Cynthia Chattis Interview 2

 GEORGE STONEY: First, uh, pictures. Just say how old you were when this was made -- and another thing when we get going...

CYNTHIA CHATTIS: Okay.

F1: What we do, stand up?

CHATTIS: No.

JAMIE STONEY: We're rolling.

GEORGRE STONEY: When we get going, okay?

CHATTIS: Okay.

F1: You'll have to tell them cause I can't hear them.

CHATTIS: Okay, okay...Do you remember when this picture was made?

F1: 1917.

CHATTIS: How old were you then? –- How old were you?

F1: I was about, uh, 13.

CHATTIS: Was this made before you got married?

F1: Mmhm.

CHATTIS: Was it?

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her when she started working in the mills.

CHATTIS: Okay.

F1: I was 13, 14 when I started working in mill. About 13.

CHATTIS: So this was made around the time you started working?

F1: Yeah.

CHATTIS: Yeah?

F1: Back then you could work before you were sixteen. And after I got married, I had to work part -- from September the first to September the twenty-third. I had to come out at four o' clock [or?] they couldn't work ten hours. I wasn't sixteen.

CHATTIS: Wow.

GEORGE STONEY: What did you do in the mill?

F1: Well I started out in the cloth room packing. And then when I got married, I got a transfer to spinning room and I started spinning.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us what it was like in the mill back then.

F1: Oh, it was pretty good 'long then. To me, I was young I could take it.

CHATTIS: Did you have a lot of -- Did, uh, more or less the mill tell you what to do and everything?

F1: Oh sure we had a bossman. 2 or 3 of them.

CHATTIS: How bout, you know, in town and stuff? Did -- did they more or less -- did they tell you where to live or anything like that?

F1: Yeah they owned the town, the houses, the stores and everything.

CHATTIS: Yeah.

F1: As far as that goes, but if you wanted to move or wanted a different house of course you had to ask for it. We moved from 22 Main Street across the street to the other house. And then we moved from there up here. When they sold the houses, we bought this house.

CHATTIS: Huh.

F1: But you had to ask, and we paid -- When we lived in the company house, we paid a dollar a week house rent.

CHATTIS: Did it ever go up?

F1: Well, when they -- when Adam got a better job and we moved across the street and they started sheetrocking and fixing the houses up, then they went up on the rent.

CHATTIS: They fix it just because they got a better job?

F1: Yeah. They fixed all of them. Super-- well not supervisors but fixers or whatever. They fixed up all of their houses. And we lived in that one across the street they fixed it up— sheetrocked it.

CHATTIS: Really? So what did they do just come in and do it without--

F1: Just come in one morning and said they come in to sheetrock the house.

CHATTIS: You did not have no say-so about it.

F1: I didn't know nothing about it till they come in.

CHATTIS: Something. Then the rent went up right?

F1: Yeah.

CHATTIS: Yeah. How much was it after that?

F1: I don't remember Cindy. (inaudible) It seemed like it was four dollars I'm not sure.

CHATTIS: Yeah.

F1: It's been a long time ago. My mind ain't too good remembering things way back.

CHATTIS: Did you remember what it was like working in the mill? Did you have very much of a workload?

F1: No not to start with.

CHATTIS: How many frames did you run?

F1: I run six sides to start with after I learned. And when I come out I was running 36. Those new spinning frames different -- entirely different. Different spinning and everything was different. Reverse twist.

GEORGE STONEY: Now when you first when in you had a lot of rest time I believe. You want to tell us about that--

F1: About what?

GEORGE STONEY: Rest, you had breaks.

F1: Oh yeah we could take a break. We had to leave our job running, but we could take a break. We had a room out there where we could -- we took a lunch and had coffee. And of course we couldn't stay but a little while, but we took breaks.

CHATTIS: Do you know how much break time you got during, you know, your work time?

F1: No we just took time.

CHATTIS: Oh did you? They didn't have any scheduled times or anything like that?

F1: No they didn't have any scheduled times. We just went at different times. Different people went at different times.

GEORGE STONEY: What happened after the machinery was speeded up?

F1: After what?

CHATTIS: Was the machinery -- Did they speed the machinery up after a certain time?

F1: Not until they put the new ones in. Not the -- not so much. They speeded them some. But they were old frames that they couldn't speed too much. But they put in new frames, so--

CHATTIS: Yeah that's why they put them in, so they could speed them up.

F1: That's when it's--

CHATTIS: Is that right? ...What was it like, you know, around town then?

