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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview H-0247, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Paul and Pauline Griffith were married in 1927 in Greenville, South Carolina. Paul's family moved from Mauldin, South Carolina, to the area in 1905 in search of work. Initially, his father worked as an overseer on a cotton plantation, but in 1912, when the Judson Mill was built, he became a machinist for the mill while his mother went to work as a weaver. Pauline's family moved to Greenville in 1915 from Hendersonville, South Carolina. She and her family found that it was increasingly difficult to survive as farmers, so they moved to Greenville so that her father could work in the Judson Mill. Both Paul and Pauline describe growing up in Greenville as well as the conditions they faced in the Judson Mill, where both spent their entire working careers. They also describe the changes in technology and work strategies in the mills from the 1920s to the 1970s; how life in Greenville changed during the Great Depression and World War II; and the importance of religion in their lives.
Paul and Pauline Griffith spent their working careers in the Judson Mill in Greenville, South Carolina. They offer an overview on conditions in the mill and how the work changed from the 1920s into the 1970s.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
The place to begin, I guess, would be with you, Mr. Griffith. If you could recall anything, if you will, about your grandparents, or where you grew up, your parents, where you all lived, or any memories that you might have.
You want me to start now?
Yes, sir.
We come here at Judson Mill in 1905. This was a plantation where this mill was built. That's where we—
Where the office is.
Where the office is now. This mill was built in 1912. And so I've been around here practically all my life.
What do you know about why it was your parents came here?
They worked on the farm.
They were both born down near Mauldin.
Mauldin, South Carolina, yes.
They grew up on the farm?
Yes.
What kind of crops do you reckon they used to grow?
Cotton and corn, and something to eat.
How old were they when they came here? You say 1905 is the year. You were told that they came to Greenville? How old would they have been approximately?
About thirty years old, somewhere along in there.
Was there any particular reason why they left the Mauldin area and came here?
No. They just came. You know how farmers does.
Your father was a kind of an overseer. Would that be a true?
Yes, plantation, yes.
Who was the man that owned it?
A fellow, Seely, owned the land.
How big a place was it?
Oh, I guess there was about a hundred acres in here, or more.
Did he own that place a pretty long time, Mr. Seely?
I don't know how long he owned it.
Who was working on it mainly? Who was farming it?
Colored people.
Colored people.
They grew cotton.
Do you reckon some member of their families had been here since the Civil War times?
I imagine there was, yes, back then.
What was you father's job in relation to the black people that lived here?
He see'd that they had a different job to do, just like the overseer. And at picking cotton time, all of them went together and picked cotton, and the corn, and stuff like that.
Do you think they just had one big cotton field or did each of the tenants have a separate patch?
It was just one big field of cotton and one big field of corn, and other vegetables they want to grow, too.
And did each of the black families have a separate house that they lived in?
Yeah, a separate house.
And do you know what kind of a house your parents had?
Well, it was a frame house, an old frame house.
How many rooms were in it?
I guess it had about four or five, something like that.
Just one floor?
One floor, yes.
You had one sister and one brother? What were their names?
We called him Bill, W.T. Griffith.
Was he the older brother?
The oldest one, yes. He was five years older than I was. And my sister's name is Dot Hawkins now.
Dorothy.
Dorothy.
When was she born?
Oh, I believe 1915.
Do you remember anything at all about building the mill, or buying the land here to build the Judson Mill?
I forgot who built it, but anyway they started building the mill in 1912. I forgot who first started off. I don't know whether Milliken had anything to do with that then or not. But sometime in years to come, Milliken got a hold of it.
What about your father? What did he do when they built the mill?
Well, he helped build the mill. He knowed something about machinery and he went into the machine shop. Then he became what we called a ‘second-hand’ back then—kinda like a boss.
What would a second-hand do? What kind of authority did he have back then?
Well he had the authority to tell people what to do, and if you didn't do it, he'd just get somebody else.
Was he a second-hand in a particular department?
In the machine shop.
What did they do in the machine shop?
Well, maybe a piece would break off a loom, or something like that. Then they'd bring it to the shop. They'd fix it in the machine shop, all kinds of things.
How was it that he had some experience with machinery?
Well, he worked on all kinds of machinery before then. Then after he got it there he just picked it up more.
Was it mostly farming machinery that he had worked with before?
Yeah.
Had he ever done anything else besides farming?
No, not that I know of.
Do you remember at all the mill being built?
Yeah, I can remember they started putting up walls when I was a little fella.
Did they build these houses at the same time they built the mill?
I believe it was about 1913 when they built these houses, or somewhere along in there.
So you were about seven years old. Did you all move into one of these houses?
Yeah. Right across the street, and two rooms. And another person had two rooms, back then.
Was it a house pretty much like this one?
Just the same. They just started building them over there, you see. That side over there was built first.
Were these houses divided so that two families could move in?
There's a hall through here.
And there would be two. . . .
Two rooms.
On each side.
Now some family on the next street had five rooms. And one person had three rooms, and another person had two rooms.
Sometimes a family would take the whole house?
Just according to how big the family was.
What about when you started to school? Did you go to school when you were here in the Judson Mill?
They just had one room.
How old were you when you started?
I was about six or seven, somewhere along in there.
Do you remember much about that?
Not too, too much.
All the different children would be in the same room?
Uh huh.
How many grades?
Then they just again have school. . . you help me a littl bit on that, Polly?
Well, I imagine maybe one through fourth grades, in the same room.
What about your mother? Did she work in the mill?
Yeah, she worked in the mill.
What was her job?
Weaver, she weaved.
Do you remember her talking about her work?
Yeah. When she first went to work, her and my daddy married, she worked in the mill five cents a day. Five cents a day before her and my daddy married. Then they got to making more.
Where would that have been?
Right down here at Conestee, right down there pretty close to Mauldin. Had a little mill down there.
What was she doing down there? What job would that have been?
I don't know.
But that's where she had first gone to work?
Uh huh.
When she came up here, what kind of looms do you remember that she was running back then?
I was small. I don't know nothing about that then.
Do you remember her talking about how many looms she had run?
No, I don't.
What time would she have to get up to go to work?
They'd blow a whistle up there at five o'clock to wake the people up, and you had to go to work at six o'clock.
And they worked ten hours a day.
And they got off an hour for dinner. Then five hours on Saturday.
She would come home for dinner? And your father, too?
Yeah.
Then they would get off work about five o'clock? And the whistle would blow?
About five o'clock. In the morning about five o'clock.
And in the evening, too, to get off?
No, I don't think it would blow again.
And there was really just one shift of workers?
At that particular time, yeah. Then a little bit later on, they put two shifts.
Do you remember when that would have been? About the time of World War II, or World War I or after that? I'm just curious, was she still working there when they had two shifts?
I don't believe so. She died in 1925.
Did your mother work in the mill all the time until her death?
No, her health went bad.
So she had to retire from the mill?
Yeah, she had to quit.
What was the trouble?
Oh, she had an operation I think. Gall bladder trouble back then; they didn't know much about that back then like they do now.
Was there anybody that looked after the children while she was working in the mill?
No. We had to stay at home. We had to stay at home;
They kept up with you?
Yeah.
Well, their ages were separated several years apart, so really I guess your brother, Bill, was almost old enough to look out for the younger two of you?
Yeah.
How many grades did Bill finish in school?
Oh, about the same thing.
And your sister?
Well, my sister finished school.
High school?
High school, yeah.
Where did she finish high school?
Slater, South Carolina.
How did she get up there?
