The textile industry was, at one time, one of the largest industries in the south. Starting in the late 1800's with small local looms and spreading to become corporations controlling the south and whose influence stretched internationally. One of the south's first textile corporations originated in Gaston County, North Carolina, and its huge success led to the opening of mills across the Carolina's and Virginia. As these industries grew they began to control more and more of their employees lives. These huge corporations were permitted to take advantage of their workers because of the individuals inability to fight back. The employees of these mills lived in conditions resembling that of slaves before the civil war. They were worked grueling hours in inhospitable prisons called textile plants, yet were paid on average less than any other industrial worker in America. In the early twentieth century a sentiment of contempt began to grow between the laboring class and the all-powerful corporation. The masses began to push for union representation.

The industry's numbers represents the importance of this industry. Textiles were the foun

Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1982.

"'There was no union whatever in Graniteville S.C. before the National Industrial Recovery act was make law as the Employers would not allow it... they would discharge anyone who joined a Union, but after the Law was passed and put in effect, we thought that we would be protected by the Federal Government [and] that no Employer could discharge any worker because they joined a Union of their own choosing.' On June 19, 1933, just three days after Roosevelt signed the NIRA; she paid her dues and became a full member of the TWUA... On August 8 the second hand got orders to fire her on the grounds that she couldn't keep up her work. If her work had not been satisfactory, she concluded, they would have fired her long before. They 'discharged me for joining the Union.'" (Hall 306-307)

Along with the NIRA the New Deal relief programs for the unemployed also helped the stikers. Strikers were guaranteed relief when they went on strike. Also, other New Deal programs were created. Discrimination because of union affiliation was prohibited. However, workers were still evicted for joining unions (Hall 300-301). A native of the Graniteville Mill in South Carolina said, "she had never joined a union, for reasons that to her seemed the essence of common sense" (Hall 306).

Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press,

Cope, Robert F. and Manly Wade Wellman. The County of Gaston: Two

South Carolina's, as well as Virginia's industry executives were fearing the spread of this push for unionization would spread across North Carolina's borders and into their states. Their fears were not unwarranted. The last major labor battle in textile south was in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina between pro-union laborers and the J. P. Stevens Company. Worker there joined the TWU (Textile Workers Union) and then merged with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union of America to form ACTWU (the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union of America) creating a union giant with over 400,000 members. Soon afterward nearly all of the south's textile corporations were unionized. From 1929 when the TWUA was first formed, to 1976 when the ACWU and the TWUA merged, over 140,000 textile workers had joined the union. Why did the union gain support so rapidly? There were several factors that led to the expedience of expansion.

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Approximate Word count = 5697
Approximate Pages = 23 (250 words per page double spaced)