Being blacklisted and some dying. Coming up next, a discussion on the strike and its effect on the community. This was held in the Greenville County library in South Carolina. It is just under two hours. Fory name is mark nelson, lack of a better term, the moderator of todays proceedings. Im a historian, and i have long had an interest in the strike of 1934. I am largely reliant today on the scholarship of a number of excellent historians whose luminous works and names i will recite as we go along. However, there is one distinguished historian whose ite,ghts i will not c because he is here to siphon himself. Has writtenll and willly on history, have more him later. Its to be left to professors of historys and phd. We have with is a nonacademic that is made a significant contribution to our understanding of this event. , the author beacham of milltown murder, which explores the most tragic episode of the strike. The murder of seven workers and the wounding of dozens of others. Frank has a fascinating personal connection to the strike that he will talk about. Upon thelso touch manner in which the strike has been remembered. Where is the case may be, not remembered. We also hope to have with us today and other nonacademic, judith heflin. She was able to be here today. She is the codirector of the congothe uprising of 34 and it was not aired in South Carolina. For reasons that we might discuss at some point before we are done. Televisionina public aired it numerous times this fall. This center was the 80th anniversary of the strike. I hope that many of you get the chance to see it, and i hope it was internationally as well. If you didnt, you are interested, you should find a way to see it. A noted historian of american ther once gave the 1934 name of the terminal year. It is replete with many developments in labor history. Any of them can be termed turbulence. There are two events that stand out as particularly consequent. Consequential. We placed the strike in a larger context white contrasting these two labor events. Therein lies the tale, or so im convinced. Wonderful in the north in the utter a michigan winter here in in the inner cold of the michigan winter. The 1937 gmc down strike. Gm sitdown strike. The other played out most dramatically in significantly in the piedmont of the American South. It was a bitter debate, the 1934 textile strike. We see difficult here the two events captured what i believe to be a defining moment for each. Jubilant members of the United Auto Workers posing triumphantly shortly after the announcement was made that after living for six weeks in the fisher autobody plant in flint, michigan their home away from home, they had defeated the largest and most powerful corporation in the world. General motors reluctantly agreed to sign a contract with the uaw, as you see. On february 11, 1937. On the left, we see a very different conclusion of the textile strike for these workers in newnan, georgia, in september, 1934. They are being taken into custody by the National Guard, who proceeded to place them in an outdoor bar and wiring kampmann outside encampment where german prisoners of wars had been incarcerated not too many years before. This was their home away from home during the strike. Photo, or see this m footage of these if id these dignified workers being rounded up. In simple dress, some sporting ties and suits, it brings to mind the passage from janet irons book about the strike. Myth thatns the enveloped workers at the time of the strike rate it might still enveloped their legacy today. That explain the differences in the outcomes of the strike in cultural terms. It was called to hard to overcome the belief that mill workers were week. Werent they barefoot children, victims of a poor white culture . How can such people wages successful strike. To what extent have it be truly said that the end results of these two strikes can be attributed to distinction cultural factors. The backend of the strikes furnace in cyprus. Absenceeal a complete of african americans, already people of color for that matter. Or any people of color for that matter. Flint, withoutn the benefit of any jim crow laws at all, there were virtually no africanamerican employees at these auto plants. And only modest numbers in the chevy ford plants. A High Percentage of gm workers were native born americans, or culturally rooted as americans. We can clearly see a large contingent of women among the georgia strikers. Many photos of the gm strike, although not this particular one also portrayed the vital role women played in that event. And while it is generally ignore knowledge that textile workers were not far removed from the hardships of the farm, many gm workers also had recently come from farm families to they too were well acquainted with the rigors of an agricultural existence. Thee of the leaders at fisher autobody plant one came from small families in south code, indiana, and michigan. Although a number of leadership were cardcarrying members of the communist already who would never set communist party who would never set foot on the farm. Most of the strikers were relatively young. They were among the first generation of americans to come of age in a new consumer society. Your earning together for the same commercial products, often products they could not afford to buy. Listing together to the same National Radio broadcast and dance music. Watching together the same Motion Pictures and newsreels. It seems reasonable therefore to conclude that workers in all parts of the country shared some common cultural grounds. One historian terms a culture of unity. Shared cultural aspects that may have offset to some degree the original differences. Flint, michigan was a company town, dominated by General Motors. To what extent did it resemble the mill