Angie Rossner and Fred Fussel Interviews

GEORGE STONEY: Those guys were so funny.

JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay, so me what you got.

ANGIE ROSSNER: This is the thread we use for our ends for the loom. Like whenever -- We have eighteen hundred, not fifteen hundred and eighty-four ends to the top of our loom. And when we have one break or mat up or something we take the ends from around our neck, we carry them around our neck, cause its more convenient, and we don't have to run back around the loom to get the ends, and then we just make a weavers knot.

JAMIE STONEY: Do that again real slow.

ANGIE ROSSNER: Real slow?

GEORGE STONEY: Well if she does it real slow it wouldn't be right.

JAMIE STONEY: No, like I'm trying to see it.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

JAMIE STONEY: Right there where you are now.

ROSSNER: You just take the ends, usually have the end from your loom, it's very rare that you tie two of these together. You take and that's your 00:01:00weavers knot.

JAMIE STONEY: Okay.

GEORGE STONEY: If we can't get into the mill we'll have to do that. Cause that proves she's a weaver anyway.

JAMIE STONEY: Do that line, what you said about Fieldcrest.

ROSSNER: About me carrying it out one time? I said they're gonna get for taking out the ends like that, I'm carrying out one thread at a time.

JAMIE STONEY: So how long did it take you to like learn everything you need to know? When you're--

ROSSNER: Oh I still don't know, I still don't know everything I need to know. I've been weaving for three years going on four years and there is still a lot that I need to know. But you don't need to know just the actual weaving process, you really need to know how to kind of fix some of the things on your loom yourself and how to pull warps over. It's not supposed to be your job, but if you're gonna be a good weaver you learn those things. And there are 00:02:00still things that I need to know to be an excellent weaver.

GEORGE STONEYL When did you first get into the mill?

ROSSNER: In 1979.

GEORGE STONEY: Just say, "I first got into the mill…"

ROSSNER: I first got into the mill in 1979, December.

GEORGE STONEY: How old were you then?

ROSSNER: I was 23. Telling my age.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay start again and say, "I first got in…"

ROSSNER: I first got into the mill..

GEORGE STONEY: Oh sorry, just say, "I first got into the mill in '29 when I was 23 but that wasn't the first job I had…"

ROSSNER: Okay.

STONEY: And then go back and tell us the first job you had.

ROSSNER: Run that by me again?

GEORGE STONEY: I first got in the mill when I was--

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GEORGE STONEY: -- what, what you did.

ROSSNER: Okay. I've been--you want me to start with Fieldcrest or in the mill?

GEORGE STONEY: No just in the mill.

ROSSNER: I've been in the mill since I was 23 years old, that was 1979, but now I've worked about ever since I was 13 years old. I worked in a little old food, fast food joint, in the back of the store, peeling onions. I started out 00:03:00there and I worked in several different places, I worked in a nursing home, I worked in spinning mills, uh, steakhouses, I worked as a barmaid. But I've stuck with the mill the longest, it pays the best, regardless of your education or anything else. It seems like the mill does pay the best, just it doesn't pay as much as you like it to, to meet your needs.

GEORGE STONEY: Good, okay.

JUDITH HELFAND: Could we try the (inaudible) one more time? Would that be okay?

GEORGE STONEY: (inaudible)

HELFAND: Well yesterday when you showed Jamie and I the tape recorder, we were listening to it, you had this look on your face, you know you were really listening to and you got, you almost looked a little angry, you know. And you started to explain to me what the movement was like and you almost looked--you 00:04:00gave me a feeling of like robots.

ROSSNER: That's what it's like.

HELFAND: And I was hoping that you could show that to me again. I mean it really gave me a sense that I was in there.

JAMIE STONEY: Sort of like you can feel the rhythm, and sort of--

HELFAND: And then you started to teach it to me and Jamie. And we started to do it too, and then--

(laughter)

ROSSNER: I might can.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

HELFAND: So, really think about that sound when you turn it on.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

HELFAND: And when you do hold it in the middle like that, it's nice like that.