After my mother died, my sister was small, and my daddy married again. And they moved up the country here about fifteen miles, further up the mountains there, called Slater Mill. J.P. Stevens owned that mill up there.
They owned it later? Did they buy it later?
They built it new. In 1928 my daddy moved up there. He married in '27. Me and my wife here married in the same year. He married about the first of the year, and we married the 28th of May of the same year.
We married on my nineteenth birthday
Where did you all marry?
At Preacher Gualt's parsonage.
His name was Gualt?
Uh huh. G-U-A-L-T.
What job did your father have with the Slater Mill?
About the same thing.
He was in charge of the machines?
The machine shop, uh huh.
Do you remember your mother ever talking about what the conditions were like inside the mill?
Well, she said when she first went to work, she had to have a box. She was small and she had to have a box to stand on and reach what she was doing.
How old was she when she started? That would have been before she moved up here.
Oh, I don't know. She was pretty small.
I believe he does a better job than I can.
I think you all both do fine.
Thank you.
Why don't we get you to go back in the same way that Mr. Griffith has, if you can, and remember some of your early memories about where you grew up and family and what your family did and things like that.
We lived in the country in Hendersonville and they raised corn and beans. It was just generally vegetables mostly in that area. And they had apples. They raised chickens. My daddy was just a farmer. And they raised hogs. We grew everything we ate right there at home, except you know, the commodities you'd have to buy in the store. It was quite a treat to get to go to the store. Because everything was made at home, and the things from the store were outstanding to all those kids. We looked forward to go shopping sometimes with my dad. They used to sell eggs to buy other things, you know. They swapped eggs instead of money.
For coffee.
For coffee and sugar and things like that. I remember them telling about
the first car that came through there. My two sisters were going to the
store with a basket of eggs and they saw this car coming. It frightened
them so that they ran up the bank to see it go by, so it
We had a happy home life. My father was a Christian man, and my mother. We went to church and that was one of the main things in their lives.
What church did you go to?
At first we didn't have a church. We went over the hill, over a mountain. My daddy would carry me on his back. It was in my aunt's home. They had Sunday school then. They just had a worship service. And finally there was a church built in our area. And my uncle, on my grandmother's side, was the pastor. He had twin boys, Elbert and Albert. It was just a good country church.
Was it any particular denomination?
It was Baptist, uh huh, and they'd have prayer meetings and singings and different things, you know, to go to. We would go in a wagon, and that was quite a treat, you know, to get to go to church in the wagon. That was a big day.
How often would you go?
To church?
Yes. Would it be every week that you'd get to go?
Yes. We had service every week. We had a good happy life. Our community in which we lived, the people were thoughtful of each other. We had good fellowship among our neighbors, friends.
When was it that you came to Greenville?
When I was about seven years old, and I was born in 1908.
Why was it that your family came here?
Well, the crops were kind of failing at that time, and they thought that it would be better to move. It was a necessity to move and get a job, rather than depend on the farm. That's why we came.
Can you remember at all your parents trying to make it on the farm? Did they want to come to the mill? Or would they have rather stayed on the farm?
Well, they would have preferred to stay on the farm, but you've heard of famines in the Bible. It was kind of like that. We could have survived but it wouldn't have been easy. So they thought it would be easier for the family to come. My two older sisters worked, and my father.
They started to work as well as your father?
Yes, they were weavers. My daddy worked in the. . . what was that shop he worked in?
I forget what department it was.
It's where they dyed the yarn.
It was here?
At Judson.
What about your mother? Did she work in the mill?
No, sir, she never worked in the mill at all. And my mother was never in the hospital.
She looked after the children?
Yes, she looked after us and kept the home.
Did she have a garden?
Yes, sir, she had a garden. She had pigs. Coming from the country, they
used to allow us to have a place where we could have
She was in charge of the garden and your livestock?
Yes, sir.
Did she can food?
Yes, she did. We canned up food, you know, and helped out, just like in the country, only it was on a smaller scale.
Did you ever notice any difference between the people who had moved here from the mountains where they had grown a lot of vegetables and different kinds of crops before, and the people who were more accustomed to growing cotton, who hadn't grown so many different kinds of things?
Well, I was amazed at the cotton. I couldn't imagine it growing like it
did. And as I got a little older, I had some friends whose daddy had
some cotton. I tried picking some to see how much money I could make. I
picked thirteen pounds and I thought I had picked a bale
Were there any differences between the people that had come from the mountains and those who were cotton people?
Well, I couldn't tell any difference. At the time that we came to the mill, the mill people had a good standard that the people had to live by. There were no roughnecks allowed in the village. They were choice people. You didn't even have to lock your doors. If you wanted to go to town or somewhere, you could just go to town and come back, and everything would be there.
Would that be true for the several mill villages at that time?
I guess it was. It was for this one. Because the
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Do you know why it was that your mother and father chose to come to this particular place?
I had an aunt that lived here, and she worked in the plant. She's the one that got the jobs for them at the time.
How did she do that?
Well, she contacted the bosses at the plant. And we lived in the house with her. She lived on one side and us on the other. There was just a hall in between.
Was she living by herself?
No. Her husband and three children. But we all lived in the same house, except for the hall.
Until they could get another house. They was building more houses then.
How did you arrange your half of the house? I guess you had five or six people living. . . .
I guess that house had six rooms. We had three and our aunt had three. Our brothers were small enough that we didn't have too much problem. They were younger then. I was the youngest girl.
What about the houses then? Did they have any kind of utilities, electricity, water?
Not at that time. And the floors were open. You
That there was when they was in the country.
Yeah. And they didn't have any insulation of any kind back in the mill houses at that time.
You're talking about the mill house when you moved here? That you could see through the floors?
No, sir. In the country. But back then, we couldn't afford linoleum floor
coverings, or any rugs. And we would save our water that we washed with,
suds, and scrub the whole house and both porches. That was the way we
lived back in that day and we didn't think anything about it. I had
washed many a time—the entire house, porches and all—and after a while
when the clothes begin to dry, bring them in and iron them, all in the
same day
About your aunt: what job did she have in the mill?
I think that she worked in the cloth room.
She put in a word then with the bosses. Who would that have been exactly? Like a second-hand or an overseer?
I don't know. See, I was small.
And so your father and your two older sisters?
Worked.
And they went to work immediately?
Yes.
And what did they do?
They were weavers. My daddy worked in the dye room.
What was it like for them when they first went into the mill? Do you remember them talking about that, what they saw, and felt, and heard?
They were scared
She's talking about the weaving room. When you haven't been used to it
and a person goes in there, you can't hardly hear. You just have to get
accustomed to it. That's the way she was. She just had went to work,
maybe a day or two. It takes you several days to catch people's
voices
But he was a good boss. He was a good overseer. He had a gruff voice, and a great big built body, but he was real mild in his nature towards people. I enjoyed working.
What was his name?
Tidwell.
And he was overseer of the weaving room.
Yes he was. He was Mr. John Tidwell. And he was a mighty good overseer. But later it was right funny. We had this seat, you know, where you could sit? And we all got our looms running and just for fun, we played like we was sitting down—you know how young people are. And this time, a Mr. Copeland had come to be the bigshot. Mr. Tidwell had moved on. And he looked down the alley and saw us, and he got so mad. Here he come, like to scared us to death. And we ran over there and got our looms started. He balled us everyone out. He liked to scared us to death. So from there out, we didn't try that trick no more.
You all were just playing a joke?
You know how young people are? They'll just play like they're going to
do. We could not set in each other's laps without the swing a-falling.