F1: Well it was alright. We could go on leaving doors unfastened when then.

CHATTIS: Well you know I remember when I was little we could do that too.

F1: Yeah. Going to bed at night, never shut a door and never fasten the door.

CHATTIS: Probably couldn't do that now though could you?

F1: No you can't do it now.

CHATTIS: Did you have like a company store?

F1: Yeah we had a company store. You could charge your groceries.

CHATTIS: They take it out of your check or...

F1: No you paid it.

CHATTIS: You paid it with cash?

F1: They didn't take it out of your check. They would pay it off in a little envelope. If I didn't save one, which I sure wish I had have.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you remember what you got paid at the beginning?

F1: Well, uh--

GEORGE STONEY: Would you ask that question?

CHATTIS: Okay. Do you remember how much you got paid?

F1: It's just round ten dollars a week.

CHATTIS: Really?

F1: Yeah. And when I got married, my husband was making twelve dollars and sixty cents a week. It paid off every week for a while and then they dropped it down to two -- paid off every two weeks.

GEORGE STONEY: What happened after Roosevelt got elected? You want to ask that?

F1: Oh I don't remember too much about that. That's when they put in the uh, Social Security, I remember that. That's the best thing that ever happened to us. If it wasn't for that I don't know what I would be doing now.

CHATTIS: You know we have this -- this poster that Roosevelt had signed. And it said, uh, if he had to work in a factory, he would join a union. You know, and I just wonder if he made any kind of difference when he was elected as to how, you know, working conditions and that kind of thing.

F1: Well I don't -- I can't remember too much about that Sandy.

CHATTIS: Did he shorten your hours or?

F1: No -- yeah they went eight hours. Two eight hour shifts. But when I first started work, they was working ten hours.

CHATTIS: Did they pay you more money when you went to eight hour shifts?

F1: Well it -- gradually made more money. Depends on how many sides you running. If you give -- if you took more sides you made more money.

CHATTIS: Oh really?

F1: Yeah.

CHATTIS: So the more of the workload you took on the more money you made?

F1: The more money you made.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about the foreman. The supervisor.

F1: My what?

CHATTIS: Your supervisor. You remember your supervisor?

F1: Yeah sure, they was alright.

CHATTIS: They treat you alright--

F1: Charlie Alexander was over the spinning room. And then they had section men, supervisors. And of course they were okay. They had to do what they was told to do just like we had to do what they told us to do.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you ask her to repeat that -- say the supervisors had to do...?

CHATTIS: Okay can you say that again? The supervisors had to do?

F1: What they were told to do. They had a boss over them.

GEORGE STONEY: I just wanted her to start to say the supervisors had...

CHATTIS: The supervisors had?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah if she could say the supervisors had to do what the boss said to do.

CHATTIS: Okay, can you say that?

F1: Yeah. The supervisors had a boss. Charlie Alexander was the boss of the whole thing. Everybody that worked there was under him.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you know him?

F1: Sure.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about him.

F1: I can't tell you too much about him. He had a big office sitting in the middle of the floor there in the spinning room and he sit up on a chair up in his desk and he told the others what to do and they told us what to do. But after we got on our own sides and all, we knew what we had to do. Of course they told us things we had to do as far as cleaning up and different things like that.

CHATTIS: Did you have like -- Did you have regular duties every day?

F1: Every day we had to do certain jobs at cleaning up.

CHATTIS: Oh really?

F1: Yeah. Like brushing back guides and brushing rails and running out guides. Had to be done two or three times a day.

CHATTIS: Had to do that plus running your spinning frames?

F1: Yeah.

CHATTIS: Huh.

F1: We had to keep them clean.

GEORGE STONEY: Now did you, uh -- have any health problems from working in the mill?

F1: Any what?

GEORGE STONEY: Health problems?

F1: No.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you know people who did?

CHATTIS: You know, so if their like feet and legs bothered them or...

F1: Well, uh--

CHATTIS: Hands or anything like that?

F1: Not really.

GEORGE STONEY: What about the breathing or lungs?

F1: No. We had a lot of lint. And it wasn't -- it wasn't air conditioned. It was real hot. Sometimes we'd get so hot we'd go over to the spigot and we 00:11:00had a -- we get a piece of cloth and wet it, and wrap it around our neck to try keep us a little bit cooler.

CHATTIS: I do that now.

F1: I know a man that checked me one time he said, "I'm want to ask you something." I said okay. He said, "Why do you put that wet cloth around your neck?" I said "Cause it's hot and I try to keep me a little bit cooler."