ROSSNER: Is there anything in particular that you want me to say?

GEORGE STONEY: Just tell the about, since you couldn't get--

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HELFAND: What it sounds like and show me.

ROSSNER: Okay. (sound of machinery) Since I couldn't take you--

GEORGE STONEY: You have to do that -- say that beforehand.

ROSSNER: Since I couldn't take you with me inside the mill, I'm gonna let you listen to the sounds we put up with for eight to twelve hours a day. (plays tape) It's a rhythm, you can hear the clacking of the harnesses, and the 00:05:00shuttle. You can almost hear the shuttle flying back and forth. You can almost picture it. There, there it is. This is the harnesses (phone rings) clacking.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay, good.

HELFAND: Thank you.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

ROSSNER: I don't think we got what you wanted.

GEORGE STONEY: No, you did--

HELFAND: No we did.

GEORGE STONEY: We better –-

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[silence]

[silence]

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JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay, action.

FRED FUSSEL: Uh the exhibition we're in is called Chattahoochee Legacy. And the general premise of this is to show what life in Columbus has been like--

GEORGE STONEY: Okay let's start again. You were doing fine, except that I didn't tell you that you should be--

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JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay. Action!

FUSSEL: The exhibition that we're seeing is called Chattahoochee Legacy. And the general premise of it is to show life as it has been lived here in Columbus, Georgia, and in the region since the beginning of human history. One facet of the region that we paid particular attention to is the textile industry. And the effect that that history has had on the people of the region. Um it's an important thing still today, but in the past was even more crucial to the life of the region. And there are probably very few people whose family have been in the region for more than two generations that haven't in some way dealt, or been dealt with by the textile industry. Including myself. I've had uncles who were, uh, who worked in the mills and my own mother was person like the people you see in these photographs who took dinners to her uncles, to her 00:09:00father, to her brothers, who worked in local industries. The exhibit that we have installed here shows photographs of the actual people who were living here. And then we've also recreated in full size some of the actual dwellings or replications of the actual dwellings where these folks would have lived, the folks who worked in the textile industry. Right over here is one of those environments, this is a shotgun house, at least this the front porch and the front room of a shotgun house. And this particular exhibit is a replication of a composite of buildings from around Columbus, that are typical of this kind of architecture. Little bit of gingerbread decoration, a little bit of fancy work on the door. Otherwise a very plain dwelling. The fort porch was as much of a 00:10:00living space as the rest of the house, and was kind of the center commerce. There would be rows of these houses side by side all over town. There still are a few blocks in town where you can find houses like this, side by side. And there was a real sense of community right there on the street. The houses faced the street, people walking by would stop and pause, and converse with the guys who were sitting on the front porch. Checker games, shelling peas, shelling corn, doing all kinds of things right out here on the front porch. The inside of the house fairly simply furnished and this is pretty typical of what would have been found inside, just uh just some few pictures on the walls, simple 00:11:00chairs, sofa, rag rugs. Actually this room is pretty much a replica of my own grandmother's front parlor.

GEORGE STONEY: Cut! Nice--

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JAMIE STONEY: Just you know--

M1: (inaudible)

FUSSEL: Here with them talking? And should I look at the camera more--

M1: Look up. Take a half a step to your left. So you're in some light.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah.

M1: Point up towards the gingerbread.

FUSSEL: Gingerbread. Fan.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

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JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: Action.