We was just playing like we would, you know. There were about five of
us. Boy, he got us all
Explain how that seat worked.
Well, like the loom is on this side, the leather would be fixed to the
seat, and it'd be fastened securely. Then over here would be something
to hang it up on and make a seat out of it. But normally it just hung by
the loom, all the way. When we'd get tired, we could rest a littlewhile.
That was back then, during John Tidwell's time.
What was his first name, do you remember?
Copeland? I don't remember his first name.
I don't remember either.
It was kind of cruel, but we sure knew to tend our own work and to stay on it.
Let me just go back, so I can understand what you all were doing. You were pretending you were sitting in each other's laps?
Yeah. Playing like it. You know, just like the seat was here, you know. And we just stooped over kind of like we was sitting in each other's laps. We really weren't.
All five of you in one seat?
All one another.
It was just about this wide apart, the looms on this side and looms on that side, and this strap come over here. Like I'm sitting here. Then the other kind of put themselves right on up like this.
We was just playing like, and we was all young, right in there. You have to have some fun as you go along with your work, to make it interesting.
You were hoping that he would catch your eye, really, or somebody would see you all doing this?
No, we weren't thinking about that. We was just having fun. We wasn't
doing it for anybody's attention. We were just playing with each other,
just having fun. Young people play leap frog, and different things, you
know, and we was just doing that. Because the one over him, word gets
around. And they didn't allow people to be abused back then, which was
wonderful. I think it's nice for the people to get to
You said the word would get around: would he hear this from some of the workers, perhaps?
They probably would, you know. We wouldn't say anything about it, but you know word does get around. If the boss is good and kind, it gets back. And if he abuses, that also gets back.
In other words, you all could really have a lot to say about who the boss was. The people who were weaving or working in the weaving room had something to say, at least, about whether a good boss got to stay, or one that was bad had to leave? Would that be true?
No. Not back then. Not necessarily. But the one over the top watched so closely until he could sense what was going on. He was just a wonderful person, Mr. Bobo. He was real good. To see that working conditions were what they should be.
Take Bobo. When people go a-quitting, he'd be wanting to know what's the matter. See, he had a second-hand under him, over the people. And if that second-hand was too hard on the help, and they go to quitting—see, there'd be several mills around and a person could just quit and go to another mill. And when several do go, he'd be calling somebody in, wanting to know what's the matter with the help.
That's the way he found out.
So really the workers did have a lot to say about things indirectly.
Yeah.
So people would start quitting, and they'd have to make some changes.
Yes they would, because back then, if you wanted to go down in and work,
all you had to do was go over and ask for a job and
Did the different mills have different reputations at different times about one being a better place to work than another? Some overseer being a better one to try to work for or things like that?
I imagine they're about the same.
I think they're about the same. They kind of work together, you know, kind of like a unit. Different plant managers checked with the others, and it's about the same.
We should go back a bit to your coming in to learn how to weave. Did someone teach you? Who did you work with?
My sister, Vita. They put me with her and she had the looms, and all her
looms were in one alley.
How many looms were a set of looms back then?
Well, I believe there was about twelve back then, don't you, Paul?
Somewhere along in there.
And so you started out operating twelve looms?
Yes, sir.
What kind were they?
They were the Crompton-Knowles.
And so they were those box looms? What were you making, do you remember what you first learned how to make?
I think it was more of a plain weave back then, don't you, Paul?
Yeah, it was a plain weave then.
Yes, it was plain weave at that time, but later they put more fancy on.
Were you running several colors when you started?
No, just one.
But you were still working on a box loom?
On a box loom, uh huh. But, see they could fix it where it would use just the one shuttle. Or if it was a pattern that needed to put in designs, they could use all of the boxes, to come up.
So you were really operating as if it had been an ordinary Draper, plain loom.
Uh huh.
You weren't using but one of the shuttles. That's interesting.
They didn't have magazines on them then. We had to thread our shuttles. And we had to watch when the yarn on the shuttle was about out. If we'd catch that and stop it off and put in another bobbin, we'd make better quality.
Before it ran out?
Uh huh. There was a lot of watching we had to do, you know, to keep up with it.
Did they have what they used to call the ‘suck shuttle’, do you remember that, where you had to kind of suck the thread through the hole in the shuttle?
No. Ours had a kind of an eye, and we had to have spindle in the shuttle, and we'd have to pull that up and put the bobbin on there, and push it down and pull it.
Through that eye.
Pull it through the eye of the needle from the shuttle. And then we'd have to put it where it wouldn't make a bad start of it, you know. It was usually best to begin it from the side. Then there wouldn't be a place in the cloth.
If there was a place in the cloth, what would it look like? What would they call that?
That would be where you started up. I know I had long hair and one time,
accidentally, some of my hair—I could have been combing my hair at the
time, or some could have dropped down. And so one time I had to go to
the cloth room. They said, "Pauline, we appreciate your doing a good job
weaving, but please don't let any more hair get in."
See, if you don't catch that, it makes a little thin place, like a thread out. That's what it is: just that thread.
In cloth, a lot of times, it sold for first quality, but having been a
weaver, I can tell when it isn't. Because a lot of times you pay for
first-quality cloth, where there would be a thread out, or where they
had drawn the ends wrong in the warp and
Do you remember when you switched over from running the twelve looms into learning the different kind, or fancier, weaves?
Yes, I worked on crepe finally. But first I worked on, I believe, was
casket lining. It was real fine. And the warp was real
fine. You could hardly see it. It was wrapped funny.
There was a boy that the second-hand wanted me to like and wanted him to
like me, and they would run the cloth over a frame and I had to go to
the cloth room, and I was doing my best, it just worried me to death,
and he finally admitted that he was doing that all the time on purpose
Her mother wouldn't let her court until she was sixteen. And her sister was two or three years older than she was. So I courted her some, and Pauline went along, so that's the way we got to going.
Where would you all go, when you were courting?
Mainly to church. And they used to have a playground, they called it, up
here in the mill yard. And they had swings.
The mill would sponsor it?
Yes. They kept it up.
It was real nice.
In the meantime, over here—we call it the gobbler's knob—every Fourth of July, they'd have a big to-do over there, with firecrackers. They'd have a greasy pig and baseball game over there.
It was right funny: we went to a church get-together, and they had a
womanless wedding. That's before Paul and I got engaged. And so coming
back, we took a girlfriend of mine home, you know, after going to this
meeting, and Paul proposed to me coming back from a womanless wedding
I was in one. And they fixed me up with a young girl.
Yeah. He was in a womanless wedding then years later, after he had
married. I got him all fixed up and put lipstick on him, and got him a
pink hat and a pink dress. I did fine, until I got down to his feet, and
I couldn't find shoes big enough
Did they put a black face on then? At some of those womanless weddings, they paint their faces black.
Oh, they had a black mammy and she ‘Boo-Hooed’ at the wedding. It was real funny.
All of them were men.
I said that was right funny that we was coming back from the womanless wedding and he decided he'd propose.
Were you all walking, or riding back?
We had to walk. We didn't know what automobiles were back then.
They used to have a street car run on a train track, and that was our transportation to go to town.
Would you ever go in together to see movies? When you were courting?
A few times, not much.
My mother was real strict, and she knew which way I went. And his mother, in her lifetime, was real strict, too. So we had to tow the mark. So we didn't have too much excitement in life.
You didn't get to go to dances?
No, sir. Nothing like that.
Did the mill have a band that it sponsored back than, with all the brass bands, or anything like that?
No. I don't think they did. Like I say, they sponsored baseball leagues. Each mill had a ball team.
