Favorable recollection of working in the cotton mill
Jones describes working conditions in the Bynum, North Carolina, cotton mill, where she worked as a spinner intermittently from the late 1910s into the early 1940s. Jones remembers working conditions fairly favorably, noting that there were few serious injuries and relative freedom of movement among workers. Although the air was often filled with lint, Jones recalls that workers were free to move about and stand by the open windows whenever they needed to. In addition, socizliation among workers in the mill was not prohibited.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Louise Riggsbee Jones, October 13, 1976. Interview H-0085-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
But did people ever get injured in the mill, that
you know of?
- LOUISE JONES:
-
I don't remember whether they did much or not along then. I don't
remember it. Maybe sometimes they'd mash a finger or something like
that. Nothing serious.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
What was it like inside the mill? It was a brand new mill. Was it real
clean and nice, or was there lint?
- LOUISE JONES:
-
Yes, there was right much lint. There was more lint in it then than there
is now. They don't have as much lint now as they did when it first
started. They've done things to try to keep it down.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
Was it hot in there?
- LOUISE JONES:
-
Yes. They opened the windows then. They'd keep the windows open all the
time. But now they have air-conditioning in there, and they've closed up
all the windows and padded them. You can't see through the windows at
all. And I just miss seeing the lights at night. Used to, when we were
out there, when they ran at night, the mill was lit
up and it was so much company to you to look down and see all the lights
in the mill. But you can't see a light, only just one or two on the
outside, now down there.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
When you worked, could you see out the window when it was open?
- LOUISE JONES:
-
Yes, we could see. We could go to the window and look out whenever we
wanted to, but they can't see anything out now.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
That must have been nice, to be able to look out.
- LOUISE JONES:
-
It was.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
Was it noisy in there? Could you talk to each other?
- LOUISE JONES:
-
Yes, it was noisy, but we learned to talk. And when you're used to the
noise, you can understand better. Somebody going in that wasn't used to
it, you'd have to talk louder to them. We'd have to talk louder than
just natural talking.
- MARY FREDERICKSON:
-
Did you work so fast and furiously that you didn't really have time to
talk to each other, or could you talk?
- LOUISE JONES:
-
As I said, Paul's sister Martha, she worked in the alley; my side was
here, and her side was over here. We could talk to each other. When we'd
pass each other, we could speak, or we could stop and talk. It just
meant that when your bobbin ran out and you needed another bobbin on
there, you weren't making anything till you got your full bobbin and got
it started. If you took time away from your work, you didn't get off as
much. But we could stop and talk if we wanted to. And in some of the
other jobs the people could talk a little more than we could. The
spinners. They'd pass and re-pass in the alleys; they could stop and
talk. And some of them would catch up a little while.
We never did catch up unless we caught up with the bobbins and didn't
have any bobbins till they'd doff them from the spinning frames.