village existence that are dominated in the textile south . How to the nature of mill life, living on a mill how did that impact the strike effort one way or another . I think tom will shed some light on that for us. Both the auto and textile workers were seeking improved wages. But without a doubt, their primary grievance, their chief motivation was the end to insufferable working conditions. Dreaded associate the Assembly Line speed up with automobile assistance, while the practice of forcing three workers to do what for him previously done, or to workers done,our had previously thats often associated with textile productions. Defended asent efficiency practices of Scientific Management appeared in auto plant and textile mills. Its often distant difficult to separate what one was from the others. History of workers movingly portray how physically and mentally debilitating these practices were. They illustrated the strikes were fundamentally about human dignity. One Assembly Line veteran recalls how the sound in the machinery being set up unleashed a frightful aboriginal howling, which would spread throughout the entire plant before letting up, as a feeling of outrage. A spartanburg weaver expressed similar sentiments. He rumored the squeaking of the sped up belt drives as machines and workers were pushed beyond the limits of their capacity. A female spinner in gastonia wrote of women in her mill so wet from perspiration that it could be wrong from their close. Clothes. From their dozens of General Motors workers in flint died from heat stroke. Another grievance expressed my auto and no workers in the court mill workers in the course of their strikes was there unqualified conviction that the law was on their side. Being flagrantly violate by their employers. Both, they both strikers argued that they were really true american patriots as evidenced by the ubiquitous flying of the american flag. In what is often described as the first new deal, congress fdrs at a ers behest behest the National Recovery act. The nra was based on this premise. That freemarket market capitalism had run off the tracks and was in need of what fdr called a partnership in planning. Competitors in different sectors of the economy would meet under government supervision, antitrust laws were suspended. Fairress codes of opposition would renew the manyrative spirit that people thought were the efficacies in world war i. We could and cutthroat competition and put an end to what fdr called foolish overproduction. Expected this would put an end to the sweatshop. This was not unexpected line of attack against the depression. A great many leading men of business, led by general , theric and Goodyear National association of manufacturers and chamber of commerce. They all expected such an approach. The most desirous of it talking such of of adopting such a plan was the cotton industry. General hugh johnson who headed the nra, selected by fdr, began to work on a cotton code will before fdr was even elected. Business interested not expect would be in the National Industrial recovery act is what you see in front of me here now. This was the seven a prediction condition of the National Recovery act. It is very difficult for me to exaggerate just how electrifying these words were for american labor, and how disconcerting they were for american notstrialist room because only did it say that workers had a right to form a union, that was established a year earlier. Mandate thateem to employers had to deal with their unions, they had to bargain with their unions, and they would need to address the issues of working conditions, and for textile workers, that meant overwhelmingly one thing. The stretch out. South carolina, husband John Clarence taylor have grown out grown up in a mill town. He led the fight to get a limit on what was called machine load, with a stretch out. Put into the context out code. The textile code received vastly more attention than any other of the following 536 codes that the nra would come to approve. The code was accompanied by spectacular fanfare because it ended child labor, which of course was something that i think, greedy industry was going to do anyway. Or was in the process of doing anyway. It instituted a minimum wage of 12 a week, and 13 in the north. It was heralded as a victory for labor. But then, when the hoopla ended in the nation and fdr turned their attention elsewhere, all of this seemed to change. The cotton Code Authority established by law was for all practical purposes the Cotton Textile institute. Fact, the man who was the president of the Cotton Textile institute became the head of the context of authority. Cotton textile authority. They established a cotton labor board to deal with and investigate worker grievances. Any grievances went to the cotton indexed real board, which was essentially representing the context ellis to do. I think most to stories were generally Cotton Textile institute. Think most historians would agree with that. Took the reference out of the code from stopping the stretch out. Minimum wages could be subverted i8 a condition that allowed much less for learners. People who had long experience in the mill were suddenly reclassified as learners and were paid less great the collectivebargaining provision was simply ignored by companies, or as by hugh johnson said, if the company wanted to start its own union, they could bargain with that. They could bargain with themselves. All these plaintive letters sent by thousands that flooded into fdr, frances perkins, the secretary of labor, hugh johnson, head of the nra, all of these were rerouted back to the con labor board cotton labor board. The fox was presiding over the henhouse. 