Did you ever play on one of those?
No, I didn't. I used to box some.
Box? They used to have golden glove tournaments at different mills in towns, didn't they?
Yeah.
Do you all remember what they called these hillbilly bands—string bands that played for dances in people's houses?
They didn't allow that here.
They didn't allow it?
No
There used to be some medicine shows sometimes.
Coming through.
And they'd put on a little dance or program or something and we'd go see that, you know.
And they would have a couple of musicians, and someone holding up a bottle of medicine?
Yeah.
And putting on a show?
But they didn't allow nothing in the village, what I mean, house-to-house thing, or anything. They'd let them come through.
They were really strict in that day.
Sometimes I've heard of different string bands having shows at the school house or something like that. Do you remember that? Performances? A band like Bill Monroe's or something?
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Well, let me go back again, before we can too far away from it, and talk about the weaving job and what that was like. At the time, you say that you all were making plain goods on the Crompton-Knowles looms, how many looms would have been making this? All of the looms in the mill, or maybe half of them? Would some be making the plain and some the fancier goods? It looks like they weren't using these looms up to their full potential.
Well, they had different sections that had different materials. Now, some materials could be woven with a drier temperature, and some had to have more humidity. And they had to put them accordingly.
Well, when you were making the casket linings, how many of the shuttles were you using?
One.
Still just one. Do you remember the first time that you used more than one shuttle?
Well, it wasn't too long. The looms over next to us were weaving handkerchiefs, and it wasn't long until they put me on the handkerchiefs, because they could put somebody on the plain weave better, and they needed someone on the handkerchiefs. That was interesting. We made beautiful handkerchiefs.
Four boxes?
Some of them had three and some four. Just according to what kind of handkerchiefs they were making.
On the end of the loom, the boxes would come up and come out, you know, according to what design.
Had to make a chain to make them boxes go up at a certain time—different
ones—and then they'd drop down.
And that's what you were doing, making the pattern chain?
Yes.
We'll catch up with that, and get you to tell us about that. Let me ask
one or two more of these questions. How many sets of looms do you reckon
were making the plain goods at the time you were making them?
About four of five alleys.
Yes, about four of five alleys.
I guess there was about thirty looms in an alley.
So maybe one hundred twenty-five, to a hundred and fifty looms.
In a section. Weaving all that one time.
That's real helpful. Who made the decision that twelve looms was a set?
The designers would decide how many looms a person could run, I would think. And Paul worked closely with the designers office.
Maybe we should go back now and kind of catch up where we left off with you, Mr. Griffith. We can start back I think at about the time you started to work. How old were you when you started?
I was going on about seventeen.
That was about 1923? And you started out here at the Judson?
Yes.
What was your first job?
Laying up filling in the weave room.
Could you describe what you would do?
Well. They had a box at the end of the loom, to keep the bobbins in the place, the bobbins with the yarn, so the weavers could get it when they wanted it. I guess I had about four or five alleys I had to keep different. . . .
That's not the same as filling the magazine, is it?
No.
That was before they put the automatic magazine on there?
Yes.
You were just putting the bobbins down where the weavers could get it?
In a little box, about a foot wide I reckon, and about a foot high. I had to keep so many bobbins in there.
How was it that you got your job?
Well, after that I changed jobs and I got to putting those chains together, and make a different design or colors.
But before that, how was it that you got your first job laying out the filling? Who did you talk to?
Well, my daddy helped me get that.
Let's see, you had gone to about the ninth grade?
About eighth or ninth, somewhere along there.
Did you go right to work after you stopped school?
Yes, uh huh.
So you didn't ever have any other kind of paying jobs before this, did you?
No. I've been in mill work like that ever since. Then I got my left eye hurt. I learned this job for building them pattern chains before I got my eye hurt and they just kept me on there.
How did you hurt your eye?
A nail flew up and hit me in the eye.
When you were working here at home?
At the mill.
Could you tell me about that?
I was helping a fella take down a harness, draw it in. When she got
through with it we just put it on the truck. We had an extra piece. One
side of it was stationary, and another place was loose.
What year did you have the accident?
1926. Last day of November, 1926.
What happened? Did you go to a doctor? Did the mill help?
Yeah. They seen what happened, and they rushed me to a doctor, Dr. Carpenter. We called him the old man. He had a boy, retired here a couple of years ago, Carpenter. We called him the old man.
Was he the mill doctor?
No, just an eye doctor.
He was a specialist.
A specialist. And he worked on it, and he didn't give me nothing for pain. He just got me up there about six o'clock. He got me in that chair, put me back where you put your head back there. The way he had his knee and everything, he worked on that thing. I grit my teeth hard while he was doing all that, so my jaw stayed sore for four or five months. It tore my nerves up some.
Was there any kind of accident coverage, insurance, for the mill?
No. Buddy, he won't give me nothing. But I finally got a thousand dollars out of it.
Did you lose part of the sight of it?
No, I can't see a wink out of that at all.
Was there any kind of accident insurance in the mill?
No.
If there was. . . .
They did pay the doctor bill and I had to stay in the hospital about three days.
Did they pay for that?
Yeah, they paid for that.
But they didn't really want to pay any kind of compensation?
No. We let it rock on about a year. Then they finally compromised a thousand dollars.
Did you get a lawyer to help you with that, or did you just handle that yourselves?
We just handled it ourselves.
What sort of person would you have talked with in the mill about it? What level of administration?
The big boss up there. They had two men talk to me and my daddy several times. But we did never come across any until they wanted to get it settled, then they come across with a thousand dollars. We settled for that.
What would happen today if an accident like that happened?
I guess they got insurance and things like that. I could have gotten ten or twenty thousand dollars for that now.
And a thousand back in that day was real money. You could buy much more for it than you can today.
Let's see you had gone to work in '29? Or '27?
'27 somewhere along in there.
And then this accident happened in?
'26.
'26? You had been working in the laying out the filling job.
I done learned that job. And they just let me stay on it.
On the pattern chains?
Uh huh.
How would you learn about that? Did someone teach you that?
I had to learn it myself. They showed you, and everytime I made a mistake a fella told me that really knowed it. Everytime I made a mistake they made me start from the beginning to go down and catch it myself. That's the way. I had to get it the hard way. Now I can go up there and if a person makes a mistake, I can tell it. I don't have to look on the draft or nothing.
How many of you were there working in that department?
Back at that particular time, there was about four. Building them chains.
What kind of patterns and materials going to make?
Different handkerchiefs and ginghams, crepe, on different looms. They had different places. Crepes in one place and handkerchiefs in one place.
Seersucker, too.
Yes, seersuckers, too.
Was the pattern chain job a little better paying job?
Yes, uh huh.
Well, how was it that you managed to get that job?
Well, I just taped it out. I've been at it ever since.
He went by a design. They had a designer.
To design it. And I went by that, kind of like a blueprint.
When you started to work, how many shifts was the mill running then? In 1924?
One shift. Then they got to running two shifts. Then they cut it down to eight hours here. They were running two shifts for a while, and then they put it on three shifts. Eight hours a day.
So, for a while they were running eight-hour shifts for just two shifts, and then eight-hour shifts for three shifts?
Yes.
When did they start doing the two shifts?
I don't know what year that was, do you Polly?
No, I don't exactly.
But anyway, they put on two shifts, then sometime a little later, they put on another shift, to make it go around the clock.
Was it pretty easy to get a job in the mill in the twenties, the nineteen-twenties?
Yeah, you could get a job.
