Testing the New Deal: The General Textile Strike of 1934 in the American South

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University of Illinois Press, 2000 - Textile Workers' Strike, Southern States, 1934 - 266 pages
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In September 1934 two-thirds of the southern textile labor force walked off their jobs, inspired by Roosevelt's New Deal to protest employer harassment and massive industry restructuring. After three weeks, the union that led the strike called it off in return for government promises that remained unfulfilled. Thousands of workers were blacklisted and conditions in the southern mills deteriorated rapidly. Humiliated and demoralized, strike participants maintained a sixty-year silence that virtually eliminated the event from historical memory.

Janet Irons steps into this historical vacuum to explore the community and workplace dynamics of southern mill towns in the years leading up to the strike, as well as the links among worker insurgency, organized labor, and governmental policy in the New Deal's crucial first years. Drawing on industry and union records, newspaper sources, oral histories, records of the New Deal bureaucracy, and thousands of letters written by southern laborers to President Roosevelt about their working conditions, Irons reveals the dual nature of the New Deal's impact on the South. While its rhetoric mobilized the poor to challenge local established authority, the New Deal's political structure worked in the opposite direction, reinforcing the power of the South's economic elite.

A powerful rendering of a pivotal event, Testing the New Deal stands as a major reassessment of southern labor in the 1930s.

 

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Contents

Homegrown Unions
2
A Battle of Righteousness
6
We Must Get Together in Our Organization
7
Conclusion
11
UnionManagement Cooperation
38
New Rules
49
Dirty Deal
63
No Turning Back
110
Estimates of Southern Membership in the UTWA in 1934
188
Notes
191
Selected Bibliography
239
3
242
29 38
244
49
252
63
255
183
256

Anatomy of a Strike
120
Which Side Are You
140
UTWA Southern Locals in 1934
183
239
260
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Testing the New Deal: The General Textile Strike of 1934 in the American South
Janet Christine Irons
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action Alabama American attempt August became Bruere Board called Charlotte City Cleveland closed Code Authority committee complaints Cooperation cotton mill Cotton Textile created Deal decision Department Duke University employers example federal finally folder force formed Gadsden Gastonia George Georgia Gorman Greenville History hundred increased interview issue John Johnson joined July June later leaders Letter locals manufacturers March McMahon meeting membership mill owners mill workers National Archives needed NIRA North Carolina northern Observer October organization Paul Christopher Personal Policy political president Press protest Relations reported representative Robert Roosevelt September South Southern Labor southern mills southern textile southern textile workers southern workers stretch-out strike textile industry Textile Strike textile workers thousand tion towns turn union United University wages Washington week women World wrote York

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Bibliographic information

QR code for Testing the New Deal
TitleTesting the New Deal: The General Textile Strike of 1934 in the American South
Working class in American history, ISSN 2692-0867
AuthorJanet Christine Irons
Editionillustrated
PublisherUniversity of Illinois Press, 2000
ISBN0252068408, 9780252068409
Length266 pages
  
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