FUSSEL: The exhibition that we are in right is called Chattahoochee Legacy. It's our attempt to explain something about the human history of the region here in the Chattahoochee Valley. A real important aspect of that, that history 00:12:00of course is the textile industry. And we've paid quite a bit of attention to that. There are exhibits showing some of the machinery that was used locally in the mills. And then there are photo blowups of vintage photographs that were made here in the early part of this century, the 20th century, showing some of the people who were actually employed. A number of my own folks, my own relatives were employed in the mill as loom fixers. My mother was a dinner toter, looked very much, I suppose like the young girls in there photographs. The exhibit employs not only objects like the looms and photographs of this kind, but we've replicated full size environments, so that the museum visitor 00:13:00can actually get an idea about what the life was like for the people who lived here. And this is a typical Columbus house. It's called a shotgun house. Front preach with a little bit of fancy work, gingerbread trim. A little bit more on the door. But otherwise a fairly plain dwelling. And there were rows of these houses side by side in many blocks of Columbus. Still a few blocks where you can find rows of houses. And the front porch was an extremely important part of the community. The neighborhood--a lot of action on the front porch, people gossiping, walking by, speaking to each other, shelling peas, eating watermelon, playing music, playing cards, dominos, checkers. And all these porches right up against the street, so that there was this sense of community. And many times 00:14:00these houses were provided to people by the industry for which they worked.

GEORGE STONEY: Cut.

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M2: Doris when you were--

GEORGE STONEYL Uh, uh. I have to say they have to go first.

JAMIE STONEY: Okay, anytime.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay sir.

JAMIE STONEY: Go ahead.

M2: Doris when you were seven I was seventeen--

GEORGE STONEY: When she was thirteen. Try again.

M2: Dang it. Thirteen, I, I can't remember that far back. Okay.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

M2: Doris when you were thirteen I was seventeen and I remember the textile strike at Eagle Mill, in 1934. When Governor Talmagdge sent the National Guard down to destroy the strike against the textile workers. Do you recall anything about that?

DORIS SHAVERS: Uh, yes I recall that. I was eagerly awaiting the paper The [Ledger Enquirer?] had write ups about it. And I had relatives living up there. And I had also been politically involved to try to help elect Mr. Eugene Talmadge, and I was interested in all that.

M2: Well he was the one that ordered the troops, if I remember during his campaign he promised not to send the troops down, but he did. It was a sad thing because I worked at the newspaper and I would walk by there every day and see the troops gathered on this corner. And the people out on strike. And I think they got an injunction and the strike was broken.

SHAVERS: Well um, I can vaguely remember reading a lot about it and waiting for pictures and all. I am aware that he did send the troops down.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us, go in close on him please Jamie, could you tell Aunt Doris what the troops look like? And what do you remember as seeing? Just talk to Aunt Doris. Yeah.

M2: What I remember about the strike was the pickets were on the line over there and the National Guard sat there in their full armor ready to spell any trouble that might arise. There was not trouble to my recollection of any violence on the picket line.

SHAVERS: I think the main trouble had been a few day before.

M2: Before they got here, quite possibly so. I don't recall that.

GEORGE STONEY: Just again, keep looking at her and talk about if you saw the bayonets out or whether they camped, that kind of thing.

M2: If I recall the camp was on the corner of Thirteenth Street and Front Avenue. They had the bayonets but I don't remember seeing them in use or withdrawn for use. They were there though in full regalia, for that.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you see them drilling or anything like that?

M2: No, no, I didn't see any drilling, or any marching. But they had their camp there ready, for them.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you know any of the fellows?

M2: No, I didn't know any of the fellows, even on the picket line. I didn't know--my father-in-law worked at the mill at that particular time, but I didn't know him them. He was out on strike. He was one of the strikers.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

M2: Alright.

GEORGE STONEY: I think that--

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GEORGE STONEY: -- like to tell Aunt Doris about?

M2: No, no, I can't remember--

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

M2: I can't remember too much about it like I said you recall my memory. When you come down here it was a thing, when you come down here some time ago, to the Labor Council Meeting.

GEORGE STONEY: I think that does it then Jamie.

M2: Okay.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

M2: Alright.

GEORGE STONEY: Thank you very much.

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M1: Going to be on your left most of the time.

JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: Action!

M1: Okay guys.

GEORGE STONEY: Now let's start again and I want you to be talking as you--

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JAMIE STONEY: Okay.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay. Action.