Did it ever get to be hard to get a job back then, or was it harder than any other time?
Well, when the war was going on it was pretty hard to get a job.
World War II?
World War II, uh huh.
What about the Depression? What was that like for getting a job?
You couldn't hardly find none.
A lot of people, back during the Depression, were out of work. And some of them had to go and apply for flour and things like that. It was a real trying time, during the Depression. And anybody was lucky to even have a job during that time.
See, my daddy moved up there to Slater in '28, and I was working then and our daughter come along in '29. So, in the Depression with my daddy working, he helped us out for about three months. There wasn't much weaving up there then, nothing going on. That mill up there in Slater, they was working four and five days a week. And he had a pretty good job, so he helped us for about three months, until the Judson got on their feet again. [telephone call]
So the Judson mill had to close down some?
Yeah, there wasn't much running up there. So my daddy helped us. That's the way we pulled through. But it was in the summertime, and that helped us out a whole lot.
Was that the only time, just that three months, that it closed down altogether?
Well, all of it didn't close down, just the biggest part of it did. My department wasn't going so well. So he helped us 'til then, 'til it got started up again.
Back at that time, you could buy a week's groceries for three dollars. Now that's how money was.
Now, were you able to keep working during that time? Now, that was when your daughter was born.
That's when our daughter was born.
So you stopped for a while?
I had to stop for a while, and then our little boy came along, so I couldn't work for a while.
How long up to the time your daughter was born, did you work?
Let's see, she was about four years old, when I went back to work.
When was your son born?
He was born two years later than Margaret. She was born in '29.
And he come along about '31.
And he just lived two months and seven days.
He took pneumonia.
Did you work up to two or three months before your daughter was born, and then stop work? Or did you work on like that or not?
I didn't work after she was going to come along, for a while.
So you went back to work in about '33 then?
Something like that.
And was it hard to get your job back?
No. You know, if you got a good reputation, you don't have a hard time.
You let them know that you wanted to come back?
And they were ready.
Just pretty much whenever you got ready?
They had a dinner hour where they let people go home, and I first started working at that. And my mother would keep Margaret, you know. And that was three hours a day, I started back like that. And that way I could be with Margaret and I could still make some money.
Then when she got a little older, Pauline got to working eight-hour shifts.
So that would keep some of the looms going during the dinner hour?
Yeah. I had three different weavers. One every hour, you know. I worked that way at first.
So all the looms would keep on running, but the people would go home?
Yes, for their dinner, they had an hour off.
You all talked a while ago, about how easy it was to get jobs up until the Depression started, and then it got pretty hard to find work?
Yeah.
When could you first tell that in the mills? Would it have been before 1929—a few months, or a couple of years before then—when things started to slow down?
Somewhere along in there, yeah. It didn't happen all at once, it just got worse. Laying off people. We were living in a house and the mill owned it, and we were just paying twenty-five cents of rental and it had three rooms. After I didn't have no work or nothing, they didn't charge us no rent at all, no lights, nothing. Water, nothing then. Then I forgot what year they got to charging us for our lights and water. Duke Power took it over and then we had to go paying for our lights and water. We used to get all that free. Since they went to selling these houses, we had to go paying for our utilities.
When did you buy this house?
'40.
1940. Is that when they sold all the houses?
Well, they sold some of them in '39 and '38 and '37. It took them about three years to sell. See over yonder knob, they had some. They had some up here at number two, they called it, and some down here, back down thattaway, then back in the mill. And this here was the next to the last one they sold, in '40.
This was a preferred section.
And they sold them houses across the street, I'd say about a year-and-a-half after we bought this one. Maybe two years.
Why was it that they decided to sell the houses?
Well, I imagine they had a right smart expense on them. And different mills was selling theirs and Judson went to selling then. Our payment was ten dollars a month, and I had so many years to pay for it. My wife was working then. It was eleven and a quarter and that left us with a thousand dollars. We paid that thing off in about three years. After the mill got going and got to making a little bit more and we paid our regular payment of ten dollars, and what we had left over, we put it on the principal. And we paid it off in about three years, no more.
When did you retire from work?
It's been about eight years ago. See I'm seventy-three now. And sixty-five—it's been about eight years ago.
And you stayed with the same job all the time?
Yeah, ever since I got my eye hurt.
You worked at the same mill, you didn't ever move around?
Yeah.
They gave him a twenty-five year watch.
Yeah, this is my twenty-five year watch.
And he's got another one for fifty years.
Yeah, for fifty years in yonder.
What about you?
I didn't work that many years because my health went down and I had to quit. I had to be at home.
When did you last work in the mill?
It was '44 or '45?
'44 or '45. Maybe '42. Somewhere along in there.
A while ago you talked about how things speeded up, the work speeded up. When could you first notice that?
Well, as the years went by, there were improvements in everything. And—what year would you say they speeded up?
I'm afraid to say, but anyway other places were adding more on people and give more work.
Stretching out.
Stretching out, and giving more work. I don't know exactly when that happened. But as long as they can stretch out, they give you more.
See they do that to make more money. You make more production and so they
do that. They stretch you just as far as they can
They can put a gear in there and speed them looms up, and make it run a little bit faster.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
And then they give you more looms. Then they got to
A checker.
A checker. Just like that. And they'd see where you can do more, they'd give you some more looms. Up there, some of them got to run fifty or sixty looms up there. Where you used to didn't run eight to twelve. They put that much on you.
When you first started weaving, how would you be paid at that time?
Well, they'd begin to pay by the ‘cut’, they called it.
So many yards.
So many yards to a cut. They paid you by that. It was according to how much work you really turned out, to how much you made.
But now they got a pick clock on there. You turn on the first, second, and third. And when the first comes in there, they turn it to the second or third shift, what shift you're on. No they pay you for so many picks you get.
When you're being paid by the cut, would you try to do so many cuts in a day, or would everybody say we'll do so many before lunch and so many after lunch? Or would everybody work at their own speed?
Well, you worked at your own speed and it's according to how your looms
would run. Now they'd get out of fix sometimes. Maybe a warp would come
out. You wouldn't get paid for that time like you would if the loom was
really running. And maybe a loom would break down for a whole day. When
they was paying by the cut you didn't even get any on that loom that
day. But later years, they
Which boss would you be talking about here? The overseer in the loom room?
The second-hand. It's according to who you worked under as to how things really go. The condition of the looms—if they don't break down. I had one loom fixer, he told me he knew if I put a flag up that he knew he needed to bring that little satchel he had with all the things in it, because I made mine run unless they really needed to be fixed.
So there were things that you could do to make them run better?
Yeah, there were many things.
What were those? Could you name some things?
Well, I'd go along behind my looms and, in behind the drop wires, sometimes maybe some lint would fall back there. And I would let the loom run on and take my scissors and get that lint out. You know, they blow the looms off and things like that, and sometimes there would be some kind of a knot in the warp, and I'd work and get that seen about, before it would break the end, and keep the loom a-going. I worked on the back of my looms a good bit and that helped it to keep going.
Would there be people who would try to make more cuts, or make more cloth by working when they were supposed to be having lunch, or trying to get started earlier than the real time to start up? Were there some people who tried to just make more than other people by running longer, or extra time, or things like that?