GEORGE STONEY: Now, what did you eat in the mill?

F1: What did I what?

CHATTIS: What'd you eat? Did you take your lunch?

F1: We took our own lunch. Yeah, we took our own lunch. They had drinks, but we took our own lunch.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about the dope wagon. Ask her about the dope wagon.

F1: Well there is one that come through about once or twice a day. Had snacks and sometimes sandwiches and drinks and you can buy them off there.

GEORGE STONEY: Now in 1934 there was a -- You want to ask her about the strike then?

CHATTIS: Okay, do you remember much about the strike that was in 1934?

F1: If you're talking about '34, I remember the last strike, I don't know when that was, but we all talked the other night I don't remember too much about a '34 strike.

CHATTIS: You remember when the National Guard came here and--

F1: I remember the National Guards.

CHATTIS: And stood guard on the gate and everything?

F1: They stood outside the gate there. I remember that. But I don't know what year that was but that was the last strike. That was when I had to go to work.

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her why she had to go to work.

CHATTIS: Why'd you have to go to work?

F1: Well my husband was involved in the union. And he was doing a lot for the 00:13:00union. And they wanted him out of the union. They gave him a better job. And -- they told him that I would have to get out of the union.

CHATTIS: You had to get out too?

F1: Yes, I had to get out too. And I had to go to work.

CHATTIS: What during the strike? You had to--

F1: I had to work during the strike. He come one time at dinner time and told me —I was cleaning the house— he said, "You're going to have to go to work." I said, "For what?" and he said, "They told me that -- to bring you in." If I didn't come, he wouldn't have no job. So I had to drop everything and go to work. And I walked through the picket line and I was called a scab.

GEORGE STONEY: How'd you feel about that?

F1: I didn't like it. Cause they made me go to work. I didn't want to go to work. Of course the union didn't want to go to work. The company was the one 00:14:00who made me go to work.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you say that again?

F1: The union didn't make me go to work. The company made me go to work.

GEORGE STONEY: Now you know--

F1: But the union was the one calling me the scabs.

GEORGE STONEY: Did they -- I wonder if they -- if she knew those people?

CHATTIS: Did you know those people that were standing out there?

F1: Sure. People I'd work with about all my life, a lot of them. They didn't -- none of them put their hands on me.

GEORGE STONEY: Now these scabs -- I mean the strikers outside -- Ask about this: The strikers outside, did they have things in their hands, did they threaten her, anything like that?

F1: No.

CHATTIS: When the strikers were outside did have anything in their hands or anything?

F1: No.

JAMIE STONEY: Could you ask her again, we missed that part.

CHATTIS: Okay. Hold it just a sec. When the strikers were outside, did they have any kind of weapons in their hands--

F1: No.

CHATTIS: --or did they do anything to you?

F1: No. They didn't put their hands on me.

CHATTIS: Just hollering and calling then instead?

F1: Just hollering. Just hollering.

CHATTIS: I know that left a bad impression didn't it?

F1: It did.

CHATTIS: Yeah? People you'd always known all your life and now you were on different--

F1: And when everything was over and people went back to work, people that I'd knew and worked with ever since I'd been working wouldn't even speak to me. Because I had worked during the strike, which I could not help.

CHATTIS: And you couldn't make them understand that either could you?

F1: No. Sure couldn't.

GEORGE STONEY: I think we've got it.

JAMIE STONEY: Ok I want to get on to –

[break in video]

CHATTIS: Do you remember the National Guard coming in and standing guard on the gate?

F1: Sure. Sure I remember. They had sandbags. They stood at the main gate.

CHATTIS: They have any kind of weapons or anything?

F1: I guess they had weapons of course, they was down in behind the sandbags and, uh, I don't know -- I couldn't say they had weapons.

CHATTIS: Were they friendly to you or?

F1: They didn't speak.

CHATTIS: They didn't?

F1: No. Not to me.

JAMIE STONEY: Could you ask her again how she felt when she was going through the picket line?

F1: But there's a woman that run the library, [Ms.Haythan?]. She asked me one time if I wanted somebody to come and walk with me through the gate. I says no I'm not afraid. But there was another lady that I -- that worked up there with me, a Mrs. Thompson. She had to go to work too. And me and her went in together 00:17:00most of the time. But they didn't offer to touch me.

CHATTIS: How did you feel when you were going through the picket line?

F1: I felt terrible.

CHATTIS: Yeah? I bet so. That's terrible.

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her old she was when she first went into the mill.