FUSSEL: The area we are coming into now is sort of a reproduction of what old warehouses, cotton warehouses down on Front Avenue, with the kind of brick work and timbers for support and so forth. It's in this area that we exhibit some of the textile machinery, a loom, and a cotton gin and some of the other equipment that was used in the industry in the Columbus area and across the South.

SHAVERS: (inaudible)

M3: (inaudible) the same one.

FUSSEL: These are still in use?

M3: Yup they still run them at the mill. Getting newer ones now that don't have the shuttles. They call shuttle-less looms, they call them air jet looms. 00:19:00Supposed to be a whole lot quieter than the looms they have now. Run three times as fast as what these looms here do.

FUSSEL: When would a loom like this have been made, do you have any idea?

M3: I don't know. I believe they been running for a long time.

M4: Sure have.

FUSSEL: There is a photograph over here that was made inside Callaway Mills in LaGrange, it's about 1940 I think. The looms there are very similar to this one.

M3: That's the type loom my father works on now, a [Jacobin?] loom.

FUSSEL: Uh-huh.

M3: Got the heads on top of the house. Similar to this loom here except the heads, stuff on the top of the house that weaves, helps weave the towels.

FUSSEL: And those are for weaving patterns?

M3: Right that's the pattern right there, that's what fixes the pattern on the towel is that head. Or these here a more modern loom, they have thing in the middle of the loom that goes up and down, weaves a pattern in it. It's all done by cams, or these here still have strings, paper cards and stuff like that. The holes in the cards is what really makes the pattern in the towel. The needles going up and down in the holes in the cards makes the design in the towel.

FUSSEL: These are pretty noisy machines?

M3: Oh noisy.

M4: And dusty and dirty.

M3: Right.

M5: What powered, cause these are powered by electricity, I'm assuming.

M3: Right.

M5: So 1940, what powered those type looms in 1940?

FUSSEL: That would have been electrical.

M4: Electrical.

FUSSEL: They were running the mills in Columbus with electricity as early as 1900, even before that.

M5: Oh, okay.

M4: I would say them, them machines there were probably made during the 1916 or even before then. Not only that you can see the beam lies, they're going from the smaller beam now they're going to the bigger loom beam. Like he was referring to the jet loom, its taking the place of the (inaudible) you would say regular loom is going to a (inaudible).

M3: All electronic.

M4: (inaudible)

M3: All electronic loom. But you still have weavers and mechanics working on, I mean technicians now instead of mechanics. It's not like it used to be.

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about the atmosphere in the mills and--

M3: It caused a lot of cotton dust.

FUSSEL: What about humidity? Don't you have to keep the room--

M3: They, they keep the weave sheds with moist, moisture control valves in the celling. Its spray moisture down on the looms, all day long.

FUSSEL: So it's humid in there. I guess before air conditioning it was pretty hot.

M3: Oh my father talks about it would be so hot he'd wring wet with sweat, all day long, not just for a little while but all day long.

GEORGE STONEY: Can you talk about what it's like to build an exhibit to give the public some feeling of what it's like?

FUSSEL: The idea here was in this exhibit was to create a surrounding that was sort of reminiscent of the interior of some of the rooms in the warehouses and the mills. We added a little space here that represents a mill office, the 00:23:00floor bosses office and the kind of stuff that would have been in there in the 1930s. Photograph of maybe one of the owners of the mill, telephone, calendar, some drawings of equipment, and catalogs and so forth. Journals that would have been kept on production, pretty simple. And as I understand it originally offices were just out on the mill floor, and then because of the noise and so forth they in effect built glass cages around the guy's desk, and that became the office. That's what we show in here. He could keep an eye on the floor.

M3: Floor.

FUSSEL: And, uh still have some quiet to do the book work that he was required to do.

M5: You mentioned noise, how much noise are we--

FUSSEL: I don't know as far as measuring the noise.

M3: You know they monitor the noise now in the weave sheds. Well any part of the plant that has excess noise they monitor it to prevent from people having ear loss, hearing loss.

