now, we've got our third bridge since then.

Segment Synopsis: Virginia discusses the need for secrecy in organizing a union in 1934.

Subjects: Labor unions--Organizing; Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Ok. Uh, Jamie, we just have to have (inaudible) on the people, and I think we're through. So if you could just keep talking and we're going to be going down and getting shots of people listening.

Segment Synopsis: The discussants remember their childhoods in a mill village.

Keywords: lintheads; mill villages

Subjects: Christmas; Textile workers--Labor unions; Working class African Americans; Working class--Education; Working class--Social conditions

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Ok, I think we can start now.

MARION "PEANUT" BROWN: Just a minute. (strums guitar)

Segment Synopsis: Marion "Peanut" Brown discusses the textile workers' strike of 1934 at the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill.

Keywords: Marion "Peanut" Brown; blacklisting; breaking the strike; mill owners

Subjects: Atlanta (Ga.); Blacklisting, Labor; Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills; Guitar music; Newnan (Ga.); Textile Workers' Strike (Southern States : 1934)

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell us about what Cabbagetown was like?

MARION "PEANUT" BROWN: In those days, well, there's so much you could tell (inaudible) respect.

STONEY: You were talking about it being a tough town.

Segment Synopsis: Brown discusses growing up in Cabbagetown.

Keywords: Marion "Peanut" Brown; mill owners; mill villages; paternalism

Subjects: Atlanta (Ga.); Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills; Gwinnett County (Ga.); Rural-urban migration; Working class--Dwellings

Partial Transcript: MARION PEANUT BROWN: Later on I become 16, I went to work in there. They give me a job (inaudible) off looms in the weave shop. People worked in there, they'd get cotton all over. Come dinner time, time to go out they didn't have time you know to get that cotton off of them.

Segment Synopsis: Brown discusses working at the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill and the role music played in the social life of Cabbagetown.

Keywords: Marion "Peanut" Brown; lintheads

Subjects: Bluegrass music; Country music; Textile workers; Working class--Songs and music

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: How'd you like that song?

F1: Grew up with it. He taught it to us the time we could walk.

STONEY: Did you grow up in Cabbagetown?

Segment Synopsis: Brown discusses his sympathies for the textile workers who were trying to unionize.

Keywords: Marion "Peanut" Brown; brown lung

Subjects: Atlanta (Ga.); Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills; Pensions; Textile workers--Labor unions

Partial Transcript: GEORGE STONEY: Ok so, uh just tell me -- just see if you can recall-- see if you can recall the-- during the strike the meetings and so forth.

Segment Synopsis: Brown discusses union meetings.

Keywords: Marion "Peanut" Brown

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