CHATTIS: How old were you when you first went into the mill?

F1: I was between thirteen and fourteen when I first went to work. I quit school and went to work in the cloth room.

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her how much she made.

CHATTIS: How much did you make?

F1: Well I can't really remember but it wasn't very much. I just can't remember exactly what I made.

GEORGE STONEY: Now you were living in a mill village.

F1: Yes.

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her about that.

CHATTIS: What was it like to live in a mill town?

F1: It was alright. They didn't bother you. If you didn't do nothing and, out of the way, if you wanted anything done, you went to the company and ask about it. If they wanted to do it, they did it, if they didn't, they didn't get it done. But they didn't bother you.

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her about was there any attempt to organize early on.

CHATTIS: Do you remember any kind of attempt to organize a union back in the '20s or during that time.

F1: Not really.

CHATTIS: Not really?

F1: No. Not really.

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her when she first heard about it.

F1: I heard about when my husband got into it.

GEORGE STONEY: But you never heard of unions before?

F1: Yeah I've heard of unions. But I never been asked nothing about a union. 00:19:00But I joined the union. Till he got in -- when he was involved in it.

CHATTIS: What did he do?

F1: He was a doffer.

CHATTIS: I mean, what did he do for the union?

F1: Well, they had meetings. He attend meetings and he talked to people.

CHATTIS: Tried to get people to go in?

F1: Tried to get people to go in. And the supervisor and overseer of the mill said, "Get him out of the union." And that's when they gave him a better job.

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her about women and participation in the union.

CHATTIS: Did many women participate in the union?

F1: Yes, quite a few.

CHATTIS: Really?

F1: Yes, quite a few.

CHATTIS: Was it more men than women though?

F1: I don't think so. There was a lot of women.

CHATTIS: Really? That's surprising.

F1: No, they were ours. I remember several of them very well.

CHATTIS: Really?

F1: Yeah.

CHATTIS: What'd they do?

F1: They're the ones that hollered, "scabs"

CHATTIS: Oh, they're the ones that --

F1: Yeah.

CHATTIS: That hollered at you.

F1: And when they see you outside, somewhere else from rather than the mill, you were still a scab.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok, Cindy do you want to tell your grandmother what you're doing?

CHATTIS: What I'm doing in the union? Okay, okay. Talk about my job? Okay. You know I'm still working in the mill.

F1: Yeah I know you're still working in the mill.

CHATTIS: I'm also pretty well -- pretty involved in the union.

F1: Yeah, I know that too.

CHATTIS: I'm secretary of the local and I'm also a shop steward.

F1: Yeah, I knew that too.

CHATTIS: Did you?

F1: Yeah.

CHATTIS: I didn't know if you knew that or not.

F1: Yeah I know that.

CHATTIS: Yeah. But you know, I kind of feel like a lot of people get treated unfairly.

F1: Yeah I know that too.

CHATTIS: You know some people can get by with anything they want to, and then again there are others that can't do anything. And its things like that make me want get involved in the union. And of course we have a company that's cutting out jobs all the time, I mean they cut out whole lines of jobs.

F1: Yeah I know that too.

CHATTIS: They don't care that people are without a job. The only thing they're concerned about now is how much it cost. What cost is.

F1: Well I can tell you one thing the union did for me when I belonged to it. I was out one time and I when I come back to work, they had took my job and give it to another woman. And I went to the shop steward of a spinning room, and he 00:22:00went to the union, and they made him gave me my job back.

CHATTIS: You know Mamaw that happened to me while I was working in the mill. This was back before the union was active in the plant. I went to work and they gave me a job. And two weeks later, they hired the bossman's girlfriend and they gave her my job. I didn't have anybody to go to, cause I didn't even know that the union was in the plant. But that's a big reason why I got involved in it, because of things like that.

F1: Well that's one thing they did for me. Cause, they took my job and give it to this girl while I was out. I was in the union then. My husband was still a doffer. And when I went back, I went to the shop steward, I went to the union meeting, and they made them give me my job back.

CHATTIS: That's great. You got your job back.

F1: I got my job back.

CHATTIS: You know we've gotten a lot of people's jobs back lately. Companies fired them for one reason or another and we've gotten them their jobs back.

F1: Yeah they threatened to fire me.

CHATTIS: Why?

F1: But they didn't.

CHATTIS: Because of that?

F1: Mhmmm.

GEORGE STONEY: Now could you talk about the changes you've both seen in the mills. Particularly grandmother. Because one time, there were no -- there were few or almost no colored in the mill.