M5: So we can assume that lets say 1920, 1910--

M3: Back in those days they probably had nobody to monitor or had anything to monitor the noise back then.

M5: So we can expect all kind of health problems associated with working in the--

M3: Sure losing your hearing.

M4: Can't breathe in the morning time when you wake up.

FUSSEL: I've heard people say that because of the noise level inside the mill they would shout to speak to each other. Could hear that okay but once you got off and went outside you would be deaf for an hour or so because suddenly everything is quiet and you can't hear. And then gradually your hearing 00:25:00adjusts to the quietness and it comes back to you. So you'd spend the first hour off work without being able to hear anything.

GEORGE STONEY: And Doris come around and tell the gentlemen about your experience in the mill.

SHAVERS: I can remember when the electricity would go off and the noise, it would be so quiet that you just get a sense of a miserable (inaudible) because it would be so quiet you could hear everything, every quill, and everything. And it would be so hot in there until actually the perspiration would be dripping off of the hem of your dresses. Women wore dresses when I worked in there to start with, we didn't wear the pants. When I'd come out the hem would be dripping wet. That uh, I can remember that and the quietness and the eerie feeling that you'd have and how the [goats] would jump off the rock when the current would go. And it would be--the quietness would almost smother you 00:26:00after hearing the noise so long.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay move on to the next little bit of exhibit now.

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JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

M3: Say something about the union?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, yeah.

JAMIE STONEY: Sure.

M3: I can remember a time, my father would sit down and talk about how it used to be in the union. Back in the mills when there was no union he helped bring the union in the plant where I work at now. He could tell me about times like how the lights would go out, first one thing and another. And I just liked talking to him about it. Learning things that happened back then. Don't happen these days. Unions help the plant a whole lot. Its brung a lot, a lot of good jobs from where they used to be bad jobs to run.

DORIS: Well it could have certainly stood some improvement from when I was there.

M3: There are still things that could be improved in there now. Unions are fighting every day to help bring them jobs better. Instead of building the machines for production and quality, they now are also building machines for the employees that run that machines. Seems like the manufacturers of machines is building machines for employees to run them instead of for the machine to run the employee.

SHAVERS: Well that's nice because you need to consider the people that use the materials, but also the people who manufacture them too, because we are all human and everybody needs consideration. So it helps.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay start moving over to the other part.

M5: Now what mill would this be coming from?

FUSSEL: This is in uh, yes mill number two is it? Any way it's in the old Eagle and Phenix, its spinning frames up on the fourth floor. These are being replaced now by a newer model frame. I guess they are from the early part of this century, they're still in use. But slowly being replaced. This photograph was made about a year ago and there are still a lot of these in there.

M4: Well my father he used to run this type of machine and then it was either called fly frame or either called a scrubber. I don't know what they would classify it as now.

M5: This particular unit are called open end, excuse me, ring spinning, because here as we the thread comes down and we have the quills on the bottom there is a metal ring that goes around to lend weight to the, to the thread. Now one of the problems that is associated with the workers having to do this job is that the rollers turn at extremely high speed and what we have is possibly a shoe string size type of yarn that is turned into thread, by these high speed rollers and if the operate have to put up an end, usually that person would end up with burned fingers or cut fingers associated with the, the thread and the high speeds.

SHAVERS: It's called a traveler that thing--

M5: Right.

SHAVERS: It spins around and if it hits your finger you know it.

M5: Right.

M3: I know a woman that lost her hand in a machine like that right there.

M5: Now through modernization these are slowly being replaced by open end spinning frames. They're totally electronic, they don't require many people to operate it.

SHAVERS: Well does the new ones have a lap stick in behind it you have to take out? To take the cotton off of?

M5: No. Basically it's done by all electronic. You have a robot that comes in and threads up the machine whenever there is a break, and even goes so far as to doff it automatically.

SHAVERS: So you don't have to have these people that throw the thread over and it catches up--