Yes, there were. Sometimes when they had the first shift, they'd go in early and start up. And then, after, in the later years, when they put pick clocks on, there was people that would get them a key to that clock and they would turn them things. I know for a time I filled magazines—when I first went back to work, you know, so that I could kind of get on to the weaving again—and there was one fella, he said, "I like you, Pauline." I said, "Well why?" And he said, "Well, you tend to your own business. They's some of them that'd tell on me for turning the pick clock." And I said, "Well, I'll tell you what. You're a sinner and I'm a Christian. You're going to have to give an account of the life you lived and I am, too. What you do, that's between you and the Lord. I'm not bothering your business." But he would. He'd just talk to you filling magazines or batteries and he'd turn them clocks, and he made more than any of them around there. But he got saved before he died. He died with cancer. And I'd talk to him about his soul and he'd listen to me, but he wouldn't let a lot of people talk to him. If he didn't have confidence in their life, he'd just cut them off.
Did he make this key to turn the clock?
He had one, but I don't know where he got it. But he'd stand there. He'd just flip that thing, and he'd be talking to the magazine battery filler all the time. And the looms, a lot of them would be standing, they'd wouldn't be making their production, but he was.
What effect would that have? Say, somebody who started up their loom
early or worked extra? Would the company then readjust the price at all
so that everybody. . .do you see what I mean? If people
They would expect more production out of the other people. They made it harder on the others. It really did.
Was there anything that the other workers would do about that, to try to keep that from happening? Would they go and talk to these people?
Well, a person like that you can't really reason with them. They're going to do what they want to, and you just have to do your best.
Well, I guess in general people might have had a certain way of doing things, and when you came into the weaving room to start, you picked up what everyone else was doing and, in order to be a good weaver, you tried to do like everybody else.
Yes, skills. It's a skill. You tried to improve all the time.
But some of that might have kept you from running the clock up, or from working extra time because you felt like it just wasn't right.
I gave a good honest day's work and I think that's better, because you
don't have to stay awake at night
You said for a time you filled the magazines, do you remember when they first went to automatic bobbin changers on the loom?
Do you remember that year, Paul?
No, I don't. They didn't have it on all of them. It was just mostly on those Drapers.
They called it the nothrup loom. Did they actually buy new looms?
No.
Modified the old looms?
Yeah. They worked them over and put that unifil - 25. . . automatic bobbin things in there.
Well, do you remember what the reaction was among the weavers when that machine was added?
They kept them about the same thing.
Did they change the rate of pay?
I don't know about that. It's been so long now.
Did any of the people object to making that kind of change?
Well, they'd object, but that's all they could do. Take it or leave it.
You do remember that people might have appeared that they didn't accept it so easily, or can you remember that?
I think that people realized they had to do what was put there. And so they just worked together and did. The people were very congenial in doing, and they tried to make the best whatever happened.
When they put those new devices on the looms, it actually enabled you to make twice the cloth you could make before that.
Well, that cut out some help. See, it's a big old round thing like this and you put so many bobbins on that, and when you get around. . . .before they put them on there they had to have more help. But after you put these on there, they layed somebody off, you see.
They had four kind of spaces, most of them, where they put bobbins, and the loom did change the filling itself. That caused it to be where they could make more production.
And they give the weavers more looms.
It looks like if the looms were making more cloth that the weavers would have made more money.
Yeah, but what killed that was that they'd give you more looms and by the time you do that the production's up and they won't give you any more money.
See, they kind of rate it, you know.
So they changed the rating?
Changed the rating, yeah, and then you'd be putting out more, but you're getting about the same amount of money.
That's what I was trying to ask about. It looks like people would have grumbled or been right in thinking that they were being asked to work harder and faster and make more cloth and yet they were making about the same amount of money. I just wondered if you remembered people talking about it at that time at all?
Well, there were some that quit, you know, just wouldn't do it. But a lot
of the people had to do it.
They had to because they was in debt and they had to live, and things like that.
At that time, see, the mill owned the houses, and you had to work here in order to have a house, and so they kind of had it over the people.
Would they have done some of that maybe during the Depression years?
It was after.
After the Depression was when what you're calling the ‘speed-up’? Or the stretch-out, that took place after the Depression?
Yeah.
Then, was it still pretty hard to get a job in the thirties, so that the people would not be so likely to quit and move around like they had in this earlier time?
That's when it was in the Depression and, like I said, there wasn't no use to go nowhere because you couldn't find no work. Just as well to stay where you was at.
Well, let me change the subject just a minute and talk about some other things. For instance you all's church activities: has that been an important part of your lives?
Yes, it really has.
Do you want to talk some about what church you belonged to and what that's meant?
We love the Lord and we love the people.
And we work with any age group, from the smallest to the oldest.
Which church is it that you belong to now?
Pentacostal Holiness Church.
What's the particular name here, the particular church?
The Cathedral of the Cross.
And how long has that been here?
Well, we've been working with this group about four years. It's a church that really needed help and workers.
We like to go and help little churches, help build it up.
Which ones did you belong to when you first came here?
I was Baptist and he was Methodist.
What were the names of those particular churches?
Judson Baptist, and Judson Methodist.
What they call it now, down at this Methodist is Christ Methodist Church. It's the same church but they changed the name.
When you were married, what church did you go to?
I went to Judson Baptist and he went to the Methodist.
After you were married?
When I knew that we were going to have a little one, I went with him, because I don't believe in a man and wife being separated in their Christian living. I went with him and I worked in that church just as much as I ever worked in the Baptist. In fact, I worked in the mill and I come home and taught bible school for ten days at night. And I had forty.
Seven 'til nine.
Seven 'til nine. I had forty juniors by myself. I gave out more certificates. Over half the Bible school was in my class.
This was in the Methodist?
That was in the Methodist. That's the type work we done. Now, last year I was director over the bible school in church.
When is this Bible school you were talking about at first, at night? When would that have been?
Well, now that was a long time ago.
About thirty-five, thirty-seven years ago.
Thirty-seven years ago.
That was back in the forties?
No, it was before the forties.
Late thirties then?
Yeah, it was in the thirties.
It was in the thirties because we bought the house in the forties.
It was before you bought this house?
Yes.
How long would these classes last?
Two hours.
And for how many days?
Ten days.
What time of the year would it be?
It was in the summer. I had a good class. They cooperated good.
Would you do this every year?
No. I did that particular year that I had worked in the bible school, you know.
What churches did most of the people who worked here belong to?
Judson Baptist and Methodist.
Were there any other denominations, back in the twenties and thirties?
Yeah, Church of God, and Church of Christ, back then. And Assembly of God.
But they weren't so big as the Baptist?
No.
Did they have a church building, those others: Church of God, and the Assembly of God back then?
Well, we helped build one assembly, helped out.
We was there at that one assembly, how long?
Thirty-one years.
What was it called?
Southside Assembly of God.
We helped that church get on its feet, then the Lord helped it get over-growing now. Helped them out.
This is unusual, isn't it? Most people just join one or two churches and stay with that.
Well, we figured if you're really from the Lord, and want to do his will, you don't know what you're going to wind up as. That's what we felt like.
If we're born again. We're all going to the same heaven. So where there's a church that has a need of help, we have gone and helped. In fact, when we went to Southside, we walked. Everybody just about walked where they went, unless they rode that street car I was telling you about. We'd be going to church, us and our daughter, and people would holler at us and say, "Where are you going?" And we'd tell them, and they'd say, "Well, come down next Sunday and we'll go with you." And did you know that over half of the people that went to Southside went as a result of people knowing our lives. So that's been the way it's been, you know.
Then we walk in the village, we used to go see the shut-ins. That's what I call where people can't get out. We'd go over there and sing and read scripture and cheer them up. Sometimes we'd get to talking to them shut-ins and we'd come back more rejoiced than what they'd give us. We got a real lot of good blessings.