1933, as it turned into 1934, workers were growing increasingly disgruntled. Include totake conclude that fdr was completely unaware of all this. His rhetoric about a concern for what he called the forgotten man on the bottom of the economic ladder was quite genuine and at the tactics of labor or not always in that forgotten man centrist. In fact, the truth is, he had very little affinity for labor unions. And less for many of his labor leaders. He saw a quote from john lewis before, where according to seven a, john lewis says the president wants all of you to join a labor union. That may have not been what fdr had in mind. In 1934, he had big goals. The economy needed to be restored. The wpa was on the drawing board. Electrification, which was enormously important to fdr, was on the drawing board. Restructuring of the Federal Reserve system to take power away from new york and place it in washington dc was on the drawing board. In portland, social security. These ventures would be enhanced by issuing a condemnation of textile manufacturers in 1934 and alienating a good number of southern politicians that fdr absolutely needed to achieve these goals. , thesenator Robert Wagner real author of seven a, and a liberal senator from new york, in sense that began to use symbolic, proposed the enactment of a real law, a real law with real substance and teeth for labor. Roosevelt did not initially given his support. Wagner persuaded him, as did others. The National Labor relations law, motivated and inspired General Motors in 1937. It was a violation of this law that the sit downers felt legitimated their strike. Fdr waited in vain to hear champion their cause. However, i think entailment you must be United Auto Workers on one hand, united textile workers on the other, that the account of these two strikes begin to divert dramatically. A labor historian writes the following about the auto workers in flint. The great majority of flint auto workers laid no active role in the great sit down of 9037. Far larger numbers of General Motors workers opposed the strike that belong to the uaw. While many more were in the words of one union activist, just sort of launching. Watching. Just sort of watching. The United Auto Workers which masterminded the sit down and had a near 4500 members in flint when the strike began on december 30, 1936. However, there were nearly 45,000 gm workers in flint at the time. Intensely in an aggressive union in a workforce that seem to 9036 to be neither of those things. 1936. Plant, at oneuto point at the end of january, it was estimated there were only 20 strikers occupying fisher auto body number two. 20 out of 35,000 workers in gm in flint. On february 1, in a really maneuver, uaw managed to capture the crown jewel of General Motors. The chevy ford plant. A plant that manufactured every engine in every chevrolet car in the united states. February next to seven, 1937, the strike General Motors to its knees. The Unions National membership soared to 80,000 before the strike even ended, and then to 250,000 by april of 1937. By october of 1937, the uaw had forwarded thousand members on its way to half a million 400,000 members on its way to half a million. If we contrast this with the united textile you are textile workers union, we have militants and the other top eventually spreading to the bottom. Very opposite occurs here with the united textile workers. By the way, its important not to confuse the united textile workers with the National Textile workers a communist led union that really plays no areas role in the south. No serious role in the south. They unsuccessfully led a strike in gastonia. Confuse these. N they were more assisted in starting a revolution and bettering the conditions of the workers in the south. Of the 270,000 textile workers in the south with a 34 strike commenced, the union would later claim that 180,000 were members of the union. Interestingly, thats the number of workers that stayed out. Simply because someone stayed out of the strike and went to work doesnt mean they support the strike or the union. Historians reject that number and are more setting of another ,igure of 270,000 workers 135,000 were Union Members at the time of the strike rate and affiliated with united textile workers. That isa percentage four times greater than the number of unionized workers in flint. The Union Leadership largely representative of the afl had very little interest in being a general strike that strike rather was brought on by what historian Robert Zeiger termed the impatient militancy of the seven rankandfile trade in fact, indignant mill workers in alabama, 20,000 members of the union in around huntsville began the strike on their own. In july, well before the National Union met to officially debate the issue. Energy, then isolated strikes for years throughout the Southern States with varying degrees of success is with tom will verify. Southern textile mills were hardly strangers to localize strike activity higher to 1934. The leaders of united textile union, northerners of course, were certain that by the time the Union Delegates arrived in new york city in midaugust, the huntsville strike would have fizzled out trade thus enervating the southern representatives clamorous demands for a general strike. What happened in huntsville, that number in 1934 was a remarkable display of solidarity among those workers. By midaugust, the strike and hunt will have yet to lose any strength at all. And this provided the inspiration for seven delegates, many of you hitchhike to new york city, where their finances compelled them to say five or six to a room. Iny were nearly unanimous their insistence that a National Strike a halt. Some northern delegates who arrived intending to follow the leaderships call for moderation were themselves inspired and deeply moved by seven delegates fervor and their courage. The final vote was forwarded 90 to 10