F1: Is what?

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her about it.

CHATTIS: Okay, did black people work in the mill?

F1: No.

CHATTIS: What -- did?

F1: No.

CHATTIS: What did they do?

F1: I don't think that -- not in the spinning area. They might've been in the other parts of the mill, but there wasn't a black person in the spinning room.

CHATTIS: Do you remember when they started letting them work in the mills?

F1: No, no.

CHATTIS: No?

F1: But I don't -- I can't remember really any black people in the spinning room.

CHATTIS: Really? Well, you know, I heard that some people were threatened with their jobs if they got involved, you know, in a union or if they got involved in a strike or anything like that, that the company would take their job and give it to a black person.

F1: No I don't think that's right. I don't -- I don't know now what they told them, but I don't remember seeing a black person in the spinning room.

CHATTIS: Okay.

F1: They had them in the warehouse I guess and in other parts, the shop. But they didn't have any blacks in the spinning room.

STONEY: Ask your grandmother where her folks came from.

CHATTIS: Where'd your family come from?

F1: My family come from [Suray?] county. I come from [Suray?] county.

CHATTIS: Do you remember how old you were when you moved here?

F1: I was 5 or 6 years old. I guess about 5 when we moved North Coolumee.

CHATTIS: Do you remember why you moved here?

F1: Well, no. I lived with my grandparents. My grandfather's son lived here and he decided to move here, so I lived with them and of course I had to move too.

CHATTIS: Did they work in the mill?

F1: Yeah, my grandfather's son did. He worked in the cloth room.

GEORGE STONEY: Ask her about the fun in the mills and the music and such what.

CHATTIS: Okay. Did you have any kind of recreation inside the mill or anything like that?

F1: No.

CHATTIS: No?

F1: No.

CHATTIS: Any music?

F1: No.

CHATTIS: No?

F1: No.

JUDITH HELFAND: Ask her if she sang while she worked or if she sang with the other girls.

CHATTIS: Did you and the rest of the people that you worked with -- did you sing when you were on your job?

F1: I didn't, I don't know what that going -- I said something besides singing sometimes. When they kept adding more work to us.

CHATTIS: How did they add more work to you?

F1: Well, just that morning you'd go in, they gave you a sheet with a number of your sides on it, how many you had. Next morning you went in, maybe you had another sheet with another side or two added to it.

CHATTIS: You mean that was day after day they would change it like that?

F1: Not every day. But as the work got fine or if it got coarse, sometimes they'd take sides off of you if it got real coarse. If it went to real fine, they give you more sides. At one time, I was running number threes and I had 00:27:00four sides. When they took that off, they increased the sides and gave me more sides. It depended on the work.

GEORGE STONEY: Now did -- Were there efficiency men who came around and clocked you with a stopwatch?

F1: Well they had people that checked you with stopwatches. Every once in a while, they'd check about every week different people. They checked me a lot of times.

GEORGE STONEY: How'd you feel about that?

F1: I don't like it.

CHATTIS: I don't like it either. They still do it. I don't like it.

F1: I don't like it. But there's nothing I could do about it.

CHATTIS: They ever go and tell you about how you were running your job or anything like that?

F1: Yeah, yeah.

CHATTIS: Yeah that's the way they still do.

F1: Some of them didn't put down half of the ends you put up. This one woman, 00:28:00she'd just stay right on my heels the whole time she checked. She was right on my heels, seeing everything I'd done.

GEORGE STONEY: I didn't realize women did that.

CHATTIS: Really? You want me to say that? "I didn't realize that women did that."

F1: Well they do. They did here.

CHATTIS: Really?

F1: Yeah, I could name names but I won't. I ain't got no time for that women to this day.

CHATTIS: Really?

F1: No. She had a job. I guess she's doing her job. But I still got no time for her.

CHATTIS: She must've really treated you bad.

F1: She did. She stayed right on my heels, all the time. If I went to get a drink of water, she was on my heels.

CHATTIS: Following you wherever you went.

F1: Seeing how long I went to get water.

[break in video]

JAMIE STONEY: (inaudible)

CHATTIS: How old were you in this picture?

F1: About 14.

CHATTIS: You remember this picture?

F1: Yeah that was made when my husband was in the spinning room. That's when he was supervisor, overseer, whatever you call his job.

CHATTIS: How about this one?

F1: That was -- I don't know why that was made, but it was a whole bunch of spinning room. But I don't know -- fixers I think that's what it was. Maybe the age, I don't really know why.