The Southside Church that you all mentioned: was it in another village?
It was down here, but they sold that building and built out on Anderson Road. It's way out.
Colored people bought that Southside building.
I think the Seventh Day Adventist bought it, the colored people.
But quite a few of our elder people we visit back yonder, several years in the past. They done dead and gone on.
What would happen, again, back in this earlier period, when some of the workers would get older and they couldn't keep up with their jobs like they had before, and yet they still needed to work? Would there be ways for them to stay, to keep jobs; would they be given other kinds of jobs?
Well, they can.
A few of them.
A few of them did, but the company just had to let them go.
What would usually become of those folks?
Their children, why they just had to do the best they can.
Their children took them in, at that time.
Until this social security come along.
It would be bad today for the elderly, if they didn't have social security, because a lot of people haven't layed back anything for their older days. Having a family to support and everything. So they would be in a terrible financial fix.
How would it be decided that someone back then was getting too old, or unable to keep up their job?
Well, the lack of production. That would determine if they would continue to use them in that work or what.
Sometimes would the people try to help out the other, older, person, to make sure they got better production?
Well, I did in times past, when I didn't have too many looms on me; I could help out. In fact, I taught others to weave. But there was one I couldn't teach. She was to be a missionary to Africa, and I tried my best. They put her in the next alley to me on some looms, and that poor girl couldn't do it at all. But she was a wonderful missionary. She went over there and won a lot of souls. And now she's home; she's a retired missionary.
So people, back before they were given too many looms, could help each other out.
Yes. And it was a privilege to do that. They placed those that had been
taught near those that did teach them. That helped them. I taught a lot
of people, but I never drew any money for it. But if they made bad work,
I got to see that
Would people sometimes want to come to, say, nurse their babies, or go to a ball game, or go fishing, and not have other people around their looms for them. Could they work out arrangements so they could take off an hour or two?
They didn't allow that much, did they?
Not unless you got sick, or if you sent out and get
When our daughter was little, I changed from the first shift to the second so he could be with her on one shift, even though we had a maid to come in and do work. We wanted to know what was happening. Because, one time in particular, she cried every time I'd leave her, and this maid didn't seem to be too nice. I mean, she was ill. So she didn't get to stay long. But him being with her on one shift and me the other, we could do very well. But we bought her a piano as soon as we could, and she's a music teacher. I thought of the days when she would have little ones, she could teach music in the home, and she's done that. It's been a good livelihood as well as being a minister's wife, and being president over all that area of where they live, of the missionary ladies.
Was it a pretty common practice for a husband and wife with young children to make that sort of arrangement, with alternating shifts like that?
Well, we did it to make sure we protected her, because, to me, when you have children, God gives them to you, and you're responsible how you bring them up.
Did other parents do that?
I didn't notice it, did you, Paul?
So this would have been unusual?
Uh huh. We tried to manage within our own family.
What about the maid? Where did she live and how often did she come to work?
She worked five days a week, and on Saturdays she'd come in and just do the beds and things like that.
Would she come in and clean and cook? And do the beds?
Things like that.
Was this a black woman?
Yes, she was a black woman.
Where did her family live?
She lived over. . . .
About a mile from where we lived.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
What were the wages back then for a maid? What did you all pay her to come in?
I believe it was five dollars a week, wasn't it?
I think so.
Were there any of the folks in the black community who were working in the mill at all?
Mighty few.
What jobs were they in?
One fella was in mopping and they had one out there—one or two—in the warehouse. The heavy stuff they'd have. Had a boiler. They used one out there on each shift on the boiler.
Shoveling coal.
Yeah, shoveling coal, to keep it going.
What about in the opening room, or card room?
They had mostly all white people. There weren't no people working in the mill. It's changed now. They've got about a
third
When you started out weaving, were there as many men weavers as women weavers back then, when you learned how?
Men wove just about as good as women, don't you think?
Yeah, uh huh.
Would there have been more women than men, when you began?
It was pretty equal.
Did that change over the period of time, up until the time you retired, or did it stay about the same?
Well, the man, just as soon as they could, they learned to fix looms. They'd make more. Or they would get to be a second-hand, which is an overseer, and they'd make a little more, as they would try. But the men were good weavers. And the ladies, too.
Do you think that the women were better weavers than the men were?
I wouldn't say so, because the men turned out good cloth, in general. I think they were pretty good at it. In fact, they could get around good. Some of them were taller, and they could reach over and tie in. Get it in real quick. Now, little short people had a hard time. They'd have to get on their tip-toes, you know, to draw in an end. But I was pretty good average height for that type of work. I've seen some of them have to really climb up on the loom, like, to draw an end in. They had a time of it. They had a time of keeping up production.
It seems to me that back there early in the industry, around the turn of
the century, there were a lot more more women weavers than
The men now are doing handcrafts more, too, than they used to. And I think that had a lot to do with it. Their interest had been different.
When you began weaving, when you finished weaving a roll of cloth, did someone come along to doff the cloth roll, when you first started out? Or did you have to do that as well?
Well, back then, we had to mark it, you know, what style and all and the number from which loom it was taken, and we had to put it where it would be taken up. They had a cloth boy.
You didn't have to take it off.
Yeah, at first.
You had to take it off the loom?
Yeah, at first. And then the cloth boy would come along. But later. . . .well, I still had to take it off the loom as long as I worked.
But they soon changed that and then they marked it, and they got a flag on there, where they needed it taken off. They'd put that flag down and this here fella would come around and take that off. You had a roll, and women couldn't take it off. So they changed and put men on there. In fact all they done was go up the alleys and maybe take up quills for their job, too, when they got caught up taking off that cloth. And they got some of them that were just so heavy that lady-folks just couldn't take it off.
But you remember taking a lot of that cloth off yourself?
I sure had to, during my working days.
And that was up to '29, 1929 or so that you still had to take it off, before you stopped worked?
Something like that.
When you went back to work, did you have to doff any cloth yourself, take the rolls off then?
Yes. I took it off as long as I worked.
So you don't ever remember having any. . . .
Somebody to do it for me. They make improvements all along.
Do you think that ever had any effect on people's health? Back strain or things like that?
Well, it could, according to how you'd lift. You could hurt yourself just making an awkward step. Anybody can really hurt themselves.
Do you remember any stories that you remember about people having accidents? You referred to your accident about your eye.
My brother came to have just about all his thumb cut off, up there.
What was his job?
He worked in the machine shop. They had a machine there that cut different things; they had a saw in there, and he got his finger, his thumb, too close to it. Now what I understand that little bit he got cut off, he got five hundred dollars for that.
When was this?
He's dead now. See, he's been dead. . . . I guess it's been twelve or fifteen years ago. If I'd a gotten my eye then, I'd a gotten maybe twenty-five, thirty thousand dollars for it, roughly, possibly that much.
Can you recall any other accidents or injuries, or anyone being killed in the mill at all?
No, not killed.
What about unions? Did you all remember any unions coming to the Judson mill back before World War II anytime?
They tried to get one here when I was a kid. There was a fella got killed up here. They never did find out who done it. But there was some wanted union here and some of them didn't, and one fella got killed.
Leeds, wasn't it?
Leeds, something like that, I don't recall. But anyway, I was a kid. What year did the bunch come through here, trying to get the mill in the union?
It was after our little boy died and I went to work. He was born in '29.
It was about '31, and this bunch come through here and tried to shut this mill down, tried to get in the union. And they didn't make no success out of it.
I got scared that night. I didn't go in that night, because they had sticks and I don't know what all they didn't have. And they were real rough. It was a bunch that really meant business, So I didn't go in that night. But I went in the next time, the next day. And I was working away and all at once there was a big old noise, kaplop, right down by me, and I thought, ‘uh oh, they've got on top of the mill; they're about to get me.’ It happened to be the handle off of what you pull to start the loom up, had just come loose and fell off. I felt like taking to my heels that time. They were really rough. It would have been dangerous to have gone in that first day.
These people were not from around here?
No, some of them wasn't, and some of them was.
They had been over to Dunean, what's
I guess there were about seventy-five of them, or a hundred.
It was a scary time. So, we didn't have any problem with them.
This was about when you were going to start the second shift?
Yeah, it wasn't long after I went to work on the second shift.
What time of day would that have been? That you would have started out for the second shift?
I guess they come out about two or three o'clock, somewhere along in there. They had to go to work at four.
And they were going to be well ready for the people
One coming out and one going in.
And they called people all kinds of names that wasn't nice.
Could this have been 1934?
It could have been.
They had what they called the general strike all over the South, in the country, different textile mills closing out.
They're still trying to get J.P. Stevens in the union now, but they haven't made no success of it yet.
Well, were they able to close this mill down anytime?
No. They didn't ever close it.
They never did totally do it, but they caused some of us to stay out, that day.
'Til it died down.
Do you all ever remember a strike here that would have lasted more than a day or two?
That's all we knew of.
That's all we knew of, of a strike.
When you think back when you were a boy, there was another time when someone was killed, and your father was working?
Yeah. But it didn't last but just a day or two. Now, over here at Brandon here, about that time, some of them was out over there about two or three months, but they finally got it straightened out. Over at Brandon?
But it shut down.
It shut down but, the reason it shut down, I think. . . you know the way they got these new machinery now? And about four stores have now, somewhere along in there. And this new machinery they got is too heavy for that kind of mill. See if they had to put all the biggest part of this machinery in there now, they'd have to have a cement floor. Some of these looms they got up there now, they weigh five or six thousand pounds.
What was your father's attitude about joining the union back then?
I don't know. I was a kid.
What did the workers in the mill think about it?
Well, some of them wanted it and some of them didn't. They finally got it
settled down. When that fella got killed, I think that
They said they got him in the entrance to his home. It's awful.
Now which side of it was he supposed to be on?
I think for the union. That's what I understood.
Do you all remember the national guard ever being called out here to deal with it?
No, it's been pretty peaceful out here. The people have been pretty peaceful. Unions all right if it's done right. But now, if they have some hotheads in there that causes trouble, that's where the trouble is. But we never did join the union, neither of us.
Do you know of anybody that ever did?
My youngest brother did. There was some hothead that caused a strike at this mill, and so he didn't cause trouble, but he just went out rather than to have trouble with them, and he thought he was really in dutch with the boss because he even went out. He tried to get work everywhere, but he couldn't. So, he was down here among us and we all helped him out. And he went back up there where he had worked, and they had his job waiting on him, because he hadn't given any trouble and was a good worker. And so, it's bad if there's some hotheads among anything. But I don't know that he belongs to it now. He suffered from it, and we all participated in it to help him. If working conditions are nice, and you can live, I think it's best not to get too involved.
Maybe you could say a little bit about the layout of the Judson mill, what was on each floor and something like that, so I can understand it.
Well, they got different departments.
Let's go back to the twenties and thirties again and what it looked like.
Oh, I don't know
What was on the ground floor back then?
Old looms. See they've changed looms now, and old looms, different things like that.
The weaving was all on the same. . . .
No, they had some on the second and some on the ground floor. Where they can, they can weave some on the second floor. In the meantime, they had them sixty-four-inch looms; they had so many up there one time, they had to put up brick pillars on the outside to keep that floor from sagging so much, vibrating in there so much. They finally had to take out some of them and put some more little ones up there.
Those were the Draper looms?
The Draper looms, yes. Those sixty-four-inch looms, you can lay a sixty-four-inch cloth on it, so it had to be a little bit wider. But now, like I said, they got those sausage looms, and if they put some of those up there, they'd just fall through the floor. They have to put those on a cement floor.
The oldest kind that you remember would be the old Crompton-Knowles looms?
Some S-5 looms, too?
Drapers?
S-5's, yes.
And then you mentioned another kind that I'd never heard of before: Cotton King?
Cotton King looms, yes.
Were they box looms?
Yes, them all was box looms.
But you don't know where they were made, do you?
No, I don't.
I'd just never heard of those. They were all in there at the same time, the three different kinds?
Yeah, uh huh.
What about the humidity, and the heat, and the dust inside the mill? What was that like?
Well, I didn't think it was too bad. Now, in the card room, it was dust and stuff like that, but in the weave room, it done pretty well, don't you think? But in the card room, in the spinning room, they had the dust from cotton.
Do you remember people trying to work in there for a few days and saying it was too dusty and quitting, or anything like that?
See, I worked mostly in the weave room. I couldn't hardly go through there, though, and I could tell that I went through there, and stayed any length of time. A person just had to get used to it.
But in the weave room, you say you all could open the windows sometime?
Yes, before they got this air-conditioning and things like that.
But, like I say, they got air-conditioning in there now, and in the card room, they got these new spinners and things like that. The way they got it set up, on a frame, they go around and soak that dust in there out.
Would there be any one time of year where it would be more
Well, a long time ago they had to keep it hot, and it'd be uncomfortable then. But we could raise windows and we could help that situation. If it didn't bother the material we was working on. But the humidity, by it being controlled, it would help keep down the dust and all, so it made the work run better.
What about a particular time of day. Some days would be hard to keep going, you'd get real sleepy on the job? Wish you could rest or have some time off during the day?
Well, you didn't have time to think about it our hour.
Could you be outside?
Yeah. You could go home during that hour.
And then you'd hurry back and talk outside?
Just so we got back inside in time to go to work.
That was good because it did break the monotony of continuation. And
mama, she say, "Now, Pauline, you ought to rest some." But she just
didn't know I had to get back to talk to Paul
Could you talk a little bit about what became of your brothers and sisters: did they ever work in the mill, and how long, and just in general, what became of them later on?
Well, they all worked in the mill, and they were
Did your brothers and sisters get to go to school very much? Did they ever finish high school?
No. None of them didn't finish high school. They got along pretty good. Now Clarence went farther in school than the rest. He was younger.
Now, what about you, Mr. Griffith? What became of your brother and sister?
Well, my brother's dead now. But he got about the same education I got.
Did he work in the mill?
Yeah, he worked in the mill. He was a supervisor in the machine shop for about twenty-five years.
Where about?
In the Judson.
And what about your sister?
She worked in the warper room. She married and her husband is a boss. But now, she's retired here, a few years ago. Her eyes went bad on her. She had to quit. I guess about five years ago. She had to give her work up.
You all were unusual, I guess, in staying in one place for so long.
I tell you, we haven't moved but three times since I've been married. Three times.
And it was on the village.
Why do you think that was, that you all decided to stay here?
Well, I had a good job, and we liked it here, and so when we would go off we'd want to get back. We never did see another place we liked any better. We got some good neighbors. If we have need of them, they'd be glad to help us. Just let them know.
We have a neighbor watch that we formed ourselves. If one goes off we all watch after whatever they have, and so far, we've not had any break-ins. And that's worth a lot. We looked after my neighbor's things there—she's a little lady—she went off that Christmas to her son's in Virginia and she hasn't been back.
END OF INTERVIEW